[Kate Parker Adams]

Yowch - 18/20 mpg on a Subaru?  My 12 year old Fordzda wagon (escort/323) 
just got over 38mpg on the last road trip.  It gets 30-35 with a 10 cubic 
foot kangaroofpack on top, a load of camping gear, 500 lbs of people and 
three bikes on the back. (it has 135,000 miles on it now and we track gas, 
oil, and coolant use as a monitor of geriatric compression and gasket 
health).  Even the comparatively huge Suzuki XL-7 4 wheeler SUV I rented in 
Oregon got 30+mpg, extensive 4wd dirt road use included.

I wish they made a hybrid minivan I could afford to purchase and to 
maintain (pretty much stuck with dealer service - not a desirable state in 
these parts).  We are looking to the day we need to replace our family auto 
now that rear legroom is an issue (6'2" husband and our long-legged sons 
competing for space) and extreme age issues are increasingly worrysome - 
maybe the next time around we will have more resources to play with.

Glad to see someone is buying hybrids though. They make great sense, and 
I'd love to see them go totally mainstream.

At 05:40 PM 10/14/2003 +0200, Vincent VAGNER wrote:
>18/20 mpg ??
>What kind of car , or truck, is it ? In Europe, most of the middle-sized
>cars have a consumption of about 40 mpg, and they have about 90 horsepower.
>
>Vincent