I should say from the start that this is not another technical article explaining how the gas and diesel engines works. It is an easy to understand article and it should provide an ideea before attempting to buy a diesel or an gas engine. It`s an easy article so that everyone should understand. I`ve seen a lot of articles that explains how high is the compression ratio and what is the difference between a diesel without a spark plug when compared to a gas engine and so on.
You need more technical details for gas and diesel engines ? This is not an article for you
First time when you will buy a car and don`t know if it will be a diesel or gas engine ? Read this article
Did you owned a gas engine and now you`re planning to move to a diesel engine ? You can read the article
Did you owned a diesel engine and now you plan to move to a gas engine ? You can read this article
I have been driving a lot of cars and like everything else in this life, all of them will have some advantages and disadvantages. I am going to make a list with advantages and another one with disadvantages. I am also going to discuss about engines that will provide the same horse power so that you can see the differences between them.
Gas engine advantages :
- less expensive to maintain this kind of engine, a diesel engine will require more oil than those on gas
- it will make less noise and vibrations when compared with a diesel engine
- in most of the countries you will pay less ecological taxes ( especially Europe ) when compared with a diesel. We all know that CO2 is less but a gas engine put out less particulate matter when compared with a diesel.
- Volkswagen created the TSI engines which produces almost the same torque as the diesel engines and they offer a great gas economy.
Gas engine disadvantages :
- at a classic gas engine ( without turbo, compressor ) you will have less torque
- when it`s very wet you may experience some problems with the spark plugs or other electric parts, at the diesel engines it`s a different story as they tend to be more simple and reliable
- not so reliable if we`re thinking that a normal gas engine will work around 120,000-150,000 miles before it needs an overhaul while at the diesel it can continue to work for three times around 450,000-500,000 ( more miles ) which is something.
Diesel engine advantages :
- at least for now, the diesel engines have more torque which can be useful in certain situations.
- those engines do not require spark plugs which means that it`s more reliable than a gas engine.
- they resist more in time, a good diesel engine should work around 400,000-500,000 miles without any major interventions if they are not abused very much.
- you can use bio-diesel so I guess it`s an advantage at least in Europe, I never heard about any bio-gas.
Diesel engine disadvantages :
- taxes are higher in a lot of countries at the diesel engines because of their bigger size and because they `put out` more particulate matter when compared with the petrol engines.
- they produce more noize such and some vibrations when you will compare it with a gas engine. However the difference are not so big as they were greatly improved so if you`re going to buy a common-rail diesel engine, coming from a gas engine, don`t worry you won`t see the difference in most of the time.
- a diesel engine should be more reliable but it will cost a lot more to fix it, if the engine will be damaged.
Conclusion: I have talked about the difference between gas and diesel engines and those differences can be noticed by looking at the advantages and disadvantages of these engines. If you still don`t understand what should you choose I will give you an example from my life. My parents used to drive a lot, approximately around 100 miles / day which means around 3000 miles / month and 36.000 miles / year. They were doing this with Volkswagen Vento coming with a 1.8 gas engine which would cost them at that time ( gas price was a lot lower than nowadays ) pretty much money. After 2-3 years, I was thinking that they should buy another car, a car with a diesel engine, which they did. They purchased an Audi A4 with an 1.9 TDI engine and the economy was huge after 5 years. My first car was a Volkswagen Lupo with an 1.0 engine and now I am driving a VW Polo 1.4 engine, both of them on gas. Why ? Because I am driving less than 20.000 miles / year and a diesel engine is not very helpful especially in a big city. So the answer is this:
- If you will make less than 20.000 miles / year and most of the time you will be driving that car in a city, probably the best car for you would be a a car with a gas engine.
- If you will make more than 20.000 miles / year and most of the driving will be on the highway, you should know that a diesel produces more miles/gallon and this is very important ( or better said economical ), especially if you make more than > 20.000 miles / year.
As you can see, you need to choose the engine by thinking at how many miles you will make / year and for how long you will keep the car. At least a couple of years and many miles, go for the diesel otherwise you may choose a gas engine. Good luck in choosing your car !
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