"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Bill" wrote in message
...
But the sooner Mrs May bans diesels from London Brum and Leeds, the
better.

My wife works in the centre of Leeds. Trains from where we live are
infrequent (once an hour) and public transport involves tedious changes.
So after trying everything else, she drives to the city centre and parks
in a multi-storey: at least then she can set off home as soon as she gets
out of a meeting instead of waiting for the next bus/train, and can divert
around traffic hold-ups.

But whereas her car meets the latest Euro emissions standard (6?), mine,
at nearly 9 years old, doesn't. So she'd never be able to take my car to
work (to give it a long run or to prevent accumulating quite so much
mileage on her car) unless she was prepared to pay the surcharge.

So, now that the multi-storey payment is due for renewal, and now that a
park and ride is finally about to open up on our side of Leeds, she's
going to use that instead: at least the P&R car park will hopefully be
outside the city-centre pollution boundaries.

I am very annoyed that the government has reversed its previous pro-diesel
stance. My car is old enough that the effect on the resale value is
negligible (the car is probably only worth a couple of hundred quid on the
second hand market). We no longer use the car as the main car (eg for
holidays and other long-distance journeys), so the better fuel economy is
less important.

But I *like* my diesel: it is a *much* easier car to drive because it has
the low-end torque to crawl in traffic with no accelerator, controlling
the speed entirely on the clutch,

Jeezus that certainly explains why you go thru clutches. I've never had to
ever replace one and I used the petrol Golf for 45+ years, using it every
day.

and it will pull in a higher gear, which means that you are not forever
having to change into second gear when accelerating out of a roundabout -
and it's much easier and smoother to change from 6th to 3rd than 6th to
2nd. Also the engine is quieter (despite being a diesel) because it runs
at a lower speed (2500 rpm rather than 4000 rpm at 70 mph), and the car
has plenty of 50-80 acceleration (for overtaking) which the equivalent
petrol model lacks.

Which car is that ?

If manufacturers could make a petrol engine that drove like a diesel, I'd
have the best of both worlds.

They do, its called an automatic.