confused on buyng a petrol or diesel car

i hav owned till now only petrol cars....i am a businessman and my business gives me a sunday a free day for me and the max travel that happens in a week wil be 60kms and i wud like to own the car for more than 7years...i wud like to buy a car that ranges around 3-6 lakh...whn the petrol price started goin up all my travelng too stopped becose i started calculating the money that wud be spend on petrol etc etc..... plss guys help me a make a decision on whether i shud go for a petrol or diesel and also if i buy a diesel car wil the maintainence cost be too high.....

plss help me.....

A max travle of 60 kms a week equates to 240 kms a month. Say if we be too optimistic and consider that you run around 500 kms a month it still does not warrant a diesel car. Stick to petrol itself. You can look at cars like swift, i20, ritz etc. Do mention your requirements for the car so that we can suggest accordingly

so if i go for a petrol car then i shud be looking for petrol car whch gves me mileage....pls can u tell me out of swift.i20,ritz etc whch petrol car offers good mileage ...thnk u...?

The mileage of all these three cars is almost the same. Maybe marginally up or down. But as a package the swift or the ritz will be a better buy than the i20 in terms of driving pleasure, A.S.S.C. network, cost of maintenance/spares etc.

Also, I dont think i20 (petrol) will give good mileage since I am hearing complaints about mileage even in i10 (lighter car).

Since you mentioned i20 (rather than i10), I guess you are looking for a big hatchback. If size is not  a concern, you can have a look at Honda Brio as well. Lots of people are talking about it now a days.

Tomy

Along with the Brio do check the Jazz as well. It might not be very fuel efficient but is a gem of a car in hatches

Absolutely. Jazz is a wonderful car. My colleague recently purchased it and is very happy with it. It is very spacious too. I did not mention it since I thought it might not fit in the budget. But if you are not going for the top model, probably it will (I don't know the exact prices). But since Honda gives maximum priority for safety, I guess all models of Jazz come with ABS, airbags etc, hence the pricing will be a little on the higher side for even the base model.

Tomy

I am also confused in buying a disel or petrol car. Seeing the upward trend of petrol price, i took interest in diesel  Vista Quadrajet LS Rs.5.35 (which is also a bit higher than my budget). my total monthly run will be 600 K.m. Now, i know diesel car would not give much savings on fuel, is that true diesel car reqires more maintenance than petrol one, if so how much percent? people says diesel engines requires lots of time to heat the engine before starting specially in winter. I want to keep the car at least 10 years, will be fruitful for me to go for diesel?

On the other hand, I shortlisted some petrol cars i.e. Swift Lxi, Hundai i10 (magna-1.2), Ritz Lxi

Kindly give me an advice whether i should go for diesel or petrol< if it is for petrol which one will be the best choice?

Welcome to carwale Dipak.

For 600 kms a month it does not make sense to go for a diesel but since you say you plan to keep the car for atleast 10 years I feel diesel will make more sense. The reason for this is that you will recover the extra cost of the disel car in around 7-8 years considering the existing price difference between petrol and diesel. Diesel engines have more life than petrol engines which make them an excellent choice for such long ownerships. Maintenance is not very heavy as some people say but it is slightly higher than petrol. Roughly it should be around 15% (+/- 5%) more than a petrol car. There is nothing about winter summer now for diesel cars. They are as good as petrol ones. So dont worry about that. My suggestion - go for diesel if you will keep it for 10 years

hi carwale.....i love the ideas that u r giving me....thnk u all....till now all the cars that i hav bought i hav kept for 10 years and i plan on doin that in future too....my month travelling is around 800kms.. i hav seen the earlier chat .. suggesting a diesel car for long term use...wil the diesel car maintainence be very expensive or a little more than petrol cars...???