Another cheap estate

[Peter.N.]

OF Course a Petrol will out perform a DERV... But this is missing the point!

You plant your foot in a DERV at 60 and see HOW much quicker it gets to 80 WITHOUT changing down to fourth... were in a Petrol Turbo becuase all the power and tourque is much higher you need to change to fourth, rev them up, which in the 8v TCT can get thrashey! My Onyx TCT was like that..

Its the relaxed driving atmosphere AND Economy I love with DERVs..

My point exactly. I haven't been using the XM as much as I should have been lately, I have been driving the 406 which is a very nice car - apart from the suspension, but I didn't realise how inflexible it was compared with the XM untill I drove the XM to the tip today fairly well laden, partly I think because its higher geared. I hardly had to change gear at all in the XM, I was getting ready to change where I do in the 406 but it just wasn't necessary, in fact I was probably in 5th for 90% of the journey of about 20 miles, once you are above 30 mph it will pull happily if not rapidly in 5th, it will go round a lot of corners in 4th and you never have to change lower than 3rd unless you stop and it will go up virtually any hill in 5th and will accelerate quickly above 1400 rpm and will pull down to tickover, it bears no comparison with any petrol engine I have ever driven, in fact every time I get in a petrol car I stall it trying to pull away because you apparantly have to rev it to take off, you don't a diesel, you just let the clutch in and then accelerate.

But of course if you are much youger than me and feel the need to drive a max revs and change gear every 100 yards and use lots of fuel doing it - obviously a petrol car is for you, but I hope I am not unfortunate enough to have to own another one.

Peter

[Dieselman]

in fact every time I get in a petrol car I stall it trying to pull away because you apparantly have to rev it to take off, you don't a diesel, you just let the clutch in and then accelerate.

I first noticed that phenomenon when a friend bought a BX 1.9D. He would pull away at very low revs then accelerate, whereas I had petrol cars and would have to accelerate before moving off.

It made the BX look very graceful.

[Kit]

To come back to Peter's original post, Half way through the week, seven bids and £185. Perhaps there are more people out there who like petrol engines, Dean is not a lone voice after all! What do you think this will fetch, it can't be driven away, but low mileage.

[Dean]

No im not a lone voice, Minijet can see sense too .

It made the BX look very graceful.

I will be fair, at the time, for a derv the 1.8td BX was a revalation, i learned to drive in one then bought myself another a couple of years later but you need to take your rose tinted glasses off because when i went and bought my brother one a couple of years back you realise how cack those dervs were, they have useable power over about 1500rpm of the rev range, it would get wound up at just below 2k then fall on its face at 3.5k, and if you think the normaly aspirated was better than a petrol you were driving a moped.
what you did get though was 40mpg without trying too hard and 50mpg if you valued £15/week over actualy arriving at your destination, they were very tigtly packed in the engine bay with a whole world of stuff that would and did go wrong and thats the price you pay for the economy, the 1.6 was a better engine, much easier to work on, lighter, smoother and you still got into the 30's no trouble with the same driving style.

There is a time and a place for derv and that place is work and the time is when you do over 15k a year and if more people keep buying dervs then petrol prices will keep falling as demand falls, you only have to look at the island here where most people do 15k a year and use petrols, why pay extra for a derv car to save that outlay in fuel and risk it in the extra complexity of the diesel engine its nuts.

anyway this opinion based arguement is also nuts so back to the car in question.

I think its doomed to maybe £300, people who buy diesels buy them to save money and a derv estate is the ticket, people who buy petrols buy them for the love of the car and on the whole arent really going to be interested in a hatchback with a lean to on the back or one with problems Or dare i say a MK2. Its a sweaping generalisation but thats the way i see it, a petrol estate in MK2 form will be a tough thing to sell on, it just isnt going to appeal to either side unless you can find a purist MK2 collector with a great dane

D

[Dieselman]

1.6 was a better engine, much easier to work on, lighter, smoother and you still got into the 30's no trouble with the same driving style.

No way. My Father had a 309 1.6 and at the same time brother bought an old 305 1.9D. After doing the head gasket the 305 was so smooth to drive it was a revelation to me in a new Sierra 1.8 petrol and nicer than the 309 1.6 petrol.

Later on Bro' had a 309 1.9D and I was in Mrs Dm Fiat 1.4 petrol. We both gunned it from a petrol station and he left me for dead.
Don't confuse the 2.1 TD with a 1.9, the way the 2.1 delivers is so much better. loads of low down torque and a much wider rev range...nothing like as wide as my Merc, that goes to the red easliy...

[robert_e_smart]

The 1.6 lump in the BX is a bit gutless, but then mine is an auto. I liked my 1.9D BX estate, it surprised me that it wasn't that slow.

[Peter.N.]

My reason for going diesel was mainly for fuel economy as I was doing around 30k miles a year at one time. The early ones were not a very exciting driving experience but in 1987 the CX DTR Turbo 2 came out, 0-60 in around 10 seconds and 120 bhp at 3600 rpm and 120 mph. Even the late 70s-early 80s diesel CXs were a cut above the rest of the period, certainly in refinement and the performance stood up well to most petrol cars of the day.

It was only after I got used to driving the diesel that I actually preferred it because of its laid back way of getting you there, petrol engines to me are hard work to drive - but then I'm not a boy racer any more.

Peter