Petrol or Diesel?

Hi, we recently moved to Carlow and are currently driving an 04 Focus 1.4, we want to trade up soon and were wondering should we go for a Diesel Focus as my partner has to travel to Dublin 4 nights a week for work and when I ran a search on AAM ppl seemed to recommend the 1.6Tdci if you were doing enough mileage, so I was wondering how much mileage would you need to be doing to make the diesel more economical? Thanks in advance!

If you are going to do decent mileage lot of time in the car then defo go for a decent size diesel.

I would imagine you will potentially do about 400 miles a week, about 20k per anumn. Probably around the mark where a diesel is justified.

I wouldn't purely go for the money side though.

In my experience a good diesel big car is easier on the driver.

More miles per gallon less gear change due to low end extra torque.

Bigger cars generally feel more solid and comfortable that can make long drive easier to live with.

AirCon can be invaluable in the summer, seems to be more detramental on a petrol cars mpg.

Diesel is a v solid drive and I agree with Frank it is easier on the driver as u don't need to be shifting up and down gears as much. On the pocket it is also much better. I bought my first diesel last year and would not go back to petrol again.

On a side issue - my sister has a focus 2.0 diesel 2005 30,000 miles - brought it for a service last week and was told water is mixing with the oil!!!!! she bought the car second hand in the UK and had to bring it back over border and to get checked out by Ford. Her warranty was only up 2 weeks and Ford would only pay 70% of cost (even though this problem was obviously there before the warranty expired). She will be carless for about 2 weeks (Ford would not supply her with a car) and is not sure how much this will cost her.

Not a happy Ford customer even though she was previously a loyal Ford customer.....

So yes for diesel

But can't give a vote of confidence to Ford Diesel engines.