looking at either a toyota granvia or nissan elgrand.like both.not sure weather to go petrol or diesel.we travel about 350 ks a week mixed drivving.
msigg,
Mar 9, 2:17am
I would have the diesel. The petrol is too thirsty for me to run, and i like diesel motors. Overall costs will be similar but I still prefer diesel.
chaff.,
Mar 9, 2:21am
Stick with Petrol as opposed to diesel because Vehicles perform better, Longer servicing Periods,No R.U.C. to worry about,Cheaper rego,Less Maintenance costs o/all and the Govt seem hell bent on raising the costs associated with Diesel Powered Vehicles. We were averaging around 500kms a week and found no saving in Having a 3000cc Diesel Vehicle so have gone back to Petrol.
boardrider,
Mar 9, 3:00am
From ourpersonal experience (I own a 2000 Passat Tdi) I do Paraparaumu - Wellington RTN (500 - 550km) weekly and have to agree with Chaff , RUC's do kill the benefits of owning a good diesel car. And yes diesel cars do demand more frequent service intervals and when something does go wrong it costs a lot more. I'll be flicking my Passat Diesel later this year.
jackfish,
Mar 9, 3:02am
will be towing a 18 ft caravan on the odd ocations to.was thinking the costs were vary much the same.
morrisman1,
Mar 9, 3:20am
A nissan elgrand will use a lot of fuel, maybe more than 12L/100km. Work it out, at 61c per litre of petrol being tax, the break even point for paying equal tax as a diesel is approx 7L/100km. The thirsty elgrand will be paying much more tax than a diesel one will.
Diesel makes sense in these types of cars. Next step is to look into the engines and whether there are any issues with the engines which would cost you money. Diesels cost about double to service but if you do your own oil and filter changes then its not too bad and definetely not a deal breaker.
aj254,
Mar 9, 3:25am
Well Jazz hasn't done it yet so I might as well beat him to it,check this out. http://www.dieselvspetrol.webs.com/ I would go with the diesel.
intrade,
Mar 9, 4:31am
petrol diesel are way to expensive to own and service and even more expensive if you dont service them. Your injector pump inectors and all will poo it self unless you add diesel additive with each tank of diesel, no problems like this on petrol engines apart from using to low octane fuel when the petrol engine cant run on them you will have loads less problems with a petrol then diesel.
intrade,
Mar 9, 4:33am
you buy a petol and fit a lpg injector kit on it way cheaper then diesel and all its problems.
thejazzpianoma,
Mar 9, 4:57am
Thanks for posting this, I made it specifically for the benefit of those that use this message board, great to see it mentioned!
thejazzpianoma,
Mar 9, 5:03am
How many seats do you actually need! If six seats plus reasonable boot space is enough it would make MUCH more sense to ditch the two you have in mind and buy a Diesel Fiat Multipla.
Why!
Because then you can have your cake and eat it too. Even against the most economical of the above options you are looking at about half the running cost. yes seriously. HALF the running cost.
But you have MORE performance, easier parking, better handling, nicer features and a more versatile load space.
You also get considerably less maintenance, better reliability and a much cheaper easier to work on vehicle to maintain.
Cost is the same or less.
How is that possible! Better design, more expensive vehicle new and MOST importantly it uses the newer technology diesel engines which are far more economical, powerful and require only a fraction of the maintenance. Seriously reliable too, in fact that Fiat unit would have to be about the most reliable and best proven common rail diesel ever made.
What's the catch! They look a bit funny, you may have to wait a month to find a good one and you only get 6 seats. If you can live with that you get a vehicle that is simply light years ahead of what you are looking at.
msigg,
Mar 9, 5:28am
Don't think the multipla will look too good with an 18ft caravan behine it. The diesel granvia will hold its price a bit more than the elgrand. They are both excellent vehicles, Take both for a test drive see what you think, I see alot of elgrands as camper vans , the rental companies use them so they must be good, they only can afford to have reliable vehicles.
thejazzpianoma,
Mar 9, 6:09am
I don't see any problem, getting up around the limit of its recommended tow weight but especially for occasional use it should be no issue at all. It will have no problems at all in terms of power, just a little care should be taken to be kind to the clutch, that engine was used in commercial and performance vehicles and handles serious load exceptionally well. The very wide wheelbase and low centre of gravity of the Multipla makes them tow very well.
I don't see the logic in paying twice the running costs (thousands of dollars a year) for a vehicle that is no where near as nice to drive in the hope that it might tow a little better for the occasional caravan trip. Not when the Multipla will tow just fine.
franc123,
Mar 9, 9:15am
Its a pity that LPG is a total ripoff in NZ otherwise a liquid injected LPG conversion COULD be a feasible option if you are going to keep the vehicle for several years, the repair costs with both electronic injector pumps (this especially applies to the QD32 Elgrand) and modern CR diesel systems are often too horrendous to ignore, and can wipe out a heap of fuel savings in one hit.Unless my caravan was a flimsy English one made out of plastic and cardboard bugger towing an 18 footer with a Multipla, its a front wheel drive toy FFS.
austingtir,
Mar 9, 8:02pm
Copy and pasted from an OWNERS review of a fiat multipla:
What does this car say about you! I'm an idiot to buy a Fiat
What do your friends / family / neighbours think of the car! Where has your car been for the last 4 months! Is that your car on the garage forecourt with the dashboard removed!
Would you buy this car again and why! Never in a million years.
What are you likely to buy next! Anything but a Fiat
Have you had any problems with the car! My Multipla 1.9 JTD has been off the road for 3 months awaiting spares. I am told the parts will arrive in five weeks from today. A total of at least 4 months off the road waiting for spares. Fiat also sent the wrong parts, increasing the time the car is off the road by some seven weeks. The part in question is a cable harness. The old cable harness rotted because water leaked in around the seals of the sun roof. This caused a massive short-circuit and the car came close to bursting into flames. At 20000 miles, the fan belt broke and somehow entangled with the timing belt resulting in the need for a full engine rebuild. We waited 4 months for a replacement fron quarterlight window.
austingtir,
Mar 9, 8:05pm
O.K jazz ill let it slide that the multipla isnt even in the same class of car as the toyota or nissan that the OP is actually intrested in but your still claiming that these POS fiats are cheaper to run than a reliable nissan or toyota!The fact is that the mechanics of the things MIGHT be o.k if your lucky but the rest of the car will fall apart long before the nissan or toyota.
monaro17,
Mar 9, 8:30pm
DO NOT touch the 3.3 elgrand, they were woefully underpowered engines that just slurp fuel- people I know towed a 15ft caravan (around 1100kgs) from chch to nelson with the 3.3 terrano version and it averaged 24L/100kms and was dreadfully slow and underpowered. The petrol granvia would be similar. Go for the 3.2 elgrand over the 3.0 granvia, it has more power and is more reliable.
intrade,
Mar 9, 8:33pm
austingtir. it is the same problem as mugen has had a multipla at his workthey refused to buy the parts from the cheapest geniuan fiat retailer and quoted some horrendous price instead from local ripoffartist supplyer because thats whom they use, well the mugan guy had no part in that it was his bosses firm who would not go out of the way to help a client save money. parts for fiat are as cheap if not cheaper in most case as they are for toyota and the parts are shipped overnight from euro-italian carparts auckland.even the waterpump for my 1,7 diesel was on there shelf partly due to that the 1,9 nz new model has the same waterpump. Also fiat interchange loads of parts. like i run disk and calipers on my tipo from my punto spears car.they are not like mazda where you get 10 different parts on the same year of car.
intrade,
Mar 9, 8:38pm
lpg is not that expensive, it is too expensiveYES, but still cheaper then petrol or diesel in the end with them gascard. If i was not a diesel mechanic i would be dumping all my diesel and get only petrol and lpg vehicles but you cant turn up with a lpg or petrol van when you fix diesel ,well at least i see it that way.
thejazzpianoma,
Mar 9, 8:39pm
intrade, I wouldn't waste your breath. austingtir is just at straight out troll. Such a shame he feels the need to make peoples lives difficult, and upset expensive purchasing decisions, with the nonsense he finds on the internet about cars he has never even sat in.
This messageboard needs a warning notice in it explaining that nowadays its mostly populated by sleazy Japanese import dealers and idiot trolls. So many people with first hand proper knowledge just dont' bother to post anymore.
intrade,
Mar 9, 8:41pm
thejazzpianoma i wouldedit beep that swearword out if i was you the massage board is a sensitive place
austingtir,
Mar 9, 8:48pm
So your not arguing then that you WILL be replacing more parts on the fiat than you will on a nissan or toyota!
As jazz says the OP needs to be informed.
intrade,
Mar 9, 8:53pm
umm i replaced the same amount of parts on cars no matter what make it was had a toyota replaced shocks just like i did on the fiat balljoints on my hilux i replacedevery 6 month another one for example at 45$ a pop plus work the fiat is fine since 5 years now . All in all it dont matter what car you got solong as parts are optainable toyota are good for getting parts fast on nissan i waited a few times longer then when i order parts from germany my self from local nissan agents ex japan 14 days for a radiator hose on a mistral with sender built in hose.
thejazzpianoma,
Mar 9, 8:55pm
At the risk of feeding a troll. As an ACTUAL OWNER of a Multipla who has done into the hundreds of thousands of km's in them. No.
I have even compared the real world running costs to friends running Toyota Hiace's etc and not only have I done considerable less maintenance than them in the same milage the total running costs were UNDER HALF.
If you actually knew anything about these vehicles you would realise they are much more reliable, significantly easier to work on and parts are cheap. In the last 120'000km (current Multipla) I have only done regular service items (Tyres, brakes, oil, filters, coolant, timing belt, sparkplugs etc) the only exceptions were a couple of wheel cylinders and a gas strut for the rear hatch.
Get a life. I won't be bothering to respond to you any further in this thread.
austingtir,
Mar 9, 8:59pm
What even more amusing is there isnt even a multipla for sale on here.Is there one for sale anywhere in NZ!
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