good fuel consumption in town but poor on motorway?

Aug 09, 2009 4 Replies

In conversation with a friend recently he told me that his two year old Toyota Yaris was excellant with petrol consumption around town giving up to



50mpg, but the consumption on motorways was very poor.

Would this be characteristic of this vehicle, or might there be something wrong? Thanks for any advice.


Tell him to use 5th gear.

Seriously though, town cars will be less good on motorways than out and out long range cruisers, but should still do OK - it shouldn't be doing

30mpg when he gets 50 round town, for instance.

Does he do 70mph, or 85? that can make a huge difference, especially in a round-town car with correspondingly short gearing.

On a Yaris unles they're driving at 85 it still ought to be getting better consumption on the open road than round town.

Wifey had a 2000 1.0 vvti. Pottering around town got around 50, but plodding down the motorway at 70mph barely got 40mpg, even in 5th. I think the car was geared so the engine was still spinning quite highly and breathless on the motorway. I believe the differential between mpg at high and medium speed is far less for larger motors.

If it's a small-engined one, then it will be low geared and underpowered for motorway speeds, so to get anywhere it needs thrashing.

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