Tim in Scotland
Member Since: 30 May 2005
Location: Driving along in my automobile
Posts: 17476

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I too have had that sort of a day................... not quite so far but made one of my rare forrays down to Edinburgh (Stirling has everything in the way of big name shops and is only 16 miles away, Edinburgh has the swanky shops but is a 100 mile round trip and �1.60 an hour parking!). Lovely sunny day, gusty North West wind, filled up the Sport for the 3rd time in 800 miles, reset the trip computer and set off down the M9 and M8 for the big city! With the sport I feel I once again have a car that I can just go for a drive for the hell of it - the RR was not like that, going out in it was an "ocassion". I think the last car I enjoyed driving as hard was the TVR350i I owned years and years ago!
Cruising along with 70 set on the cruise control and getting loads of X5's and ML's cruising up alongside to see what the Sport looks like is great fun on the nearly empty motorways up here during the day. Anyway even better was watching the fuel consumption readout clicking up..... 23,24,25,26,27...... oh this is so good and my wallet is feeling great too! 32 mpg was the best I saw on the wind assisted eastward run. In the cut and trust of Edinburgh city traffic it dropped a bit, but not that much, to 28.8mpg.
After doing my shopping things I set out for home along the same route. Lunchtime city traffic wasn't too bad and I was soon out at Ingleston and the start of the motorway again with 27.8mpg showing on the trip.
Down the sliproad and accellerate up to 70ish using the cruise to accellerate the car and the trip computer starts it's upward climb again, not so good this time as I was driving into a good 25mph wind! I arrived home unstressed, cool and with the trip computer showing 29mpg. Fuel consumption looks like it is going to be the TDv6 Sport's forte as it doesn't seem to matter if you welly it or relax and waft along the fuel consumption stays fairly constant.
I have just read the Autocar quicktest of the TDv6 engine in the big XJ6 Jaguar................ BMW 5 series and Audi A6 diesel's have just been knocked right into touch.
Here is the final summary in Autocar
"Unless I was dealing with a committed xenophobe, I've always found it difficult to recommend an XJ over its German rivals because they all did the job of stress free travel rather better than the Brit. But the XJD is one of those cars blessed with some outstanding attributes that still manages to offer the driver and passengerrather more than it should. For me it ressurrects the notions of Jaguar-ness as I imagined they should be: a car car of charm and consistent ablity, a car you step out of more relaxed than you would be from the opposition but without being able to explain why. Yes, it's very refined and offers fine ride comfort. But crucially, it's ever so slightly aloof. German car makers have been trying and failing, to build this quality into their cars for years, but Jaguar can still manage the trick spontaneously. Long may it continue." I think they rather liked it!
They also managed a fuel consumption of 34mpg out of it on the quick test, it was not being given a full test on a circuit. That is the same engine as the TDv6, but with 2 turbos instead of the one in the Disco3 and Sport.
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