2013 Rav4 Awd Diesel Mpg Query

[Nitehawk2014]

Renting a few cars at the moment to decide which one to buy

At the moment i have a 2013 Toyota Rav4 2.0 ltr Diesal AWD

I picked up the car on sat morning it had about half a tank in it , i drove to Essex down the M1/25 light moderate traffic , speed was about 70-80

the avg mpg (there and back) was about 43 mpg. Nothing to get excited about but nothing to complain about either.

i filled the tank up at the local sainsbury's i was a little put back by the crusing range....only 447 miles to a tank , i was hoping for more.

Monday morning at about 3,30 i headed off to Scotland , a nice 343 mile trip to test out the fuel economy.

again the car was driven at between 70-80 , most of it on cruise control.

i was a little bit concerned on the fuel consumption , nothing i could do seemed to raise the car above 35 mpg until i got to scotland where it slowly rose to 40.0

mpg , this was with a wait of a good 20 mins in traffic.

one thing i did notice is the occasional blip of the orange asterisk , then it said engine oil low , just after carlisle i pulled into the services , and had to put in 2 ltrs of oil in as it was very very low.

one thing i don't understand is why the average mpg would be very different over 2 days with the car being run in a similar fashion on both days.

the a/c was off on both trips

Does this fuel usage sound normal to you ? I like the Rav4 but this fuel usage is worry as i do the Scotland run each week

[gjnorthall]

I presume the figures you quote come from the vehicle display - these can be a bit iffy, though some Ravs are pretty spot on. The most accurate way of measuring consumption is by a tank brim to brim calculation. Around the mid 40's is probably the figure for mixed driving though I know someone who claims a regular 50+ mpg. I know this was a rental car but if you decide to buy a Rav - you might consider using premium rather than supermarket fuel - if you do a search on this forum, there's been a lot of debate on the subject. Bit worrying that the oil level was down by 2L!