Portugal - Diesel or Not
 

2 years ago Fodors forum for Provence, France highly recommended to rent a car with diesel rather than not. I have not seen this recommendation on this forum. So I am wondering if it the same recommendation is for Portugal as well. We reserved a car (automatic) but there were not an option for; diesel or not. And a rental car agency, Portugal -auto-rentals, indicated that they cannot guarantee diesel unless it is a manual.
So, do I need to be concerned with diesel?
Thanks

I never gave this much thought, one way or another, but we recently rented a car in Portugal for a week and it was not diesel (it was manual).

Diesel may save you some money but I think you should stop even THINKING about it because there will be no guarantees that you'll even get one.

If you rent an automatic, you won't be able to cherish the Diesel engine anyway. Fuel costs don't make a difference either, Diesel prices are sky high too.

I would never again buy a car that runs on Benzene.

As a general rule, diesel is usually both cheaper and gives better mileage than petrol in most of Europe (except usually in the UK, where the tax system can make it pricier, even counting in the superior mileage)

Performance scarcely differs. On a typical 1.6 litre Ford Focus, the only discernible difference is slightly weaker acceleration.

Though you really can't guarantee anything with car hire, given the way fuel prices are moving you'd be well advised to register a preference for diesel.

I would think it depends on the amount of driving you intend to do. The more you drive the more economical a Diesel will be.
As modern Turbo Diesels also have much higher torque than similarly powered petrol engines, in gear acceleration of a Diesel will usually be superior and the car as a result a little bit nippier.
As an example:
A Volkswagen Golf with a 105 bhp petrol engine officially returns about 50 mpg and has a max. torque of 129 Lbs.ft at 1,550 rpm.
A Volkswagen Golf with a 105 bhp Diesel engine officially returns about 63 mpg and has a max. torque of 185 Lbs.ft.
Both accelerate from 0-62 mph in about 11 secs (the petrol one is half a second quicker, but in real life in-gear acceleration may be the more relevant figure.
The 1.6 Petrol takes about 14 secs for the sprint from 37 mph to 62 mph, whereas the 1.6 Diesel takes half that time only with about 7 secs.

Thank you all. Very informative. I will keep my request for Diesel and hope for the best.

Diesel smells awful. So don't get any on your cloths or hands. The smell after is hard to remove unlike petrol.
Make sure you purchase the right diesel as most European countries have a special low price (known as red diesel) for tractors. You can be fined if caught using it.

Ribeirasacra, thanks for advice. I will keep it in mind. In France we did not have any problems, hopfully Portugal will be the same.

0-62 in 11+ seconds? That is awful.

BigRuss:
So?
A Golf with that engine (either diesel or petrol) is pretty much standard for a rental in Europe.
How often do you accelerate flat out 0-62 in real life (especially when your speed limit kicks in at 65 already)?
How often, though, do you pull out behind a lorry or slow driver to overtake? That's why the relevant number to look at is the 37 mph - 62 mph time. Most diesels can keep up with significantly more powerful cars in that respect.