Review
The excellent Skoda Superb I’ve been driving around in for the past four months has now gone back.
During my time testing the car, the fuel consumption has fluctuated wildly depending on the heaviness of my right foot.
It has dipped as low as 38mpg and swung as high as 52mpg – all without paying too much attention to efficiency.
The official combined fuel figure is 47.9mpg and I’ve mentioned before how easy it is to exceed this figure, which is quite unusual.
Road testers are more commonly complaining about how the official figures are near impossible to achieve.
So, given the Superb’s already impressive performance on fuel economy, what happens when you really try hard to drive efficiently?
The route: 77 miles from deepest West Sussex to Hertford, taking in B roads, A roads and the M25.
The rules: driving at the speed limit where possible, but never exceeding it.
The result: a staggering 61.9mpg. It actually peaked at 63.3mpg before the negative effects of the stop-start M25.
My average during four months with the Superb was 44mpg driving an average of 600 miles a week.
If I’d achieved my 61.9mpg efficient driving result during that time, I’d have saved almost £20 per week based on a 106p diesel fuel price.
That equates to more than £1,000 a year.
Just think what a similar saving would mean to a fleet of 100 cars.
