Euro 5 diesels still a wise purchase ? - Page 1 - Car Buying (2024)

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Recently I’ve noticed a lot of people on here upgrading due the ULEZ restrictions. In Glasgow they are enforced from June 2023. There is a sea of euro 5 diesel cars on the market and I wondered if these were still worth buying ?

I was a bit nervous that a year from now they will be really hard to sell due to this.

Any thoughts ?

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Depends on if you want to go into a low emissiy zone that has a pointless for against diesel's

If they really wanted to improve things they take all the money raised from them and put into improving and subsidising public transport so people will want to use it

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We live in a city centre with an upcoming ULEZ-type zone, which we live just on the very edge of. We're at that stage of life where two vehicles are needed to cover work, school, care trips to parents etc - with many of our existing and new journeys crossing the zone.

Not that it was the ideal vehicle anyway, but using our Euro 5 van as our second vehicle is very much curtailed by the zone not least because it includes a small section of a major trunk route. I guess non-compliant leisure vans are an edge case and that they're used infrequently enough so that many people would just pay the charge. But it also means that, for example, my in-laws' 2014 Mk7 Golf TDI that I was recently offered by them for a good price becomes uneconomic to run because of the zone.

My in-laws will continue to use the Golf as their countryside car and take their other ULEZ-compliant vehicle when they go into London. I suspect some people will adapt similarly, but others might use it as an excuse to change cars and this might have an impact on prices. Outside London, I still don't think many people have realised that these ULEZ-style charging zones are coming.

P.S. said Mk7 Golf TDI is definitely a Euro 5. Autotrader adverts for similar 2013-15 2.0 TDI 150s show them as "ULEZ compliant" - but they are definitely not!

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The Green Zones app is good for working out where you currently can go, and it does have some future restrictions marked up. Interestingly the only places my Euro 4 diesel can't go at the moment are Leeds and Birmingham.
https://www.green-zones.eu/en/app

If you live in or near a big city I'd be cautious about buying a Euro5, but for a huge proportion of the population low emission zones in cities will make no difference at all.

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There will still be demand for Euro 5 diesels in a years time, and even after that. The country isn't going EV overnight.

Regarding stuff like ULEZ, e.g. in London, you can still drive a Euro 5 diesel into the zone, you just have to pay a daily charge.

You have do the maths for your own usage. For example, if a Euro 5 saves you 5k vs getting a Euro 6 of the same model (because many are selling their Euro 5 diesels now), and you only drive into the ULEZ in London once a week, then that's 650 a year on ULEZ charges.

How does that weigh up against the money you would save by buying a Euro 5 diesel?

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A relative recently bought a Euro5 diesel car. One year newer and it would have been Euro6 but the price difference was quite substantial because of this.

They occasionally venture into Bristol which will soon have a ULEZ/CAZ but will take their city car for those trips and if they really need to take the big car in for any reason then a one off payment would not matter.
The price difference combined with not needing to take it into a city meant they saw no point in paying more to get a Euro6.

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Captainfred said:

Do you live in the Glasgow area? I do and it doesn't concern me, the LEZ zone map shows the City Centre, which is now pretty much full of empty shop units and students! The area forms a tiny minute part of greater Glasgow, and unless you work in town (in which case if you take the car you're mad anyway) it's of little concern. Shopping - Silverburn, Fort or Braehead. Food and drinks - West End or train into town.

I can see how it's an issue in London, but up here it affects such a small area in the grand scheme of things.

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Just got rid of mine. Wanted to change anyway and the ulez just pushed me along to making a decision. Live a few miles out of London and have to drive in once a week on average.

ULEZ goes live soon and what with the prices of trade-ins going through the roof, I took advantage of the value increase whilst it still has a decent value. Got a feeling they may start to drop a bit once ulez finally goes live and people who’ve been largely ignorant of it suddenly start to dump their euro5s and making it harder to shift them on for decent money especially in and around London.

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The Cardinal said:

P.S. said Mk7 Golf TDI is definitely a Euro 5. Autotrader adverts for similar 2013-15 2.0 TDI 150s show them as "ULEZ compliant" - but they are definitely not!

The cars may not have been certified for Euro 6 at the time but the Golf diesel engines from 2013-2020 were basically the same (I’m fairly sure) so you might be able to manually request it to be made ULEZ compliant - I know you can do this with some pre 2015 BMW diesels which again were EU6 compliant but only tested to EURO5 at the time

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Om said:

I did think that outside of the major cities that there may still be a place for pre EU5 diesels (and pre EU4 Petrol) but after hearing of the recent Welsh consultations ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58424221) it may only be a matter of time before their usage could become hamstrung. If you find yourself paying a toll to use a section of road that isn't in a city zone as you pass by then I can see this getting expensive quickly.

The Welsh really need to have a word with their elected representatives

For years any kind of investment in south Wales was stifled by the Severn bridge tolls. Half an hour over the border from Bristol, no Jobs, large social issues, no money,no investment a grim place to be.
Bridge tolls get axed, one would hope that the money would spill over from Bristol, and prosperity would start to trickle its way over, and if the Welsh government get on and built the M4 relief road then things would considerably improve.But no, the Welsh government scrapped the road improvements and strangled any hope of large companies moving to south Wales.
Now they are considering this? £50 for a lorry to pass by on the motorway?

Its no wonder that Avonmouth and Severn Beach are expanding massively with distribution centres, thousands of jobs, to the point that companies would rather locate in a very expensive area because the Welsh are making it so difficult.