Is Diesel 'cheap' muscle?

[jarrus]

Indeed the 530d e39 is a great car, a friend of mine has one with a full bmw service history and over 200k on it, and it drives great, they are a car you can keep forever, even your 528i as well, I see no reason you can't have over 200k on that engine with no problems if you maintain it,
and judging by your attitude I'd say you probably will...

[HDi fun]

Originally Posted by MasterAuron

You're doing it again. Comparing turbo diesels to N/A cars. A well designed petrol turbo can pull from low revs all the way through to 6500rpm plus. How many times can you increase your speed there?

No I'm not. I'm comparing one car to another regardless of it's fuel type, engine configuration and swept capacity. Let's be fair - the BMW is petrol, 600cc larger and has two more cylinders as well. I'm not totally biased towards diesel. I have a lot of misgivings regarding running costs. Not fuel consumption or reliability, just the pricey and frequent servicing.

I'm well acquainted with petrol turbo cars as well and I agree with what you say nearly completely. This is how VW's made such a good job of the 170bhp Golf engine with just 1368cc. It's likely that turbocharged petrol engines will become the favoured set up across the board.

@jarrus - yes, I do plan to keep it - I run my cars for years anyway. 250,000 is routine for well maintained engines, not as a failure mileage but still going strong. Servicing is much cheaper that repairs or car replacement. Had my 406 not been written off (very scarily as well, it was near fatal) I'd have hung onto that for another 5 years or so.

[jarrus]

In a way what you just said there is "if it ain't broke don't fix it"
I plan on keeping my car now for as long as possible, it handles well and it's really nice to drive, I plan on tweaking it a bit more and we should see some interesting results