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When I joined my present company in 2007, I inherited a company car, 2006 Avensis 2 litre D4D hatch with 25k miles on it, in 18 months, I took it to 81k miles, trouble free, comfortable, economical, it avareged 51.8 mpg but most of my motoring is on motorways. I record all the fuel I put in the car on a spread sheet with the mileage so the mpg figures are accurate.
In 2009, I chose a 2 litre D4D tourer, in 151k miles it averaged 55.8 mpg. It seemed livelier than the previous Avensis, swallowed a huge load, BUT, the electronic handbrake had an actuator fail at 60k miles (18 months) which was replaced under warranty. The clutch had to be replaced at 70k miles due to me getting into the bad habit of letting the handbrake self release when it feels the clutch biting. At first, I hated the electronic handbrake but it grew on me, another criticism of it is at traffic lights, you tend to hold the car on the footbrake or if you are only likely to be stopped for a couple of seconds at a roundabout, you hold the car on the clutch.
In 2013, I chose another 2 litre D4D tourer, sad but it does everything it says on the tin and I decided to stick with what I know. It seems livelier than the 2009 model, the average is again 55.8 mpg in 53k miles.
As a company car driver, unless Toyota do something radical in the next 2 years, I will be looking at another manufacturer because: The 2 litre D4D is a nice engine but nowadays, a 2 litre diesel engine producing 124 ps and having 120 g/km CO2 is pretty poor, but the engine seems to be working easily without feeling that it is being worked hard. Also, the 1.4 diesel engine in the Auris tourer seems woefully underpowered. I tried a plug in prius for a 3 day test drive before my Avensis was renewed 2 years ago and hated it. Put a torquey diesel with a manual transmission in the prius plug in and I will have one.
Edited by wrangler_rover on 22/02/2015 at 08:30
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