Thread: The great petrol vs diesel debate

Originally Posted by Trout

I like the new 5.6 Nissen patrol(PETROL) 400hp,14l /100k,smooth as on the open road and the V8 sound is darn nice.In auz they get around 1000 ks /140litrs.But its hard to change from my old patrol 2000 4.2tdi witch iv had 12 yrs and now done 470000ks.Under the bonnet the things iv replaced is the alturnator, aircon pump,batterys,wheel bearings and brakes.The motor just keeps ticking over,iv never touched it/adjusting tappets to quieten down motor,doesnt burn oil and is quiet on the tracks getting close to game areas.
Only thing that pisses me off is the money iv spend on RUCs since i brought it with a 100000 ks on the clock.$22,200.00 in todays dollars.Does around 15ltrs/100 ks.Only thing in my favour is not much more in depreciation.lols Il hang onto her till i cant walk around to the bonnet and shoot off it.lols

RUCs are a bitch, but if you work out the fuel price compared to a petrol you will find they total fuel/running costs to be about the same.
It just feels bad walking into the post office and paying hundreds of dollars for a printed plastic thing you stick in the window.

I'd be more concerned about that fuel economy.
That's about what I get from my Petrol V8 Discovery, which I don't enjoy having to feed, not when my diesel is getting 9L/100km.
V8 is much more fun to drive though.

We could/should start a whole thread on 4x4s/utes and what fuel consumption everyone is getting.

Rolling coal is mint
So is smoking tyres
I have both, and both a cheap compared to shoes,Clothes
Live it up boys

Running a 96 surf 3rd gen in 2.7 petrol. In town its running 14L/100km and on the open road 11L/100km.

I bought a 2wd lux with the 5le in it recently.
I wanted another ute but 3l 4wd hiluxes are stupid money considering they are all fucked.....they were all fucked when I sold mine maybe 6 years ago? and now they all have less kms
It is a really hard second hand market to buy in......I was so close to ticking up a new base model 2wd hilux.....Im shit scared of buying HP common rail with more than 100,000km on it and the money everyone is asking for low k ones(not just toyota) it makes no sense why wouldnt you buy new?
I cant afford new at the mo but most likely my next vehicle will be or very low k still under warrenty or something I can afford to dump if it shits itself....so I will be looking at either a new or a shitbox but not in the middle as too much money and too much risk.

Which poses a serious question, new vehicle losses are set to increase as wage earners (people who buy with their own money) become bloody wary of extremely high maintenance costs of relatively low km HPDI Diesels?

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

I bought a 2wd lux with the 5le in it recently.
I wanted another ute but 3l 4wd hiluxes are stupid money considering they are all fucked.....they were all fucked when I sold mine maybe 6 years ago? and now they all have less kms
It is a really hard second hand market to buy in......I was so close to ticking up a new base model 2wd hilux.....Im shit scared of buying HP common rail with more than 100,000km on it and the money everyone is asking for low k ones(not just toyota) it makes no sense why wouldnt you buy new?
I cant afford new at the mo but most likely my next vehicle will be or very low k still under warrenty or something I can afford to dump if it shits itself....so I will be looking at either a new or a shitbox but not in the middle as too much money and too much risk.

Which poses a serious question, new vehicle losses are set to increase as wage earners (people who buy with their own money) become bloody wary of extremely high maintenance costs of relatively low km HPDI Diesels?

I'm currently in a similar dilemma.
Do I try stick with older, more reliable vehicles that are high KMs and need small stuff replacing all the time.
Or do you go for something new, wizz-bang, loads of power and mod-cons, but when things go bad, the costs mount up very quickly.

Electronic everything vehicles are here to stay and whilst they can be annoying, most of the time they are actually hassle free.
A lot of 20 year old European (read Land Rover) 4x4s have a lot of electrics, and whilst they have many people running for their lives, many folk have had great experiences.

I think now days the home mechanic is going to have their own code scanner/reader and it'll be just as important as their set of spanners.
If you read on the Land Rover forums, the guys their can fix anything and more often than not know more about their vehicles than most car mechanics (non specialist).
I'm not saying that Land Rovers are the most amazing, reliable things on the planet.
But folks on forums prove that a vehicle that can cost thousands of dollars to get repaired at the shop, will cost a few hundred in parts and a few hours of research and hours of your time.

I for one would never take my vehicle to a car mechanic, I have the skills to do the work myself and the ability to research a new problem as good as anyone.
Took my car for a warrant a few months back and when I went to pick it up it wouldn't start.
The guy doing the warrant was a bit bewildered as I had just driven it in there and wasn't sure where to start. But as it wasn't even turning over assumed it was a flat battery.
Now I'm not an auto sparky, but I know enough about my car to know that it was not a flat battery and the weird things it was doing was not a typical battery/charging problem, after about 3 mins of thinking I found that one of the main earth leads from the battery had broken, $30 and 10mins later I was on my way home again.

Not really sure where I'm going with this rant.
I think I'm trying to say that whilst you are correct that new vehicles come with a lot of (potential) issues, Hiluxs and Landcruisers from the 1990s aren't becoming anymore common and certainly aren't getting any less KMs on them.
One day you will have to jump ship to the new generation vehicle one way or another, and if you can accept that having a good understanding of the car and a good DIY attitude you can save yourself a lot of money on repairs and/or take preventative measures to stop the problems in the first place.

Originally Posted by Beetroot

I'm currently in a similar dilemma.
Do I try stick with older, more reliable vehicles that are high KMs and need small stuff replacing all the time.
Or do you go for something new, wizz-bang, loads of power and mod-cons, but when things go bad, the costs mount up very quickly.

Electronic everything vehicles are here to stay and whilst they can be annoying, most of the time they are actually hassle free.
A lot of 20 year old European (read Land Rover) 4x4s have a lot of electrics, and whilst they have many people running for their lives, many folk have had great experiences.

I think now days the home mechanic is going to have their own code scanner/reader and it'll be just as important as their set of spanners.
If you read on the Land Rover forums, the guys their can fix anything and more often than not know more about their vehicles than most car mechanics (non specialist).
I'm not saying that Land Rovers are the most amazing, reliable things on the planet.
But folks on forums prove that a vehicle that can cost thousands of dollars to get repaired at the shop, will cost a few hundred in parts and a few hours of research and hours of your time.

I for one would never take my vehicle to a car mechanic, I have the skills to do the work myself and the ability to research a new problem as good as anyone.
Took my car for a warrant a few months back and when I went to pick it up it wouldn't start.
The guy doing the warrant was a bit bewildered as I had just driven it in there and wasn't sure where to start. But as it wasn't even turning over assumed it was a flat battery.
Now I'm not an auto sparky, but I know enough about my car to know that it was not a flat battery and the weird things it was doing was not a typical battery/charging problem, after about 3 mins of thinking I found that one of the main earth leads from the battery had broken, $30 and 10mins later I was on my way home again.

Not really sure where I'm going with this rant.
I think I'm trying to say that whilst you are correct that new vehicles come with a lot of (potential) issues, Hiluxs and Landcruisers from the 1990s aren't becoming anymore common and certainly aren't getting any less KMs on them.
One day you will have to jump ship to the new generation vehicle one way or another, and if you can accept that having a good understanding of the car and a good DIY attitude you can save yourself a lot of money on repairs and/or take preventative measures to stop the problems in the first place.

Yea but common rail injectors are bloody expensive and you cant fix them with a laptop....so some people dont fix them and they eat the engine.

A mecanic told me the other day that the main line cars are going to be built in China in the near future, and the $15-20,000 cars are going to be availabal for $10-15 shortly. They'll turn into a disposabal item, when they brake down or need replacing, you get it wreaked or crushed.
Be sticking with petrol from now on I think. When it goes bang, it won't hurt as much. Or buy new, and replace once warenty is getting close to running out

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

Yea but common rail injectors are bloody expensive and you cant fix them with a laptop....so some people dont fix them and they eat the engine.

Very true, but you can (and should) install another finer in line fuel filter and reduce the risk of them being buggered in the first place.
Also you can get injectors rebuilt/serviced which is a lot cheaper than buying new ones.

What you can do with your laptop is monitor the system and check for faults and if you are seeing signs that the injector/fuel pump isn't working as well as it used too, you can investigate the problem before you need a new engine.

You guys are right about how late(ish) model 4wd's are crazy expensive, looking at anything post 2010 makes me weak in the knees.
There are 2012 4wd Hilux's with three hundred thousand K's on the clock and they want $25k+ for them. Even Nissan Patrols are crazy money with 10ish year old models and 200,000ks and they want 60-65% of the cost of a new one!!! Makes me want to buy new but fuck spending that sort of capital, I would (should) rather invest it.

I guess I'll just drive my 97 1kzte Prado till you cant buy diesel anymore.

Are the injector problems actually very common? I did the ones in mine but know nobody else that has, I sourced a set out of a wrecked vehicle with 15,000k on the clock which cost me $400, took all of an hour to change them. If I had've been buying new I would've looked to get them tested and only replaced the one that was faulty. With a bit of knowledge, research and willingness to get your hands dirty you can pick up some bargins.

Thanks to this forum, especially @longrange308 for helping to diagnose the problem.

I much prefer EFI over carburetors and mechanical injection.

Originally Posted by Savage1

Are the injector problems actually very common? I did the ones in mine but know nobody else that has, I sourced a set out of a wrecked vehicle with 15,000k on the clock which cost me $400, took all of an hour to change them. If I had've been buying new I would've looked to get them tested and only replaced the one that was faulty. With a bit of knowledge, research and willingness to get your hands dirty you can pick up some bargins.

Thanks to this forum, especially @longrange308 for helping to diagnose the problem.

I much prefer EFI over carburetors and mechanical injection.

I think injector problems are not uncommon, but thankfully not overly expensive to fix.
It's thing like the fuel pump going which cost the big $$ to replace, or if the injectors are left in a bad state other problems occur.

The most import part of your post is "With a bit of knowledge, research and willingness to get your hands dirty you can pick up some bargins."
Whilst you may have fixed it for $400 yourself, if you had taken it to a shop they would've said you need new injectors for $2000, plus a couple of hundred in labour.
My in laws spent hundreds of dollar trying to fix a problem on their Toyota Echo, took it to multiple different Toyota garages who ran diagnostics and replaced a few different parts over the space of a year and never got it right. Brother in law came to visit and found a Youtube video showing the fix for the problem,
5 minutes and a new relay later, never had a problem again.

The shaggers up to 2011 are notorious for doing seals which left unchecked lunches the entire engine.
Your engine has a good rep for reliability.
The first of the 2.8 colorados random engines had oil burning issues.
First of the new shape ranger has had a few grenade with low kms and the auto box is a weak point, know of one that locked up and sent the truck sideways with less than 1000km !

All in all it doesnt inspire confidence in spending 30-40k on a highish km one of any brand.

@Trout is yours auto or manual?

Hi Pointer
Gearbox is auto o/d,good gearbox,never changed the oil in it yet after 13yrs.Oil still nice redy clean colour.Mind you iv never towered stuff all with it either.See a nice new white Y62 just sold few days ago.Dropped from 127ks down to 80ks to move it tho.Thats the second white patrol to drop to 80ks to move off the show room floor in the last 3years.Hmmm.Id like one with 100000ks on the clock,say 4yrs old.Gota go cheap.

Originally Posted by Trout

Hi Pointer
Gearbox is auto o/d,good gearbox,never changed the oil in it yet after 13yrs.Oil still nice redy clean colour.Mind you iv never towered stuff all with it either.See a nice new white Y62 just sold few days ago.Dropped from 127ks down to 80ks to move it tho.Thats the second white patrol to drop to 80ks to move off the show room floor in the last 3years.Hmmm.Id like one with 100000ks on the clock,say 4yrs old.Gota go cheap.

You should definitely have changed the oil in the last 13 years red blue or black!