i have driven both petrol, petrol turbo, diesel and turbo diesel cars - for considerable miles...

if diesel smells or smokes its cos its badly maintained...

as for performance look at the figures - what most people read are the bhp figures and for sure diesel/turbo diesel are down on that for the same size engine, but look at what really matters ie torque and power curves and the diesel will kill you every time..

In fact the new dgenerations of performance cars are comming out with turbo diesel engiens rather than petrol engines (e.g. the VW GOLF TDI)..

having recently driven a Peugeot 306HDI common rail i can se why that is one nice engines and one seriously fast car....(in usable street terms)

as for emmisions pretty much the same applies a badly maintaned diesel chucks loads out - but so does a badly maintaned petrol, but look at the fuel consumption against emmisions and it pretty even stevens....

as to drivability all i can say is that you have to KNOW how to drive a turbo diesel, they are different than petrol for sure..but in snow or ice they will get places petrol wont simply because of the low reving torque (i followed a jag v12 over a road that he slid off 3 times - i was in a diesel and it was like driving on rails bacause my power layy doen was flat (in fact i had my foot off the accelerator and was pulling on idle...)

different strokes for different folks i guess, i personnaly like both - but my next 940/960 that will be added to the fleet will be for high miles and its going to be a td for sure...it will cut my fuel bills by 60% against a petrol vehicle and with petrol at $7 per gallon thats significant...but then again of course we a re signed up to the climate change accord....