Petrol or Diesel?

[xc70jason]

Hi,it all depend's how far and what mileage you'll be doing towing the tin tent.

Also,what will your annual mileage be!.

If both are on the low side then yes,go with a petrol unless you have a fat wallet.

Otherwise,i would go diesel.There is still plenty of torque if not more than a petrol and speed wise,plenty of fun.

I have a twin axle 1500kg tin tent and it's no bother at all.

Jason

[mrc1501]

If I had to drag a tin tent around the country, then I would buy a Kia Sorento diesel 2.5 XT. Won tow car of the year for quite a few years, I'm lead to believe.

Whatever you chose, the torque and better fuel economy? of a diesel would be a preference to a petrol.

Also depends on how many miles you spend towing, whereas if 95% of your driving is without the caravan, then do you really need a 4x4?

[fenton_jd]

Diesel for towing.

Lets compare these (relatively) recent volvo engines:

2.0 diesel 320nm / 136bhp
2.5 petrol 320nm / 218bhp


In the 2.0 diesel, you could do a hillstart in 2nd gear just by engaging the clutch slowly.

In the 2.5 petrol that same hillstart would stall in FIRST gear, let alone 2nd like the diesel. This is despite the 2.5 petrol having "diesel characteristics" AND an extra cylinder with maximum torque available from 1500rpm through to 5000rpm. HOWEVER, below 1500rpm the petrol felt nowhere near as torquey as the 2.0 diesel.

[Bill_56]

I have yet to hear of a motoring magazine that really understands torque.

When comparing torque of one engine vs another, one has to remember that the gearbox acts as a torque multiplier/divider. Since diesel cars nearly always have a lower rev range than petrol, the engine torque needs to be (and is) greater, but the two cars might still have absolutely identical 'pulling power', whatever that is supposed to mean - it's certainly not a phrase that Newton ever used to my knowledge.

Bottom line, if an engine has to pull a load up a hill, a certain force must be applied at the road surface, and a corresponding torque must be applied to the driving axle, to ensure the car maintains (or increases) it's velocity. All else being equal, a higher reving car (usually petrol) will do so with less engine torque than it's low reving (deisel) equivalent.

Thus the higher torque of a dieslel engine does not necessarily confer any improvement at all in performance, or even in 'pulling power' if that expression must be used. It merely compensates for the diesel's handicap of being restrained to a lower rpm range.

[IggyR35]

Having owned performance cars for the last 10 years, just managing 15 to 20 mpg, I recently purchased my first diesel.
A 52 plate V70 SE D5, with 130k miles FVSH.
With only 1 week of mixed driving, the average counter says 52mpg!
I filled up last night & the range said 865 miles!

Extremely lazy to drive and very comfortable