XC70: General Best mpg yet.

[yostumpy]

Currently in France
Day 1 saw chaos at Dover and we missed our ferry ( bl**dy Brexit) so arrived in Calais 1 1/2 hours late.. Drove to Dijon for first night. Trying to make up time over the 400+ miles ,driving at 80 (130 kph) saw an mpg of 42.3 mpg on the readout.

Day 2 , left Dijon and headed down to Cassis , on the south coast. Another 400+ mile day. Now bearing in mind we hit gridlock around and through Lyon (satnav) , Marselle and 2 other major hold ups, and a regen early on, and we filled up before leaving Dijon and reset trip. So driving at 100-105 kph ( road was very busy so restricted to 110 kph anyway for most of the way) have a guess what the mpg readout was on the screen.when we arrived.........

54 mpg ! It was 56.5 mpg before the regen, and Lyon. For an Xc70 I think that is pretty reasonable. We did a similar trip in our Fiat 500 TA, and achieved 62.5 mpg without any hold ups at all.

[Tatsfield]

Often used that route with the overnight in Dijon. The traffic around Lyon is dreadful but once through it's a great trip. For a furniture van like our XC70, that mpg is very acceptable. Oh to be in the South of France again.

[apersson850]

The rather high position of the body of an XC70 does increase air resistance. With a Cw value of 0.35, the XC70 isn't the slickest around. This means that already around 80 km/h or so do you reach the point where half of the power applied by the engine is to overcome air resistance, the other half for roll resistance.
Since the power demand to handle roll resistance increases in a linear fashion when speed increases, but the power to overcome air resistance increases by a power of three, it's easy to understand that as soon as you exceed 90-100 km/h, you are leaving the most economical territory pretty fast.

[monkeh]

At the moment - With a 2.5" lift, and town driving, I'm not getting more than 33mpg!

[yostumpy]

Currently running around Cassis / La Ciotat/ Marseille/ Aix en Provence after a fill up. Was 54 on arrival in Cassis, then a climb up the mountain to get out . @ 30 mph dropped that down to 53.1 mpg at filling station at top of ‘hill’ gave a correct reading of 51.7 mpg.
Now running around the mountains and it is quite frustrating as it’s up a 1 in 4/5 for maybe 2-4 miles with hairpins galore and then every 1/2 mile a village, meaning 70 kmh down to 50 kmh, then a further reduction to 30 kmh! with speed humps, that you REALLY don’t want to hit at more than 20 kmh, they are vicious.
Took 3/4 hr to drive to Aix-en and 2 1/2 hours to get back. Traffic!!!! Sat nav wanted to take us back via Marseille? All the time. In rush hour!!! Finally turned it off and wiggled our way cross country using a 2013 road map.
Anyway all this and it’s still showing about 39.1 mpg prob about 37.5 really.
Also France is having a freak heatwave, with 41 degrees at the moment, setting new records again, so air con on all the time as well. Oh, and roundabouts, don’t the French love their roundabouts.

[Tatsfield]

There was a time when the French didn't have any roundabouts at all but used their mad Priorité á Droit scheme, but then at the point where the UK started to install traffic lights on roundabouts and put down white lines and lane instructions, which destroyed the dynamic movement principle on which roundabouts are based, the French took over this sophisticated traffic flow system and now they are more roundabout conscious than we are!

[apersson850]

Unless posted, högerregeln is the rule in Sweden. That is, if you come from the right, you have right of way. Logic, isn't it? Right - right. Only fails in the UK.

Anyway, here we have a special rule for roundabouts. They aren't considered normal roads, if they are posted with the special sign for roundabouts. In such a case, priority for those inside the roundabout rules. Going strictly by "right has priority", you should stop and let people in, if you are inside the roundabout.
I haven't been driving in France for several years now, but last time I did, that was the rule in many roundabouts.

Before roundabouts were defined as a special case in Sweden, the same rule applied "de facto", since there was always a yield sign at the entrance of the roundabout. But now that's the default.

[Tatsfield]

All French roundabouts have signs proclaiming that the right of way is with the roundabout traffic not the joining traffic. The French seem to have adopted the principle completely without any problems.

[apersson850]

They may have now, but they didn't in the past.

[apersson850]

Due to pretty frequent towing, the average consumption for my XC70 is pretty high. But right now the trip computer states 7 l/100 km since last reset. Some towing during that time, but not very much.
Still not too bad for a 2 ton vehicle with 230 hp engine, all wheel drive and automatic gearbox.