If you had to buy a petrol or diesel car to last next 20 years, what would you get?
If you had to buy a petrol or diesel car to last next 20 years, what would you get?
A Toyota or Lexus. They go forever.
The problem will be that as petrol becomes a niche product you’ll be looking at €4 a litre, probably plus road pricing. And it will become increasingly hard to find. Diesel might have a longer life due to truck use.
dublinpilot wrote:
A Toyota or Lexus. They go forever.
Driving a Toyota or Lexus for the next 20 years sound more like a punishment 
I don’t really think fuel will be a problem to get. The big unknown is what the cost of that fuel will be when the fossil part is more and more replaced with biofuel and/or synthetic fuel. A diesel will probably be OK, but a car that can run on E85 will probably be cheaper to run in 20 years.
Just catching up on this thread. I had a Toyota FJ Cruiser in the US, somewhat improved for off-road use (beefy tyres, lots of underbody and suspension protection). We took it on all the most challenging trails in Death Valley. In 8 years there was never the slightest suggestion of unreliability. As they say, “A Land Rover will take you anywhere, but a Toyota will bring you back”.
I looked at a modern Range Rover (Disco Sport) when we returned to France, but was put off by their poor reliability record. Instead we got a Dacia Duster 4×4 for a princely €21,000 new. It will probably still be running in 10 years. They have a mixed record but ours so far has been superb.
I do salivate over E-types. Nearly got a Mk3 10 years ago but was talked out of by my wife in one sentence: what will you actually do with it? Shame, it would have doubled in value. But it wouldn’t take much to push me over the edge. Without doubt (for me) the most beautiful car ever built.
johnh wrote:
Instead we got a Dacia Duster 4×4
Lots of those on Iceland. We met them everywhere, also on roads you will normally use a dedicated off road type, like a Land Cruiser or similar. They cannot be all that bad, and they look kind of cool as well.
The other long term point here is that EV might become cheaper to run than at present, if there are major political changes leading to e.g. wide use of nuclear power, so if you buy a petrol car, especially a sizeable one (probably 30mpg or less; more like 10mpg around town!) you might end up at a disadvantage, whereas a normal sized diesel should do 60mpg which compares with any EV today charged from public points (unless heavily taxpayer subsidised which can’t be expected in the long term because incentives to change get removed once objective is achieved).
gallois wrote:
There are well supported British classic car clubs all around the world except perhaps Russia. Not bad for crap cars.
They are really good looking crap cars, often with good engines (there are some aberrations, like the Stag, which also had a terrible engine).
Peter wrote:
If you had to buy a petrol or diesel car to last next 20 years, what would you get?
Another Honda Civic. Best car I’ve ever had.
alioth you don’t know much about Stags do you?
There were problems which were more to do with the way people maintained them than with the engine.
One well known UK motoring magazine had one in the early days of the Stag Owners Club.
Tony Hart one of the founders of the club lentbit to the editor. They tried everything to prove that the engine was a you say, including pulling a caravan all over Scotland. In the end I believe the editor bought one.
Today’s news:
Mid-month figures for September released by AutoTrader – the largest online marketplace for cars – reveal that the average price of a used EV has fallen by 21.4 per cent to £32,463.
Premium sector EVs, including Tesla, BMW, Mini and Mercedes-Benz, were hit hardest – with values falling by up to 24.1 per cent year-on-year.
The data, reported by The Times, showed that prices of second-hand premium sector EVs peaked at £51,704 last August and have since plummeted by more than £10,000 to £39,268.
I don’t know to what extent the drop in used values is due to the drop in new EV prices. But obviously all the time new prices are falling (are they falling?) there will be this problem.
