Why all the advice to buy a Prius? Far more fun to buy a motorbike for when you don't need to carry the golf stuff! I commuted by bike for years and used it for business visits also. Nowadays vehicles are strictly for pleasure! Ours - 2008 Stornoway Grey HSE Auto
Tricia's - 2006 Royal Blue Beetle Cabriolet Auto
Mine - 2014 Vespa GTS 300 Super Sport Matt Black
Ours - 2007 White Bailey Pageant Champagne

I got as far as the first two and stopped reading. My advice would be to ensure that you are following the correct procedure for measuring MPG per tank of fuel and not relying entirely upon a gauge. If you're calculations show you're up by 5mpg, that's about 60 (12 gal tank) miles per tank further. That's around a couple of hours extra travelling per tank. The safest place to be in terms of road safety, is off the roads so when driving on them, do everything you can to get where you're going and off the roads as soon as you can.

You have chosen the wrong vehicle if fuel economy is any concern. I was getting 30-35mpg back in the 1980's so even with a 2009 HSE Td4, nothing has changed in that regard.

Seriously? Over inflate your tyres so they will wear unevenly and drive among the lorries at 55mph when you could be travelling at 70mph? Please don't do this unless you absolutely have to due to road conditions. I'm sure you're a reasonable person and you have reached your conclusions for good reasons but I doubt you're gaining more in MPG than you're losing in wear and time. Whereabouts unknown stop going to follow stream until reach civilisation stop message ends

Hi All
Just joined and thought I'd chip in
when I got my HSE (second user, though 6 months old), I was getting a welcome low 40's on frequent cross pennine routes.
Howvever, now 5 years later it averages 36 for same journeys. Things must be wearing out.....

Thinking of getting a black box inserted (new programming) not chip replacement, to get extra mpg and performance back.
Any thoughts out there
Cheers Tony

Would not waste my money on a Black Box, a few resisters on a circuit board made at a cost of a few pence won't achieve much but a load of trouble, it just tricks the the ECU to add more fuel, if you seriously want to improve performance the only way forward is a proper remap. But, if you start to use the extra performance you will use more fuel, drive at the same rate you should use less, but then at the cost of the remap you will need to rack up the miles to get the cash back.

I'll vouch for that too

My TD5 Defender came with a Puma tuning box on it (RRP £400!!!!!) so I didn't think much of it and left it on. A few months back I was having issues with starting and it was suggested that the box might be the problem - so I removed it.

Cutting a long story short it turned out to be a duff starter motor that was causing the issues - but after driving for 2 months WITHOUT the box fitted my MPG has actually gone UP

Only difference I can feel to how it drives is that I seem to have lost a little bit of top end power, but that's only an issue once you start heading over 70mph... and being as aerodynamic as a house that doesn't happen very often anyway

I have moved from manual to auto:

Don’t get pain in arm & leg any more from start stop traffic.
Can’t do anything about Sydney’s steep topography and intersections.
Maximum tire pressure of 32 reduced to 28 which has improved Sydney’s goat tracks.
AC always on.

Engine is still too new & have let the car idle longer than necessary fiddling with the new car.

About 17 mpg for city driving.
One country drive 31 mpg.

Love the engine and quietness of the car and how much it irons out the roads. I walk where I can so I am still ahead with fuel costs. If fuel costs were at the top of my list I would have bought a different car.

Also, now I can see the road ahead with all the other 4WDs in Sydney. This alone was a key reason to get this car. Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18