Diesel or petrol for a new Nissan Qashqai?

Which would you recommend, the 1.2 petrol or the 1.5 diesel in the new Nissan Qashqai? I do about 12,000km or less per year and mainly short trips and city driving.

Michael Corduff (Dublin)

Feb 2014 Filed under: choosing new car

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Expert answer

Hi Michael,

If it's short trips and city driving then you're probably better off with the petrol model. It's significantly cheaper than the diesel version, which gives you plenty of budget to buy fuel and pay the slightly more expensive road tax. One word of warning though - from personal experience it can be almost impossible to move on a Mk1 petrol Qashqai when the market is so diesel-obsessed. Several people I know have had to take a bath on second hand value when it came to trading in a first gen 1.6 petrol Qashqai so you need to be aware of that. The new 1.2 petrol turbo version should by rights fare better because it's so efficient but with the market still being diesel mad, you need to be careful.

Neil Briscoe - Complete Car Adviser
@neilmbriscoe