Thread: Toyota or nissan V6

With the near parity of petrol and diesel price I too thought it'd make more sense to go petrol over diesel.
I have a Diesel V6 Discovery and a Petrol V8 discovery that I worked out the cost per 1000km on:
-the diesel will do about 10l/100km normal driving and 13ish l/100km towing
-the petrol will do 14ish /100km normal driving and 15-20 l/100km towing

For daily usage the diesel still works out cheaper due to the better fuel economy, for towing the diesel is way cheaper.
If you were talking smaller vehicles then petrol is probably the better way to go as fuel consumption gets much closer, but for utes and SUVs I think diesel will remain the way to go for a very long time.

Diesel also has the advantage of more torque which usually makes for better towing and more range on tank of fuel.
My petrol Discovery will do a max of 600km to a tank (maybe more if i take the risk) whereas 800km is easy on the diesel which is nice on a weekend away knowing if I fill up before I leave home I'll make it home again without having to find a petrol station.

When I did the math years ago on this the deciding factors were price difference and similar economy.
This was back when it was recommended to do oil change on turbo diesels every 5k vs 10k for patrols.
If the 2 vehicles got exactly the same mileage, it took 20000 or so k's a year to start to be cost effective.
This was back when diesel had just risen from maybe 2/3rds the price of petrol to approx 3/4.
My reckoning is that if it is all but the same price, RUC's wreck it. Unless you really need a diesel for towing etc then petrol starts to look more attractive.
Also well aware that a lot of those older diesel have issues with heads and head gaskets once they get up in the mileage. Reasoning the petrols not as bad especially if there is a large price difference between the petrol and diesel model in favour of the petrol.
Another thing that used to annoy me was how you would drive around with the cheaper diesel fuel then have to buy more RUCs. Tricks you into doing more than you might with a petrol and copping it at the bowser.

Diesel contains 15% more calorific value per litre than petrol, so that's a bit more energy efficiency right off the bat. Then the injection pressure and atomisation process of diesel injection adds yet more efficiency.

Most old style large capacity lazy diesels are renown for longevity. And having looked at the average fuel consumption people on here are getting from their modern diesel 4x4s and the 1 or 2L/100km improvement over the older engines does not see me wishing to blow $$$ on a new vehicle when my 25 year old one works perfectly well for me...and is completely maintainable by me.

Going to a UK style colour coding of diesel would be dumb. Its complicated, they have three colours, it means yet more costs on farmers for storage of different coloured bloody diesel. RUC's work fine, and the govt makes a shitload more tax out of RUC's than they ever would be just taxing diesel. A 50 tonne B combination consuming 9 x toyota hiluxes work of diesel every 100km will be paying waaay more than 9 x 3 tonnes of RUC.

Originally Posted by XR500

Diesel contains 15% more calorific value per litre than petrol, so that's a bit more energy efficiency right off the bat. Then the injection pressure and atomisation process of diesel injection adds yet more efficiency.

Most old style large capacity lazy diesels are renown for longevity. And having looked at the average fuel consumption people on here are getting from their modern diesel 4x4s and the 1 or 2L/100km improvement over the older engines does not see me wishing to blow $$$ on a new vehicle when my 25 year old one works perfectly well for me...and is completely maintainable by me.

Going to a UK style colour coding of diesel would be dumb. Its complicated, they have three colours, it means yet more costs on farmers for storage of different coloured bloody diesel. RUC's work fine, and the govt makes a shitload more tax out of RUC's than they ever would be just taxing diesel. A 50 tonne B combination consuming 9 x toyota hiluxes work of diesel every 100km will be paying waaay more than 9 x 3 tonnes of RUC.

If you use the LR Disco as an example, the newgen engines don't necessarily get better fuel economy but you get considerably more power for the same fuel consumption.

I thought I'd be a diehard old school diesel fan but I bought a Disco 3 with a 2.7L V6 paired with a 6 speed trans, the difference between that and previous gen vehicles is not even comparable.
Admittedly I think the transmission is one of the best improvements, the difference between the 6 speed ZF and 4 speed ZF is possibly the biggest upgrade in the vehicles drive train, especially when towing.

I'm not doubting that the older diesel are great in their simplicity ( although they still had EGR valve back in the mid 90s) but I think many common rail engines have proven to be reliable in the long term, with many doing very high kms.
Biggest issue IMO is the cost of parts is considerably higher in the modern engine, at least from what I've experienced.

Originally Posted by Beetroot

If you use the LR Disco as an example, the newgen engines don't necessarily get better fuel economy but you get considerably more power for the same fuel consumption.

I thought I'd be a diehard old school diesel fan but I bought a Disco 3 with a 2.7L V6 paired with a 6 speed trans, the difference between that and previous gen vehicles is not even comparable.
Admittedly I think the transmission is one of the best improvements, the difference between the 6 speed ZF and 4 speed ZF is possibly the biggest upgrade in the vehicles drive train, especially when towing.

I'm not doubting that the older diesel are great in their simplicity ( although they still had EGR valve back in the mid 90s) but I think many common rail engines have proven to be reliable in the long term, with many doing very high kms.
Biggest issue IMO is the cost of parts is considerably higher in the modern engine, at least from what I've experienced.

I suspect that the cost of parts isn't that much higher i.e. the Ranger to replace fuel rail, 5 injectors and injection pump inc. labour = $8500 or so - the Safari to do 6 injectors injection pump and the rest of that setup with the new replacement kit is roughly comparable - but with the older gear likely you can have the vehicle off the road a few days longer and get the bits rebuilt whereas the Ranger spec kit they put in a bin. If you consider the Safari again, I've taken out a set of engine mounts in the SWB I had roughly every 10,000Km towing, until I custom built a set that won't break (and still haven't 16 years later and several hundred KM). Crap Nissan design, towing stuffs the mounts young. I've done one set in the Ranger in 115,000Km's... Again, towing heavy is bloody hard on mounts with looong periods on sustained power (this is probably more correct a factor of wind resistance on the larger surface area of big box trailers and boats than weight).

Servicing to factory specs on the current vehicles is roughly comparative petrol-diesel - biggest difference seems to be oil price and volume from what I've been billed recently. When towing large trailers (again this isn't everyone's use or requirement) petrol can get up to 25L/100Km or more while diesel might increas by 25% so 10-12.5L/100Km. That is an incredible saving if you do a lot of trailer miles, especially on a higher grade of petrol which could be over $3 a litre! In my case, that's more than double the fuel bill on a towing trip so if I'm doing 600Km round trip so petrol bill $450, diesel $175+RUC. That's noticeable.

I got around the need for a fancy trans in my Land Rover by just sticking a 6.5L GMC diesel in my Stage 1 V8: 2 gear changes needed between Waiouru and Palmy

so a bit side tracked on other models.
So the prados a bit thirsty, same for the nissans? Their engines are best in class. The VQ series do very well

I'm right off diesel's with the current fuel prices, so expensive & sounds like it's not going to be reducing anytime soon & fukin around with RUC's

Even brought a petrol Van for work, will be selling my Ranger soon ( I love the truck but just not using it, I don't tow etc so not needed ) but I did buy a new wagon as a spare for the kids to drive & for me to use until my new "petrol" GR turns up.


This thing is so much fun to drive, put a new stereo in it ( had a factory mini disc player, like wtf lol ) couple of new tyres & some steelies & just gotta chuck on a light bar, plus it's a V6 chur chur I call it the "scud" hahahaha

The petrol thing is good, I currently have the use of a relatives car while they are not driving and it's bloody good. Not so good when I'm travelling and needing to take a lot ofkit with me, but for little errands around town it's really handy. Interestingly, it's getting me about 8.4L/100Km where the ute is 8.7 currently so in terms of fuel it's not hugely cheaper in terms of fuel costs.