Swift Petrol vs Diesel - is saving the ONLY reason?

The last para about Swift Diesel being better than Swift Petrol & it being preferred ahead therefore, is a fact known to all - I suppose.

Regarding the saving factor, no one disagrees in general - it is discussed so before.

hi all, going for Swift Diesel is not only for savings, but also the awesome power delivery. As many guys in this forum, power and torque are not two different things. They are one and the same. Torque at a particular rpm is called power. Hence power is calculated as a multiple of torque at a particular rpm. Since petrol engines rev higher (usually upto 7000 rpm or even more) they naturally have higher bhp's. Because the rpm multiple factor is more. But diesel engines have lower bhps. In the case of fiat's 1.3 Ddis engine, the torque of 110 Nm is produced at 1500 rpm onwards. Whereas this is the max torque produced by petrol engine at 4000 rpm. Hence if you calculate the power of petrol engine at 4000 rpm the power would be less than 65 bhp. But when the same is calculated at 5500 rpm it gives 87bhp. Petrol doing 0-100 kmph faster than diesel is because of the following reason. Petrol can rev easily upto 7000 rpm. In every gear if it can go upto this rpm, say if the gear ratios for 1st and second to be 9Kmph/1000 rpm and 15kmph/1000 rpm, in 2nd gear the speed would be 105kmph at max rpm limit. But in the case of diesel, the tradeoff is the rpm limit. Since Swift Diesel can rev only upto 5150 rpm max, it goes only till 80kmph in second gear. Therefore the need comes to shift to 3rd gear to reach 100 Kmph. The gear shift and the lag  takes more than 2 seocnds, which leads to the difference in acceleration.

   Also, in day to day driving its quite not possible to always rev the car over 5000 rpm to enjoy the acceleration. Since most of the car's engine spends its 90% of the lifetime less than 3000 rpm, the engine which produces greater torque at these rpm limits becomes a driveable friendly car. Here the Common rail diesels wins over their petrol siblings. This logic holds good not only for Swift Ddis, but also for Getz Crdi, Vista Quadrajet, Palio Multijet, Verna Crdi etc.,

Great post there Arvind.

Would only add that the petrol engine in the swift is pretty old and hence the difference look more stark.

Agree, baba.  Are you trying to scare other members ... ?

Project yourself in future, say 5 years and both cars have done 100,000 Km  .  Dated petrol engine of Esteem era, is ready to dig deep in your pocket.  Technically advance Fiat diesel engine is still going strong ... no one thinks about it but that is why this cool car retains better value in used market.

i know a swift petrol which is nearing 300,000km and still going strong.

Still going strong - that must be a very well maintained car.  By the way, as discussed before, diesel cars are sturdier, stronger & have better longevity than petol cars (if equally well maintained).

Great to see lots of knowledgeable people in this thread sharing very useful information.

But among us its good, but when it comes to customer they aren't much aware. Even if we go to purchase we wont see or compare much of the points discussed here, in our buying process.

Anything produced or manufactured in this world, will have its own pros n cons. Even when We(Humans) were manufactured by GOD, we also had pros and cons and still having it.

But the point is, what is our requirement or what we actually want?

Petrol is best, when it comes to limited usage (i.e- 1000-1500kms per month). The engine is far more superior, with less maintainance & service. Comfort level is also good as the less vibration from engine will increase driving pleasure.

Diesel is best, when it comes to unlimited usage(i.e more than 2000kms per month or continuous usage). The current diesel technology is also superior, but still the maintainance & service cost is on higher side compared to petrol engine. The engine vibration after few yrs will not provide much pleasurable drive. But economy wise, it will save lots of money. And its best for taxi purpose.

Manufacturers will always try to produce the best, and most of them really do good job with providing good products. But its our (buyer) unawareness about their requirement, which lead into confusion, and end in buying product which actually we dont require.

And about emission, if we (humans) really care about environment and emission, we wud have spared some time for planting trees and utilizing natural resource properly, instead of buying a car keeping environment in mind.

Well Well Well.....Someone has started to write.

Shemi that was a point well made.

I guess the discussion is diagressing away to petrol and diesel engines in general(which is not a bad thing), only that the assumption that diesels are low tech and 'fit for the taxi' is not quite true.

Audi goes to Le Mans(the toughest motor race in the world with a V10 diesel car, and wins year on year).Petrol engines are now playing catchup, what with the direct injection petrols coming now into the markets.

Diesels are mainstream and the car under discussion in this thread the swift is a prime example-it has become the fastest selling car in India's automotive history only because of the Diesel(Maruti sells 60 diesels to 40 petrols per every 100 swift).

To add: VW Tuareg becomes the first diesel to win at the Dakar.