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n my last entry I hinted
that I was again missing the turbodiesel.
I’m torn here. On the one hand,
the Accord ought to prove reliable (once
we have the current problems resolved), it’s even potentially economical,
it’s reasonably well equipped and it’s beautifully quiet on the motorway. But, I have to drive the Accord very gently
to return forty to the gallon and I feel too tight for this. Honda’s VTEC /link/ is clever technology but
it doesn’t quite deliver the low down heave that I’d like (it gets close, though, and it more than makes up for it at the top end
of the rev range).
And the Accord has that
SRS module problem with no guarantees as to what will fix it.
I’ve started researching
into alternatives. There is no
equivalent generation Accord diesel and the newer 2·2 CRDTi is too
expensive. The older Accord diesel has
some potential.
The Mondeo TDCi is still
just as relatively expensive now as it was back in December when I was looking
to buy. The Focus keeps its value and
every dealer I speak to plays hardball, presumably because there’s good demand
for the Focus.
Alternatives? Large petrol cars are currently out of favour
because of their perceived higher running costs, so these are cheaper than
small cars. Small diesels - the most
economical to fuel - are expensive to buy, so what you save in fuel you pay to
a bank for finance, then.
Many if not most
equivalent cars to the Accord (i.e. a 1·8
petrol) are more economical on the motorway. The current shape 1∙8 petrol Mondeo
uses around 20% less fuel than the Accord on a run.
I suspect that the
solution to the lack of a diesel in my life is to plod along some preferred
dealerships and see what they have in stock, ideally what they’ve had in stock
for a few weeks, and make them an offer.
As for what I’d
run..? Something VAG engineered and with
“TDI” on the rump may be the natural choice, except I don’t actually like the
way almost all VAG stuff drives (petrol
or diesel). This isn’t something
many colleagues share, over half of the cars in the car park at work are Audi
TDIs... The majority of the rest are
German and diesel. I’d like to be a bit
different then! Nobody else has an
Accord.
With the Ford diesel
range, the older generation TDDi cars are a world apart from the newer generation
TDCi range. If I bought a TDDi I’d
forever wish I’d waited or saved up for the TDCi.
How about the
alternatives? I am a fan of the Volvo
S60 D5, but my budget stretches to the S40 and as with the Ford diesels I’ll
forever be wishing I’d waited for the S60.