Time for new Commuter

I do Paraparaumu to Wellington (return)5 days a week in my 2000 Passat Tdi - 1.9Tdi, which equates to around 500kms a week, about $50 - 60 worth of diesel and about 2 units of RUC a month e , say $100 bucks. Can I improve on this! I can also catch the train but I car pool with the missus so it ends up cheaper by car, however there's also servicing upkeep. The car is getting on now so I'm not losing out much on appreciation. Is there anything around the 10K bracket that would be better choice! I don't think there's any incentive for Diesel cars in NZ

Diesel cars suffer from stupid legislation there should be a RUC class for light vehicles rather than lumping cars into the light truck category. Not many cars will improve on what yer getting now my Citroen uses marginally less fuel but the stat charges are the same. You have cheap motoring the car is now worth bugger all so you wont lose on depreciation just keep it and drive it into the ground

I know what you mean , we are behind the times when it comes to passenger diesel cars. I had two diesel work cars during my 2 year UK stint (Audi A4 Tdi Avant and Seat Ibiza (Golf) Tdi and they were cheap to run, where as in NZ there's no benefit.

You could get something cheaper to run but realistically you are only going to be saving a huge amount.

Diesel works well in NZ for larger or more powerful cars like what you have, but loses most of its advantages when you get into the really small ultra economical cars running the 1.3 litre diesels. BUT you have to do the math properly for the particular cars you are looking at as there are plenty of inefficient vehicles that re quite popular in NZ.

The big question for you is whether you were thinking of upgrading the car due to age anyway and whether you would be putting some extra cash in on top of what you get for the VW in the hopes of getting something newer. It wouldn't be economical to add much if any to the sale price in the hope of getting a return based on fuel economy savings.

Also, do you still need a vehicle that size!

You could likely geta Fiat Punto MK2, that's year 2000+ for what you sell the VW for and that might save you something like $30 a week in fuel/ruc. But its a smaller car. Maintenance on the Fiat will likely be a bit cheaper but realistically unless your VW has big km's or has been neglected/abused it shouldn't equate to much difference over time.

If you were adding money to the equation anyway there are larger car options which will be similarly cheap to run as the likes of the Punto. VW tends to become the better bet again IMO if you are looking at the newer 2004/5 Golf/Passat type stuff. The FSI petrol engines are particularly economical for your sort of use too, so consider them as well as the VW Diesels.

Be careful, what you change to and do your math carefully as your current vehicle is a lot cheaper to run than dealers and the like will likely realise. Also, most cars of similar value for sale will be due for a big service which will likely cost a fair amount regardless of make/model. So you need to factor that in.

I made a site a while back (you may need to update ruc and petrol prices) that will help you compare costs between petrol and diesel. You can find it at www.dieselvspetrol.webs.com

Cheers Jazz, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I've had pretty good going out of my car , changed the cambelt shortly after I got it in April 2011 and get it serviced every 6 months, so I'm doubt going do another 25,000km out of it for 2013. But I will sell later around Dec / early next year. By then it will have around 220,000km. The turbo still goes alright as I've had it checked out and I still get around 48 - 55mpg average on my trips back/fro but I'm wondering whether to upgrade to newer 2.0l Tdi passat 2006 onwards!

Spending money by upgrading your car just to save running costs is a false economy.
You may save $10 a week in fuel, by buying a newer car, but work out how long it takes to pay back the 8 to 10 grand you spend upgrading your car at $10 per week.

If your current car is still reliable, keep it.

Get a motorcycle Ray. No more traffic

Yea NZ tools is correct.

If this is purely a financial decision, you are probably better to keep what you have. However, if you want to keep that size of vehicle and also update in terms of years and km's then the Passat is pretty much the perfect choice.

Its a good step up because you are getting into the properly new technology common rail engine, DSG transmission and all the other good bits.

Your old car being a Diesel one is actually probably worth good coin to.

If that is what I was wanting to do personally I would organise some bridging finance (credit card or whatever), keep driving the current vehicle and get the Passat listings emailed to to your address daily. Then when the perfect bargain came up I would be off to check it out immediatly.

Then sell the other car on here $1 reserve even if you want.

Going about things that way you may be surprised how cheap it is to update. There was a tidy 2005 (but new model) Passat 2.0 Diesel sedan with 120K on the clock went for just under 10K on here a while back. Get a deal like that and you have upgraded to newer technology, a lot more grunt and a little better economy for very little cost.

Oh, and just a note on your current VW. If the transmission is in good shape and you keep servicing it (the trans, and I am assuming its auto) the rest of the car will likely be reliable and cost effective to run for a lot more than 25K, only thing that may be affected is resale although its already a fairly cheap car so its not going to be by a lot.

Realise that govt planning is to make the running costs between diesel and petrol about the same, to negate any advantage from diesel - not fair on the petrol types, you know .
My petrol Primera costs no more to run than did my Nissan diesel car by the time i added in the iniquitous RUC charges and the higher (by about $100) relicensing fees.

The 1.9tdi engines will run for ever. My 1.9tdi golf has done 340.000km and runs perfectly.

If I were you I would keep the passat and chip the ecu and upgrade the injector nozzles. This will give you a nice bump in power and should gain an extra 4 to 5mpg