Was doing a forum search in an idle moment and saw some pretty crazy estimates of mpg for TDI allroads and thought I'd set the record straight.

Driving 50% motorway (steady 120 km/h) and 50% secondary roads (about 50 kmh), over a full tank of diesel I get a trip computer average of 9.8-10.0 litres/100km

Assuming 10.0 litres/100km, that's 23.5 mpg.

I'd expected the TDI to be in the range of a 5 series BMW with around 12ltr/100KM at WOT....kind of dissapointing, don't you think?

It's not great, that's for sure.

I would add that this was done over the past week with me TRYING VERY HARD to drive bang on the speed limit or below.

Fact is however I live in the North of Portugal and there are a lot of steep hills on my usual route and a lot of traffic. That means a fair amount of stop-go driving and some of it going up steep inclines. The ar is a seriously heavy car and hits 50+ litres per 100 km on a fast pull-away up a steep hill.

But there you have it, that's real world driving for you.

On the other hand, my usual mpg - when I drive as I like to (the term "osmium foot" comes to mind...) - my more usual mpg is closer to 18... or less.

I'd take an A4 Avant with TDI engine for simple ltr/km comparison. Maybe even the A6 would do better or the 5 Series TD Bimmer, last one I had in Germany got between 12-13ltr/100km going 230+ most times (short Vacation, no time to waste), so a really good alternative. Gas wise speaking, not by drivetrain comparison ;-)

33-35 highway. I'm waiting to see if the Q7 sees a diesel until I change cars. In the US a diesel model usually sees 50% increase in mileage with fuel pricing at or below regular in summer and same or slightly higher than premium in winter.

but if i get stuck in stop start traffic it hurts the average. But i do quite well out of the TDI, my father has the new A6 with the 3.0 TDI and he gets an average of 31mpg, but he doesnt do the miles that i do.