Long Distance / High Speed In 2011 Auris Hsd

[Hicardo]

So we just had a lovely holiday in Vendee, France. Beautiful weather, food, sights, accommodation.

Decided to give the Auris a run, and averaged 49mpg for the entire 5 day round trip. This trip really shows the best and worst of the HSD. Firstly, let me say we were tanking it along virtually empty French roads on the way back. I kept it at an indicated 90mph, which was about at the speed limit of 80mph in reality.

It was actually a relief to travel fast because I think the Auris feels much more strained at 70. The difference in consumption is huge between. 65 and 80+ mph. But nevertheless, I suppose 49 mpg for 1750 of mainly m-way miles is pretty good. Car was faultless, never even blinked. French road quality is amazing. We are a 3rd world country in comparison...end of.

I thought the round the country lanes mpg of the Auris HSD would compensate to get me over 50mpg average, in the intervening Vendee days, but it didn't quite. I wonder what a Golf Bluemotion would achieve on the same journey? My guess is a lot more relaxed on the m-way, and about 60 for the trip. But I think in its normal urban and country lane environment, the Auris would be hard to beat. I am considering a swap, as I would really like a more accomplished motorway car.

[cuius]

Your consumption sounds about right - the majority of my motoring is on Spanish motorways. Usually have it on cruise control at an indicated 120kph (which actually 113kph/71mph) and my overall mpg is 55.3

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I thought it a little low. I averaged 63 mpg on our French road trip from start to finish, including many a moment on the French motorways (turning off just before the toll booths). We went from Yorkshire to Bordeaux and back including stopping off at random over 2 weeks.

Question for Hicardo: What oil is in the car? 5w30 or 0w20? And what tyres and tyre pressures do you have.

But don't the French roads and their drivers really show us up! Pull into a French service station and there'll be half a dozen people. Pull into a UK one and it's rammed. The culture shock from going from the French road network and pulling onto the UK's was massive. Going from empty French roads to our potholed, busy, worn out (think of the sunken tyre tracks in the slow lane) embarrassment.

Where does all our money go?

[Whitewagon]

Where does all our money go?

Into the EU pot that helps the likes of France and Spain build far superior road networks.

[smalltalker]

Roads, and specially motorways, should be fully private and users pay by usage. You will then get great smooth roads as operators compete to get more drivers on their roads. You will also remove the unfairness of everybody paying for roads that they themselves may not use, and reduce the free-riding of heavy road users.

Oddly, the usually socialist French understood that and now have an excellent pay per use motorway network that is a pleasure to use.

[smalltalker]

Also, the net UK contribution to the EU is approx £7bn per year, less than 1% of the total government spending of £728bn. So don't blame the EU on this one, it's the UK's government fault.

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8036097.stm

[Whitewagon]

Roads, and specially motorways, should be fully private and users pay by usage. You will then get great smooth roads as operators compete to get more drivers on their roads. You will also remove the unfairness of everybody paying for roads that they themselves may not use, and reduce the free-riding of heavy road users.

Oddly, the usually socialist French understood that and now have an excellent pay per use motorway network that is a pleasure to use.

I agree that the French tolled motorways are a pleasure to use but so is the rest of the non tolled roads which are payed for by everyone in France. In the main they are just as smooth and well maintained. The problem in the UK is clearly down to successive governments failure to invest in our road structure. I would rather they did this that waste billions on HS2 which in the main will only be used by a minority of tax payers.

[PeteB]

Roads, and specially motorways, should be fully private and users pay by usage...

I agree that the French tolled motorways are a pleasure to use but so is the rest of the non tolled roads...

Absolutely - when I first went to Ibiza in 1970, there were only 3 half decent roads, many secondary roads were challenging for a tractor! For many years, they've had fantastic, billiard table smooth asphalt (no chippings here!) roads right down to previously inaccessible remote coves, with perfect white centre and edge lines. Something's wrong somewhere...

[Grumpy Cabbie]

The Tour de France is coming to my town this year, and guess what? They've replaced ALL our roads that they'll be racing along. All ripped up and smoothed out at huge expense. I guess they don't want the French to see just how knackered and worn out our roads actually are. But the end result are roads we could only have dreamed of. They're like the ones you get in France, smooth, quiet and freshly painted white lines - just how they should be. Seriously they're really good now. No dips into grate covers, no faded white lines, no dips, lumps or bumps or pot holes - just super smooth highway.

Only trouble is they'll all wear out at the same time in 5 years and they'll be no budget to fix them all at once :( You can't have it all I guess.

Also, once you turn off the race going roads you're back in pothole city :(

[Uncle Buck]

Yes, this is definitely a govt issue - we pay the road tax, but they spend it on other things instead !

Belgium on the other hand has some terrible surfaces. The southern motorway route above France down towards Liege was shocking the last time I drove it (lumps, bumps, potholes & terrible for ruts too !) A bit like Edinburgh actually .....

I would love some motorway to drive on, but we're still in the dark ages up here :(

[PeteB]

Yes, this is definitely a govt issue - we pay the road tax, but they spend it on other things instead !

Belgium on the other hand has some terrible surfaces. The southern motorway route above France down towards Liege was shocking the last time I drove it (lumps, bumps, potholes & terrible for ruts too !) A bit like Edinburgh actually .....

I would love some motorway to drive on, but we're still in the dark ages up here :(

Yes, we in Norfolk have not a single mile of motorway either.

What annoys me most about the taxes we UK motorists pay so willingly (ha!) is that we pay vat on the astronomical fuel duty. Paying tax on tax just seems so intrinsically wrong to me.

As someone else said, would be interesting to see how the French, for example, would take it if their government charged them as much tax on motoring as we Brits have to put up with.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

They'd all jump in their tractors and blockade the capital and then muck spread the parliament.

If we tried that they'd arrest you, imprison you as a terrorist and then impound your farm.

[Uncle Buck]

They'd all jump in their tractors and blockade the capital and then muck spread the parliament.

If we tried that they'd arrest you, imprison you as a terrorist and then impound your farm.

Ain't that the truth !

[buklau111]

So we just had a lovely holiday in Vendee, France. Beautiful weather, food, sights, accommodation.

Decided to give the Auris a run, and averaged 49mpg for the entire 5 day round trip. This trip really shows the best and worst of the HSD. Firstly, let me say we were tanking it along virtually empty French roads on the way back. I kept it at an indicated 90mph, which was about at the speed limit of 80mph in reality.

It was actually a relief to travel fast because I think the Auris feels much more strained at 70. The difference in consumption is huge between. 65 and 80+ mph. But nevertheless, I suppose 49 mpg for 1750 of mainly m-way miles is pretty good. Car was faultless, never even blinked. French road quality is amazing. We are a 3rd world country in comparison...end of.

I thought the round the country lanes mpg of the Auris HSD would compensate to get me over 50mpg average, in the intervening Vendee days, but it didn't quite. I wonder what a Golf Bluemotion would achieve on the same journey? My guess is a lot more relaxed on the m-way, and about 60 for the trip. But I think in its normal urban and country lane environment, the Auris would be hard to beat. I am considering a swap, as I would really like a more accomplished motorway car.

Swap with a Golf? Not such a good idea may I warn you. It may look nice etc but give it 6 months or so and you'll relise the pain you will have to go through. The car looks nice, economical on fuel but when it comes to reliability its a no no for me. In personal experience with numerous Golfs, they're only good for dashboard EML and ESP. Its ridiculous that you have to pay £50 to diagnose it. Look on many forums ''VW Golf engine management light'' and you will see the horrific experiences people had, along with me. Some advise, dont pick a VW Golf, try Honda or stick with Toyota, they will never go wrong in ways which the VW does, unless you got plenty of money to splash!

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I think that's it in a nutshell. You get used to Japanese reliability and then it becomes normal, well until you go back to a European car.

VW's look good, well some do, but parts are expensive and my experience is that they treat you with contempt. I nearly bought a new Passat instead of the Prius but the nose up in the air attitude and downright curtness of the sales team put me off. Will never, ever set foot in there again unless my life depended on it.

[smalltalker]

This is a very interesting study on the congestion and the quality of the roads in the UK: What is wrong, and what can be done to improve:

http://www.iea.org.uk/publications/research/moving-the-road-sector-the-market-economy

http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Moving%20the%20road%20sector%20into%20the%20market%20economy.pdf

[Opifex]

French roads are a bit of a mixed bag. Trunk roads are generally good but when you get into country roads and the back streets in towns it can be as bad as UK. Our road has had potholes for years. Every so often the council come along tip a spadeful of asphalt into the hole and then drive the lorry over it to pack it down. Give it a few months and a bit of heavy rain and the hole's back agin.

I agree that French motorways are a lot more pleasant than in the UK, particularly since a lot of the service areas have been rebuilt in the last couple years, but it is at a price. Last year it cost me £540 in tolls to do the return journey from Calais to Avignon (about the same as Brighton to Inverness) four times. In UK it would have been free.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I agree that French motorways are a lot more pleasant than in the UK, particularly since a lot of the service areas have been rebuilt in the last couple years, but it is at a price. Last year it cost me £540 in tolls to do the return journey from Calais to Avignon (about the same as Brighton to Inverness) four times. In UK it would have been free.

You're kidding? When we were in France the other year we just programmed the SatNav to avoid tolls and we only paid 1 toll in the entire trip and that was because I wasn't paying attention.

You drive along, about a mile before the toll signs the SatNav says turn off, you turn off the motorway along with all the French cars, drive along the old route with the motorway still in your view, a few miles later you pull back on and away you go. Simple. Was fun to watch all the Brits whizzing along without noticing, presumably around the corner they'd see the Peage sign and grumble. The turn offs everyone else pulled off were usually weakly signed and certainly didn't give a hint you could avoid the tolls. Sometimes you had to drive through a nice small town, but they were never gridlocked like here.

The side roads were also like UK side roads used to be 30 years ago, wide enough for 2 cars but no white lines and no curbs. I think it's been a long time since you've driven down such roads in the UK as now they are as rough as a cobbled street. Literally pot holes ever few yards, worn out ruts, holes, sunken old roadworks, drain covers sitting proud. Nightmare,

Dare I say you had your rose tinted specs on with your comment?

[Cyker]

I think it's just a slow process; I've been whinging at my local council for over a decade about our road but a year or so ago they finally stopped patching it up and re-laid the whole road!

It's so smoooooooooth

The M25 near me is pretty buggered at the moment as it's being widened to 4 lanes (Well, that's a lie - What they are actually doing is turning the hard shoulder into the 4th lane which personally I think is a terrible idea, plus it doesn't explain what they've spent the last two years doing as repainting a line doesn't take that long surely!), but where they've finished or relaid the road it's so super smoooooth :D

There have been a lot of random roads in and around where I work which have also been relaid and are super smooth.

The problem with trunk roads is that relaying them requires restricting and/or closing them which has a massive knock-on effect with traffic. Esp. down south here where a lot of the major arterial roads have no alternative that doesn't add 2 hours to the journey!

As for car reliability, I'd say all manufacturers have had a decline in quality and reliability. I'd say the early/mid 2000 was when some of the most bulletproof cars were made - Things have gone a bit downhill since then. Emissions and economy have improved, as have bells and whistles, but reliability has taken a noticeable hit across the board :(

[Opifex]

I agree that French motorways are a lot more pleasant than in the UK, particularly since a lot of the service areas have been rebuilt in the last couple years, but it is at a price. Last year it cost me £540 in tolls to do the return journey from Calais to Avignon (about the same as Brighton to Inverness) four times. In UK it would have been free.

You're kidding? When we were in France the other year we just programmed the SatNav to avoid tolls and we only paid 1 toll in the entire trip and that was because I wasn't paying attention.

You drive along, about a mile before the toll signs the SatNav says turn off, you turn off the motorway along with all the French cars, drive along the old route with the motorway still in your view, a few miles later you pull back on and away you go. Simple. Was fun to watch all the Brits whizzing along without noticing, presumably around the corner they'd see the Peage sign and grumble. The turn offs everyone else pulled off were usually weakly signed and certainly didn't give a hint you could avoid the tolls. Sometimes you had to drive through a nice small town, but they were never gridlocked like here.

The side roads were also like UK side roads used to be 30 years ago, wide enough for 2 cars but no white lines and no curbs. I think it's been a long time since you've driven down such roads in the UK as now they are as rough as a cobbled street. Literally pot holes ever few yards, worn out ruts, holes, sunken old roadworks, drain covers sitting proud. Nightmare,

Dare I say you had your rose tinted specs on with your comment?

My main reason for using the French motorways is that it's so much faster. There are very few parallel roads on my route that have a speed limit above 90kph and it drops to 50kph as you pass through each village. On the motorway I can maintain a fairly consistent 130kph (admittedly with the dramatic drop in MPG mentioned in the original post). You pay your money and take your choice.

I'm not sure which comment you're referring to in the last paragraph. Local roads in both countries are maintained by local authorities who each have there own priorities. Maybe we're the exception, but I don't find the roads where we are in the UK anywhere near as bad as you are describing.

The lack of white lines, cat's eyes and edge markings on country roads seems to be common across France and can be a real menace at night when there are oncoming headlights. Another good reason for sticking to the motorways.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Well if it was anywhere in the South East then I'm sure they're well looked after.

Hate to be a whinging northerner but the funding from Government appears to lose momentum on its way up the country. My other half is from Kent and she used to think it was just whinging northerners until she came up here. Good example for funding and infrastructure cuts is the recent trains we got for the busy trans pennine line. It's busier than many in the SE and London, yet trains have been removed and sent south. You can see why our friends up in Scotland want out.

http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Fears-Hull-Manchester-rail-services-face-cuts/story-20761930-detail/story.html

John Owen, of transport lobby group TravelWatch, said: "This is another example of a South East-based Government not caring a jot for train passengers in the North of England.

"TransPennine is already the most overcrowded train company in the UK and will now lose 13 per cent of its train units.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/campaigners-fury-nine-transpennine-express-6768197

Now I know London creates a lot of wealth but give us a fair shot at it too. How can we if it's not just no infrastructure we're getting, but it's being actively removed. The following recent link gives you an idea of our roads and that picture they show whilst not the norm is also not unusual to see up here. Now you can see why I was so excited when our roads got resurfaced for the forthcoming Tour de France.

http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2013-03-14/yorkshire-worst-in-great-britain-for-state-of-its-roads/

http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/topic/potholes/

It's sort of related to the thread and to do with road condition which can affect hybrids :)