Fortuner - Benzine Or Diesel?

[SantiSuk]

The die is cast and have decided on a new (costa) Fortuner. Have road-tested a diesel version and found it disappointingly sluggish* but no dealer I can easily find (including BKK today) has a 2.7 benzine to try out. Dealer's staff (all pretty young girls rather than anyone who can talk about performance) maintain they drive exactly the same.

Does anyone have any informed comment about the difference?

*So why buy one you may ask? Well you try backtracking to a Honda Jazz or Toyota Vigo (which is where I started looking) once the wife-to-be, family of 20 and an entire Isaan village of supporters are routing for you to get a shiny black monster!!

And yes I do know that the benzine comes only with 2 wheel drive.

PS - recession what recession? You try buying the Toyota you want with less than 2 months delivery. What happened to Japanese just-in-time production claims?

Edited June 24, 2009 by SantiSuk

[Datsun240Z]

*So why buy one you may ask? Well you try backtracking to a Honda Jazz or Toyota Vigo (which is where I started looking) once the wife-to-be, family of 20 and an entire Isaan village of supporters are routing for you to get a shiny black monster!!

Talk about FACE !!

Back ontopic: What is the price difference between a liter of diesel and benzine? ( I don't know sorry, not in Thailand ) . If not much difference, I would go for the Diesel, since it has more torque and diesel engine lasts much longer than benzine version, which is always usefull in the mountain areas and Thailand in general.

[SantiSuk]

*So why buy one you may ask? Well you try backtracking to a Honda Jazz or Toyota Vigo (which is where I started looking) once the wife-to-be, family of 20 and an entire Isaan village of supporters are routing for you to get a shiny black monster!!

Talk about FACE !!

Back ontopic: What is the price difference between a liter of diesel and benzine? ( I don't know sorry, not in Thailand ) . If not much difference, I would go for the Diesel, since it has more torque and diesel engine lasts much longer than benzine version, which is always usefull in the mountain areas and Thailand in general.

Yeah - tell me about it - spot on (the face issue)!!

Thanks for the comment. Diesel is 25 ish and I can't remember benzine price as I sit here but substantially more. When I did clock the benzine price I figured that the 100,000 baht difference in price (benzine model cheaper by 100,000) gave me 60,000 kiloms of 'free' driving and after that you lose money. So the diesel option is certainly the rational choice and I agree with your comments about longer term robustness of the diesel engine. Add to that that I suspect that Thais prefer diesels for the same reasons, so the resale value is likely higher.

But you cannot rely on a Government to keep price differentials between diesel and benzine static. In the UK diesel used to be substantially cheaper - now for some reason I know not why diesel is substantially more expensive.

The only reason I would buy benzine over diesel would be if the benzine motor was a bit quicker (which they always used to be in my earlier days).

[Forgive me for this boy-racer streak. I run a Jaguar XKR in the UK, so anything affordable here is a bit of a come down in speed terms. But I am now adjusting to Thai driving speeds and have reduced my average highway speed from 120 to 140 kph down to sub-100. My girlfriend thought I was an idiot at the higher speeds and having killed something for the first time in my life after 40 years of driving (luckily only a dog) I had to agree with her]

[Plus]

If you thought diesel was sluggish, expect benzene to be even worse.

[katabeachbum]

If you thought diesel was sluggish, expect benzene to be even worse.

The 2,7 petrol is very lazy. Same hp, but half the tourqe. And higher rear end ratio. Makes it very sluggish.

Fuel approx 50% more, at 31 baht/litres. Thats double fuel price.

Second hand petrol sells slowly

The 3,0D4d can be chips tuned to Euro spec. Thats 204 hp and 420 Nm at 1400-3400 rpm. 35.000 baht.

[SantiSuk]

If you thought diesel was sluggish, expect benzene to be even worse.

The 2,7 petrol is very lazy. Same hp, but half the tourqe. And higher rear end ratio. Makes it very sluggish.

Fuel approx 50% more, at 31 baht/litres. Thats double fuel price.

Second hand petrol sells slowly

The 3,0D4d can be chips tuned to Euro spec. Thats 204 hp and 420 Nm at 1400-3400 rpm. 35.000 baht.

Thanks v much - that clinches it!

[Digitalbanana]

Fuel can be 91Gasohol at 28B/litre but it still uses more fuel cost. Only advantage of Petrol Vs Diesel I see is the ride is quieter and more pleasant in towns. I have noticed how much more noisy the diesel rides are. The Diesel scoup air intake is ugly and hard to see over for the short <deleted> as well! The Diesel I had was average 11km/l and the petrol (gasohol 91) 9.5km/l.

[katabeachbum]

Fuel can be 91Gasohol at 28B/litre but it still uses more fuel cost. Only advantage of Petrol Vs Diesel I see is the ride is quieter and more pleasant in towns. I have noticed how much more noisy the diesel rides are. The Diesel scoup air intake is ugly and hard to see over for the short <deleted> as well! The Diesel I had was average 11km/l and the petrol (gasohol 91) 9.5km/l.

2 Fortuners on highway Phuket-Hua Hin-Phuket, 1400 km roundtrip. Speed around 140. 3,0D4d 4wd 9 km/l, 2,7 petrol 2wd 6,5 km/l. Fuel stop every 330-360 km for the petrol. We where both shocked.

Normally I drive 160, but my friend just couldnt justify more fuel pr km, so we did 140 this trip.

[maurits2000]

have driven both and own a diesel now (2 months old).

the petrol is sluggish and the diesel is for sure the way to go. i do not know how old the diesel was you tried but i do not agree it is sluggish at all. and i drove a porsche 997 in europe :-)

of course it is no match, but i am quite impressed by the torque (yes i know, a diesel) and the auto gearbox is reacting swiftly to your foot (unlike the honda crv i rented before).

i am very satisfied with the car. i think it is a very good option for thai traffic conditions.

The die is cast and have decided on a new (costa) Fortuner. Have road-tested a diesel version and found it disappointingly sluggish* but no dealer I can easily find (including BKK today) has a 2.7 benzine to try out. Dealer's staff (all pretty young girls rather than anyone who can talk about performance) maintain they drive exactly the same.

Does anyone have any informed comment about the difference?

*So why buy one you may ask? Well you try backtracking to a Honda Jazz or Toyota Vigo (which is where I started looking) once the wife-to-be, family of 20 and an entire Isaan village of supporters are routing for you to get a shiny black monster!!

And yes I do know that the benzine comes only with 2 wheel drive.

PS - recession what recession? You try buying the Toyota you want with less than 2 months delivery. What happened to Japanese just-in-time production claims?

[maurits2000]

forgot to say that i do usually 600-700 km on a full tank. i drive with average speeds here (because the farang is always guilty :-)

The die is cast and have decided on a new (costa) Fortuner. Have road-tested a diesel version and found it disappointingly sluggish* but no dealer I can easily find (including BKK today) has a 2.7 benzine to try out. Dealer's staff (all pretty young girls rather than anyone who can talk about performance) maintain they drive exactly the same.

Does anyone have any informed comment about the difference?

*So why buy one you may ask? Well you try backtracking to a Honda Jazz or Toyota Vigo (which is where I started looking) once the wife-to-be, family of 20 and an entire Isaan village of supporters are routing for you to get a shiny black monster!!

And yes I do know that the benzine comes only with 2 wheel drive.

PS - recession what recession? You try buying the Toyota you want with less than 2 months delivery. What happened to Japanese just-in-time production claims?

[jumnien]

I've driven a benzine model for 5 years and love it, but I just filled up at 2,150 baht! Ouch!

[Jareddiving]

Here we go again..

I drove a Porsche, i drove a Jaguar, i drove a merc... now i am worrying that i will spend 1000 Baht more every month on petrol..

[imaneggspurt]

If you thought the fortuner 3.0 td was a slow you will hate the petrol as its a slug,.and a noisy one,.

[Digitalbanana]

Depends how you drive a Fortuner for fuel consumption. If you like to drive fast (over 110kph) expect to increase your fuel consumption by 30-50%. I have found the 2.7 Petrol averages 9.5km/L at 100kph if driving conservatively and 5-6km/L if stepping up to 140kph or more.

[Datsun240Z]

Put a turbo or supercharger kit on the diesel, and you will be flying ( so will the fuel )

Edited June 27, 2009 by Datsun240Z

[Jareddiving]

It's not noisy.. well at least the engine isn't!

The wind can make quite a noise.

[katabeachbum]

Put a turbo or supercharger kit on the diesel, and you will be flying ( so will the fuel )

Datsun, the fortuner diesel has a turbo, intercooler, commonrail 2nd gen Denso, 32 bits ECU, and the fuel doesnt fly. Neither does the 2+ton truck.

[katabeachbum]

Depends how you drive a Fortuner for fuel consumption. If you like to drive fast (over 110kph) expect to increase your fuel consumption by 30-50%. I have found the 2.7 Petrol averages 9.5km/L at 100kph if driving conservatively and 5-6km/L if stepping up to 140kph or more.

For the petrol, yes I agree. The beauty of the diesel is the fuelconsumption and power. 160 kmh@ 3000 rpm, fuel never gets worse than 8,5 km/litres. Never.

Measured 40.000 km in one year on my 2005 3,0 D4d auto.

If you drive the diesel as conservatively as described with your petrol, its 12km/litres. My gf can. I can not.

[Mosha]

Our vehicle is a lot quieter when it's just me and my wife. The noise with 3 or 4 more Thais in is terrible.

[Plus]

Put a turbo or supercharger kit on the diesel, and you will be flying

You mean to say you don't know that Fortuner, as well as any other diesel pickup truck in Thailand, come with turbos already?

It was either a typo or you should hold back your comments on local auto scene, you might confuse other readers.

[SantiSuk]

OP comment.

Have put my order in now - diesel (TRD). But don't let me stop you guys continuing the debate and muchas gracias for the advice - didn't expect such a torrent.

Being new to diesel engines (apart from hired pick-ups) what is the best diesel fuel to buy? Oh no - what have I started running now?

Oh and can someone remind me what the conversion factor from km/litre is to MPG (Brits only need reply). Sorry - never did get round to adjusting to this one. My Jag does it for me if I want to know but I never needed to know

BTW - for the cynical responder out there I'm not a fantasist and I believe the other guy who drives a Porsche too!

Edited June 28, 2009 by SantiSuk

[mdechgan]

Go for diesel. Especially for the fortuner or vigos.

[PingManDan]

The die is cast and have decided on a new (costa) Fortuner. Have road-tested a diesel version and found it disappointingly sluggish* but no dealer I can easily find (including BKK today) has a 2.7 benzine to try out. Dealer's staff (all pretty young girls rather than anyone who can talk about performance) maintain they drive exactly the same.

Does anyone have any informed comment about the difference?

*So why buy one you may ask? Well you try backtracking to a Honda Jazz or Toyota Vigo (which is where I started looking) once the wife-to-be, family of 20 and an entire Isaan village of supporters are routing for you to get a shiny black monster!!

And yes I do know that the benzine comes only with 2 wheel drive.

PS - recession what recession? You try buying the Toyota you want with less than 2 months delivery. What happened to Japanese just-in-time production claims?

For Thailand conditions, Diesel is the way to go-

[Datsun240Z]

Put a turbo or supercharger kit on the diesel, and you will be flying

You mean to say you don't know that Fortuner, as well as any other diesel pickup truck in Thailand, come with turbos already?

It was either a typo or you should hold back your comments on local auto scene, you might confuse other readers.

Haha , I know they come with turbo. I wasn't talking about the "standard baby turbo ", something a little bit bigger.

[katabeachbum]

Put a turbo or supercharger kit on the diesel, and you will be flying

You mean to say you don't know that Fortuner, as well as any other diesel pickup truck in Thailand, come with turbos already?

It was either a typo or you should hold back your comments on local auto scene, you might confuse other readers.

Haha , I know they come with turbo. I wasn't talking about the "standard baby turbo ", something a little bit bigger.

Datsun, the "standard baby turbo" is capable of 280 hp and 500 Nm only with chipsing and exhaust. The beauty of a small turbo is max tourque/power delivered from 1400 rpm. If you replace it with a larger turbo, you get a ketchup engine. No power below 2500 rpm, and then the ketchup comes and ends at 4000 rpm. Doesnt work very well with an auto /permanent 4x4 truck.

[nikster]

Fuel can be 91Gasohol at 28B/litre but it still uses more fuel cost. Only advantage of Petrol Vs Diesel I see is the ride is quieter and more pleasant in towns. I have noticed how much more noisy the diesel rides are. The Diesel scoup air intake is ugly and hard to see over for the short <deleted> as well! The Diesel I had was average 11km/l and the petrol (gasohol 91) 9.5km/l.

2 Fortuners on highway Phuket-Hua Hin-Phuket, 1400 km roundtrip. Speed around 140. 3,0D4d 4wd 9 km/l, 2,7 petrol 2wd 6,5 km/l. Fuel stop every 330-360 km for the petrol. We where both shocked.

Normally I drive 160, but my friend just couldnt justify more fuel pr km, so we did 140 this trip.

Whoa that's a bit shocking. I get 9.2km/l over the last 3 years but that's with 4WD and lots of steep mountain roads. It's pretty good for such a heavy truck. Don't think it's sluggish either.

I was pretty concerned about the automatic transmission but the white model didn't come with manual and the lady of the house had decided on that color. In hindsight, it was a great decision - the auto is really excellent, doesn't have any issues on the mountain. I was afraid it would constantly be in the wrong gear or react way too late the way older autos do - but none of that here, it's as snappy as can be, reacts very quickly.

Comparatively, doing the same mountain road with a manual gearbox Mitsubishi Triton is a bear. It's manual, but it's more like driving a big truck and not much fun at all. The triton is a great truck but the stick shift I found very disappointing. Then again I am used to driving a little sports car where the stick is a lot of fun.

[dave_boo]

I've got the Pre-Runner with the same engine....not sluggish in my book. Great thing is that it's a manual transmission and has enough ummph that it was a joy to teach the wife how to drive on (really forgiving of a newbies mistakes at shifting).

Never actually measured the fuel consumption, but we always use B5 (a bio-diesel) from the Shell station. Works well and I get that warm fuzzy feeling that tree huggers get, or rather I suppose they get, from using 'enviromentally friendly' fuel.

And here's a calculator for MPG -> km/l. Note that's US gallons, so you need to multiply the results (say you type in 9.5 km/L and get a result of 22.35 MPG) by 1.2 to get British MPG.

[Datsun240Z]

Put a turbo or supercharger kit on the diesel, and you will be flying

You mean to say you don't know that Fortuner, as well as any other diesel pickup truck in Thailand, come with turbos already?

It was either a typo or you should hold back your comments on local auto scene, you might confuse other readers.

Haha , I know they come with turbo. I wasn't talking about the "standard baby turbo ", something a little bit bigger.

Datsun, the "standard baby turbo" is capable of 280 hp and 500 Nm only with chipsing and exhaust. The beauty of a small turbo is max tourque/power delivered from 1400 rpm. If you replace it with a larger turbo, you get a ketchup engine. No power below 2500 rpm, and then the ketchup comes and ends at 4000 rpm. Doesnt work very well with an auto /permanent 4x4 truck.

At the moment i'm putting a 1.8 Turbo into a golf with 300 PS. This amount out of a almost 3 liter engine, I don't call impressive.

[dave_boo]

At the moment i'm putting a 1.8 Turbo into a golf with 300 PS. This amount out of a almost 3 liter engine, I don't call impressive.

Impressive, but under what RPM range will you see that total output? Are you going to have to wait for the obviously big turbo to spool up? What about longevity of the engine (you are getting nearly 2x the power out of it per your claims)? How are you going to counteract torque steer?

And finally, what is your TORQUE numbers?

296 HP looks good on paper, but if you're putting out anything less than a healthy increase on the stock engine's 250 Nm (and accordig to my calculations if you're making 300 PS at 7500 RPM you only have ~282 Nm at the same RPM-a paltry 13% increase; compare that to the beforementioned increase of 46% on torque) you can colour me un-impressed because you just have a dyno queen that you sunk a bunch of money in rather than just chipping a stock vehicle....

[Datsun240Z]

It has to be tested on a roller bench yet. Powerband should come way earlier than almost the redline though. I will post the results. It's not a dyno queen! I hate building cars like that.