Increased mileage - Worth an upgrade to diesel

Hi,

We've recently moved back home to Wexford town. I'm still working in Dublin 2/3 days a week. I'm averaging about 650 miles a week. I currently have an 04 Petrol 1.8 100bhp Zetec mondeo which has served me faithfully.

I am wondering if i should make a move to upgrade. I've been looking around and my eye has rested on something like [broken link removed]. Saab's seem like good value for money at the moment. And the bit of extra power would be nice. Alternatively , it has been suggested that i just get a diesel mondeo.

Anybody have any idea what mileage you would need to be doing to make the move to diesel payoff. Would i be better staying with the Mondeo Petrol.

Any thoughts , suggestions welcome

According to Honest John you'd need to be doing at least 15K miles a year to make it worth your while - you're doing about twice that.

Remember that Honest John covers the UK market and in the UK diesel is about 12-15p per litre more expensive than petrol, not the case here so the "breakeven" point will be lower.

HJ is also somewhat suspicious of modern diesels as they have become ever more complicated, subject to catastrophic misfuelling, etc. Worth a read.

That Saab is basically a first-gen. Vectra in a pretty dress, so dynamically behind the curve. Better cars around for the money!

SSE

sse said:

That Saab is basically a first-gen. Vectra in a pretty dress, so dynamically behind the curve. Better cars around for the money!

SSE

Click to expand...

The post 2002 9-3 is actually quite a good car and SAAB done some nifty engineering to bring out the best of the chassis.
The bad news is that the 1.9D is a Fiat engine and if it goes wrong it can be a disaster. See HJ for more info.

The saab is a heavily customised version of the GM eplison platform, which the vectra shares.

From Trollhattansaab.net

[broken link removed]

"Handling:
Despite the fact that an old NG900/9-3 still does well on the circuit today, the Epsilon architecture Saab’s 9-3 sits on today is 125% stiffer than the outgoing model. For those who think that it’s just a Vectra in drag, you should remember that the 9-3 only uses 60% of Epsilon. Saab engineers made many changes to the original jig making it very expensive to produce, because Trollhättan is the only plant capable of building it. "

Thanks for the replies. I had forgotten about HJ,its a font of information. Looks like it will be a newer diesel Mondeo then.