I've posted a report in the Aussie regional forum on a driving holiday from Brisbane to Melbourne and return, a round trip of approximately 2600 miles in the old units. I've attached here a tabulation of our fuel consumption as calculated at each re-fuelling. Speed was restricted to 100-110kph (~62-68mph), due to speed limits in the 3 states we passed through. Frankly, in many instances the roads won't sustain much higher speeds. North American and European drivers would be appalled at the state of our nation's main highways. I guess there is an excuse in that we are a nation of only 20 million in a land mass slightly smaller than the continental USA, so there isn't as much money per capita to throw around.

The average gas consumption was 9.61L/100km, or 24.5mpg (US gallons)

The car behaved perfectly, and it made our trip a real pleasure. It was fun to drive, and we felt extremely safe, even over rough, unstable surfaces. We noticed a change in the smoothness after about 10,000km on the clock (shortly before we left on the trip), but after the trip, it is now almost earily quiet. It is a really great grand tourer!

We used 500mL of oil (less than a pint) of oil over the entire trip.

AT or MT?

Its heavily based on your driving style, namely speed. You drove ~68, your milage reflects that.

Our car is manual transmission, 177kW version.

Driving style has a great deal to do with it, as do traffic conditions. In spite of the roads, we saw very little traffic on the way home through central west New South Wales.

labrat --

I have visited Australia twice:
- 1983, installing an airborne infrared scanner at NSCA for fighting fires. That was in Morwell, near Melbourne
- 1985, working with Task Force '87 for the Americal's cup. I visited, Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania, and lived near Perth for 6 months.

I enjoyed visiting and living in Australia, including learning to drive on the other side of the road. My wife went with me and was on "holiday" most of the time.

Thanks for posting your results. The MPG were so good that at first I thought they were imperial gallons, but I see they are US gallons.