The leading car auctioneer, BCA, has warned that buying a diesel car to save money in the long run might not always to be best option for private buyers. It says that, although a diesel version of a car will sell for more than the equivalent petrol version at resale time (mostly because it would have been around £1,000 more to buy new), the petrol may actually lose a smaller proportion of its value.Tony Gannon, BCA Communications Director commented, “There can be little argument that the average price of a diesel car always outperforms that of a similar average petrol model… However, when looking at the retained value over the typical 40 month working life of a volume fleet & lease car, the petrol car – perhaps surprisingly – is the stronger performer by some three percentage points.”