Diesel cars for sale

Browse the best and biggest choice of used diesel cars for sale. Discover the best diesel car for your needs, whether that's a family-friendly hatchback or a you fancy the additional room and ruggedness offered by an SUV. Buy or arrange finance online and have the car delivered to your home for free with BuyaCar. All cars are sold with a warranty, so find your dream diesel on BuyaCar today.

Why should I buy a diesel car?

If you’re looking for the greatest convenience for long-distance road journeys, a used diesel car is still the way to go. Simply fill up the tank with diesel fuel and put aside thoughts of doing it again for several hundred miles. Most diesel-engined cars will easily cover over 500 miles between refills, while those with larger fuel tanks will get closer to 1000.

Newer diesel cars also need refilling with a cleansing agent known as AdBlue or Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) to help ensure they meet tougher emission controls. How frequently this needs doing depends on the size of the AdBlue tank and how the car is driven, but every 5000 to 10,000 miles seems typical. Diesel cars may have fallen out of favour thanks to those stricter emissions regulations, but they remain, for now, the most convenient and wallet friendly engines, particularly if you drive long distances regularly. That popularity slump may also help drop used diesel car prices, adding further incentive to buy a diesel-engined used car.

What are the disadvantages of buying a diesel car?

Diesel cars aren’t at their best on short trips because they are not particularly fuel efficient when they are cold. Newer diesel cars additionally have a diesel particulate filter (DPF) to help further reduce harmful emissions, but these also need to be hot to work properly, which short journeys don’t allow. Too many short journeys will cause a DPF to become blocked with those particulates from the burnt diesel fuel, which can be expensive to fix. Diesel cars are more strictly penalised if you drive into low emissions zones such as London’s ULEZ, so if you drive mainly in those urban areas a hybrid or an electric car is likely to be a better option. 

How else do I know if a diesel car is best for me?

This very much depends on the size of car you drive and the driving you do. If you drive a smaller car, drive short distances regularly and usually cover fewer than 15,000 miles per year, a diesel car isn’t the best choice and a petrol, hybrid or fully electric car would be a better bet. However, if you need a larger car, perhaps for towing, and you drive more than 15,000 miles a year, the balance tips the other way and your best bet is a diesel, ideally the newest model you can afford, as this should offer you the most affordable and efficient diesel model for your money.