First Drive: 2008 Toyota Avalon Touring (32.8 MPG)

[SVOboy]

Rick’ Rental Reviews: 2008 Toyota Avalon Touring + Roomy and Plush+ Lots of Power and Responsive Handling / Nice Ride+ Efficient for Size and Power - Looks “Old-School”- Interior gaps and finish are “sub-Toyota”- Costly up-frontIntroduction: This is a fuel economy site. What’s a huge, luxury boat doing in the review section? [...]

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[MetroMPG]

Another good review, Rick.

I'm curious if you have figures for the car's coefficient of drag. You mentioned a couple of times that it's pretty good. I'm guessing in the .27 -.29 range?

[RH77]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

I'm curious if you have figures for the car's coefficient of drag. You mentioned a couple of times that it's pretty good. I'm guessing in the .27 -.29 range?

The 2008 base model is listed as 0.29 Cd. I may add it as a standard datapoint in the future.

It's pretty much the same old models these days on "Rental Row" -- there's a sea of Impalas and HHRs. Rental agencies are keeping cars into the 30K-mile range, so the same ones keep coming back. The exception was the Dodge Journey in Detroit, which was utterly terrible on many fronts. In the middle of the week, they bust out the Minivans -- had a Nissan Quest V-6 that returned some above-average city values (VQ 3.5L engine series).

This week has been the Malibu 4-cyl with max-inflated tires. 90% highway = about 30 mpg with tailwinds. and about 700 miles so far. Another data subset to an already reviewed car. Life's better with satellite radio, that's for sure...

RH77

[MetroMPG]

Posting the Cd figures with the reviews would be great. I wish all auto reviewers would do it.

I bet it'll eventually become commonplace, what with the price of energy increasing and automakers beginning to compete over CdA metrics.