[talkingcars]

Last Sunday afternoon I had to drive from near Gatwick to North Manchester and back, then on Monday to Stoke on Trent returning on Tuesday.

On Sunday I wanted to do the return trip as quickly as possible so did, especially on the way back, did the whole 490 miles in 7 hours!

I left with a full tank, put in £46 in Manchester (245miles) and refilled with £50 when I got back!

Worked out to be about 27 mpg.

Then on Monday night I left home just after 8pm, drove to the Hotel in Crewe sensibly, then back home sensibly on Tuesday after the meeting in Stoke getting to the bottom of the M40 (360miles) before refilling and added a further £8 when I got home, that was a total of 416 miles for £59!

My first car was a Lada 1200, it always returned 20 mpg, my scirroco 1.6 GLi (105bhp) returned around 28mpg, my 3.5 V8 range rover was well under 20 mpg and my 2.9 V6 espace was even worse, especially on long runs.

When I did the calculation - 37 mpg!

Moral of the story - can't afford to run a 180, buy a maestro diesel turbo, that used to do 45mpg on a long run with my wife driving.