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agree:

Now bring in used car scene.

An extremely well kept Petrol car would be available at substantially lesser price than similar diesel car.

And the km required to pile up to recover the additional cost of diesel become astronomically high.

In our case a very close friend bought excellent piece of SX4 VVT ZXi barely an year old for 5 lac Rs. Now if someone runs analysis, I guess winner would be clear.

A Star AT, returns about 13.5 kmpl in Bangalore traffic with AC. My drive however is about 50-60 kms per day when I take this car, that may contribute to a higher FE. And the drive covers some nasty bumper to bumper to moderate city traffic near MG Road.

I think pgsagar quoted 15kmp in city with AC at Vizag.

Its not traffic free, in fact not at all. I do not take any extra steps, but let the AT coast as much as possible, i.e., if you take the foot off the accelerator, the A Star can maintain its speed unlike a manual.

The other car we considered was Figo/Ritz but with ABS which is unfortunately available only on higher versions.

I do own a diesel too, and in our family we have diesels for more than 17 years, and if not for the AT, I would have bought a diesel and not a petrol manual. But the fact is, inspite of my high running (about 20k per year in the A Star AT), my overall expenditure per month is not that different.

Of course, if you consider Ritz AT vs Ritz diesel, the calculation would be different. But my criteria was to get a decent basic car with minimum safety features, preferably AT and the choices were limited to the A Star AT, Figo diesel and Ritz diesel only.

A good read on new diesel technology - http://www.economist.com/news/techno...iven-run-their

Basically the article says why latest diesels may eclipse petrols / hybrids in the American market.
Some highlights-
New gen diesels have low compression ratios which leads to-
Lower engine weight, lower friction, less sturdy body construction requirements leading to cost saving and efficiency. There is an argument on lower emissions too.

Wanted to start a new thread specifically on diesel vs. petrol SUVs but then found this one and hence posting my query here:

I own a 2009 Tata Safari 2.2 VTT 4x4 and have been using it strictly for outstation drives with family - cannot imagine using it for city runs, given the traffic/parking woes in Bangalore and hence, have a small hatch for the same. Since these outstation drives happen, say, once every 2-3 months, my Safari has run only ~35K km over the last 4+ years. While that is not VERY low mileage, I have been pondering over the ROI (return on investment) equation around maintaining a diesel SUV for this kind of running/usage and needless to say, have been toying with the idea of procuring a petrol 4WD SUV as my next ride when the time comes. Some relevant points in favor of a petrol ride, from my perspective:

• Much lower NVH levels as opposed to a diesel
• Given the low usage, running costs will not hit me much, more so with the diesel-petrol price gap decreasing by the day
• Petrol SUVs are cheaper to maintain as compared to diesels - is this a myth?
• Given the poor resale of petrol SUVs, I guess I can get hold of a well maintained pre-owned "premium" one at a decent price and move up a couple of segments ;) Infact, I am quite impressed with the Grand Vitara (never drove one yet though)
• Last but not the least - petrol cars are more environment friendly than their diesel counterparts

BTW, I would still prefer to have a 4 WD low range (4L) - not sure if any of the petrol SUVs have it. On similar lines, I am talking about "true" SUVs here so please do not bring the Dusters and Terranos into this discussion.

Soliciting inputs/thoughts from the learned ones. And yes, one more point - we can omit the diesel vs. petrol "feel" aspect from this discussion since I have driven both extensively and am not biased towards either.

If you do over 60-80,000km per annum then at the same price of fuel diesel may become more economical.

You should keep in mind the torquey nature of diesel too. If your long trips include hill driving, a diesel SUV would pull rather more easily than a petrol one (NA). I don't think there's a turbo petrol SUV in the market. (and please don't say EcoSport - that's just not an SUV).

I have tried and calculated as per my calculator. It is all very approximate, but the comparison is based on the cost of a brand new safari and a Dec 2007, 40k kms run Honda CRV 2.4L AWD as per Car Wale for Rs 9 lakhs in Bangalore. The break-even without considering the resale comes to around 1 lakh kilometres, after considering factors such as price, fuel cost, ARAI mileage, extra servicing cost of a diesel vehicle (approx Rs 8000 per 15k kms) & interest paid on "extra" amount shelled our for a brand new 4X4 Safari.

If you do 45k kms in say four years in a used CRV or a brand new safari, you still save around Rs 4 lakhs in the petrol CRV. But considering you already own a safari, it would be wise for keep it for another couple of years or say 30k kms more, before selling it. If you had wanted a 2WD vehicle, a 2.0 CRV or Vitara or even a Mitsubishi Outlander would have made good sense, though the latter two would be hard to find though due to less sales. At the end of the day, petrol SUVs are soft roaders at best (atleast in India), and unless it has a big capacity or turbo petrol engine, it cannot supply the grunt / torque that a diesel engine can for hard core off-roading. Though don't know how much of the same you currently do.

Are you a sedate driver? I don't think you are, considering that you're looking for a 'true SUV'. If you like putting your foot down then you're looking at a 30-40% decrease in mileage, unlike Diesel where you'll lose about 10%. You may want to consider this.

Mod Note : Please quote ONLY the relevant bits of a post. Quoting a full, long post inconveniences our mobile readers.

Thanks!

Agreed - but as I said above, my Safari does an average of less than 10K km per year.

Of course yes, I do not intend to part with it for 2-3 years at the least.


I thought all GVs were 4WD, is that not the case?

I thought the 2.4L engine of the GV was good enough, not for hard core off-roading of course (which I anyways don't do with my Safari also) but to take me to off-beat places without breaking into a sweat.

I am a sedate driver if you define "non-sedate" as a pedal-to-metal guy :)

[quote=cool_dube;3321103]

I thought all GVs were 4WD, is that not the case?

[quote]

Yes I understand that - I had mentioned 2.0 CRV & Outlander as they have 2WD options, and Grand Vitara as it is a petrol only model, even though it comes in AWD only. Since you are considering the Grand Vitara, I would say torque of around 225 Nm (as is the case with all 3 petrol soft-roaders) is not great, but should suffice for mild off-roading and also considering the lighter kerb weight, the vehicle will not get bogged down easily. But for comparison, FIAT's 1.3 Multijet in 75 BHP form makes almost 200 Nm of torque in the Punto! Diesel SUVs, like Safari, have torque in the range of 300-330 Nm.

@cool_dube:

If you want low range then GV is the only choice. Get the 2.4 petrol and it has sufficient grunt for most cases. The only thing is since Maruti hardly sells any of them finding a good used one is difficult and any major spares will have to be back ordered.

One of our forum members Samurai has a good one.

Unlike traditional body on frame SUVs these are much ligher to the engine may look small but they offer much better power to weight/torque to weight than the safari/scorpio.

With your kind of running it makes to go for petrol.

Any reason you are leaving out insurance premium and service/maintenance cost for CRV?

I agree the CRV might have been serviced well by the owner before selling. Or could be just a water wash and waxing too.

There will be maintenance costs for the next 45K ride, even if you go with an unauthorized mechanic. Insurance might expire mid way too.

It surely wont make 4L. Still curious.

1) The CR-V being considered here is a second hand vehicle, so the road tax and insurance is already paid. Insurance for the coming years will be there for both the vehicles, but I have left it out as there will be too many variables; also the impact on overall cost of ownership will be minimal.

2) I have taken the incremental cost of servicing a diesel vehicle versus a petrol vehicle @ Rs 8000 per service at 15k kms. Even though CRV is from a different segment, but still I believe the Honda should be equal or less expensive to maintain till it does say 1 lakh kms. But I have stacked the odds against the diesel.

3) Both vehicles are going to be serviced for the next 45k kms, so only the incremental cost of maintaining a diesel vehicle need to be considered.

4) In the end you have to look at the bigger picture - maintenance & insurance cost are only going to be of lesser percentage, if we consider the overall ownership cost of the vehicle. Look at the following example for 2 brand new vehicles, one petrol & the other diesel variant - in two parts: top right without running cost and the bottom right including running cost.

Thanks guys for all your inputs. I guess my reckoning regarding a petrol SUV for my kind of usage is justified and makes sense. Takeaway for me is to start looking out for a well maintained 2009+ 2.4L GV (2.0L seems to be under-powered) a year or so down the line.

@jessie007; Remember the table is at a higher differntial between Diesel and Petrol pricing, which will narrow with time.