petrol vs diesel cars (general comparision)

If your running is more than 1300 km per month, diesel car is for you. I am driving Indica/Indigo since 2003 and do not find any problem yet. I also love long drive and visited many places like badrinath,kedarnath, gangotri, Munsyari, Narkanda.... All very far from delhi(more then 500 kms) without any problem with my Indica and Indigo.

I had done Leh this year with my Indigo and drove on that terrin which is so called for only SUV,s.

The problem with Diesel car is , due to high engine viberation, maintainance is little bit high but as your driving is more then 1300 Kms per month, Diesel car will be better for you.

Now Manza/Dezire is having Fiat world class diesel engine which perform as equal to petrol engines and without any much maintainence. In fact diesel engine do not require much maintenence as they do not have many electreal circuts but due to heat and viberation other parts need maintainence like radiator, fan belt etc. But if you take your diesel car for servicing in time and all electric work would be done by authorised service station, you will be surprised with diesel cars.

Hi Han,

Thanks for your response... Helps a lot... What do you think about Figo Diesel??

I would prefer Petrol car over Diesel anyday.

In India diesel engines are given more importance so we get a lot of turbocharged engines with fixed turbo as well as variable geometry turbo. Its amassing to drive those machines. Since there are no turbo petrols, diesels engines give good performance compared to petrol. I personally didn't like the power to rpm curves of petrol.

Nowadays Skoda has bought the TSI engine which is a turbo petrol and Fiat has its TJet. These will really give a kick to all diesel performance cars like Verna, Cruze,etc.

In my experience, we own a diesel and a petrol car.

Advantages of Petrol

*Very quiet- A element of luxury

*Very refined and smooth

*Lesser emittion

*Cheap and easy maintenance (corolla)

*reliability- Long life

Advantages of Diesel

*Good mileage- Never below 10kmpl (Punto)

*Superb sound- Very quiet till 2200 rpm. After that it roars! It roars! Its very good to hear that.

*Superb pulling after the turbo starts

*Very good torque, way better than any petrol and very easy to drive in city

Disadvantages of Petrol

*Bad mileage even if the car weight is less compared to diesel

*No turbo petrol engines in India

*Turbo petrol car cost = Turbo diesel car cost

*Performance of non turbo is not thrilling (Corolla1.8 compared to Laura1.8TSI)

*The engine at high rpm will scream(Meeaw like a cat) instead of roar like a diesel

*Very high running cost

Disadvantages of Diesel

*A bit more vibration than a petrol which is tolerable

*Very high maintenance costs

*Turbo lag is very disappointing

*Sooth and the pollutants are disgusting and are polluting the environment

*No long life, no reliability. But nowadays many say diesel cars are also reliable, need to see.

*Engine sound is good for thrills but its bad for a family use and normal driving.

What will be the average maintenance cost of petrol and diesel car, for example in the case of i20? Say if I run 1000 km per month.

Any diesel cars coming with auto transmission? (within 7 lakh budget)

It may be 400rs/1000km for petrol and 600rs/1000km for diesel.

This text is out dated requires lastest pick there is a lot of development in diesel engine as car manufacturers are implementing new tech to make make this as business to attract customer.

arun b.v. kasargod.