I recently bought a new car. I looked seriously at a diesel but didn't get one. At my local fuel pumps, gasoline is about $2.00 a US gallon while diesel is $3.25!
My ride is rated at 40mpg highway. The diesel I was considering was rated at 45mpg. I'm glad I bought what I bought!
Your logic is sound. The mileage would have to be much higher to break even on costs, plus you have to consider the availability issue. Around my corner of the country (top right), not every station has diesel, though there are more than there used to be.
Stu
Ever wonder why diesel (cheaper to produce from crude) is more expensive than gasoline in the good 'ol US of A?
Ask who benefits from high diesel prices. USA Manufacturers who don't make any diesel cars... Your government and domestic car manufacturers working hand in hand for your benefit...
Diesel is taxed at a higher rate as far as Federal taxes are concerned so thats part of the difference. But since most diesel is used in commercial trucks most people don't really care what diesel costs since they don't buy any and there's way less price competition which usually drives the price down. I did work in the oil industry for 24 years and in fall and winter the need to make heating fuel reduces the supply of diesel keeping the price of diesel high this time of year. Depending on what kind of winter we get the price of diesel will start to drop as the refineries stop making heating fuel and switch back to diesel. I still don't see where diesel will ever be as cheap as gasoline in this country despite similar costs of production.
My purchase of a diesel fueled car just about a year ago was driven by the fact that the car it was going to replace required premium fuel for best performance. Since the price of diesel and premium fuel in this area are nearly the same and the replacement car was going to get mid 40's vrs mid to high 20's with a high of 32-33 mpg the choice was easy despite the higher price of diesel. After a year of ownership my MPGs has ranged from a low of 40 to as high as 52 MPG! The out of pocket cost of the car purchased was just about $21,500. I subtracted the sale price of my old car from this figure.
I feel like I got my monies worth. Some people have tried to tell me that I could have gotten a gasoline fueled car for the same price and gotten nearly the same MPGs but the car or cars mentioned in comparison were compact or sub compact cars and didn't have the size or room of the car I did buy. I prefer to compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges.
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