I have been reading articles regularly on this board for nearly 2 years and thanks for sharing a wealth of knowledge. This is my first post as I have not been able to find a direct answer to the above question and I hope you guys can give some answers as I am sure many people sit with the same question and this is starting to haunt me an night ...

I don't want to open a diesel vs. petrol debate as we all know that both have their pros and cons in terms of towing, offroading, city travelling, overlanding, dune riding etc.
The only variable I want to explore here is which option is more cost effective in terms of only RUNNING and MAINTENANCE cost over the long run eg. 200 000km. ?
Currently I have a Gen3 2004 3.8V6 with 98 000km and it is an awesome car, BUT, I am starting to wonder if a Diesel of similar age and km. would not be a "cheaper" option. I get on average about 14.7l/100 (6.8 km/l) and let's assume a 3.2DiD gets 4l/100km less. That equates to roughly R 44 / 100km cheaper than the Petrol. Over 200 000km that equates to R 88 000 going up in smoke, ouch !
BUT, and this is where I get stuck and need some advice from you guys:
During this time, the Diesel got 26 (7500km) oil services and the Petrol got 13. If we assume an oil+filter service on both engines cost R 1 000, then we have to deduct R 13 000 from the R 88 000, leaving us with R 75 000.
Now maybe I have answered my own question, but to me it looks as if R 75 000 is a lot of cash in the diesel "kitty" as let's assume during the 200 000km one had to replace the injectors and diesel pump, now I don't know the cost of these parts, but I am taking a guess at R 40 000, than the Diesel still wins with R 35 000 in the "kitty" and then we have assumed that the petrol costed R 0 on fuel pump, fuel injection, head and anything else that could potentially go wrong with a petrol. Then of course there is also the chance that nothing went wrong with the diesel as I have read in the long distance section with diesels in excess of 200 000km who have not had any work done on the engine. So from a pure risk perspective it seems to me as if diesel wins as there is a chance I could score R 75 000 on the diesel. Even if you are in the fortunate position to buy new, the diesel is only R 15 000 more, so you could still "score" R 60 000 on the diesel.
This is my theory, how does your pratical experience match up ? How much does a DiD head/injectors/turbo/diesel pump cost and what is the likelihood for these items to be replaced within a 200 000km range ?
Thanks in advance.
Anton.