[ScottyHP]

BMW figures for combined MPG of 42 or so is based on and average of urban and motorway/extra urban figures the reason most will never see a return of 42 mpg is because most people will not have bought a MINI to do exceptionally long journeys and motorway driving but for fun/enjoyment driving down country lanes and for nipping round town.

If you are mainly driving your car on short journeys this is always going to be the most un-economical return as the car has little chance to warm up and get to optimum efficiency. I have had small so called economical cars and gas guzzling BMW's but neither returned exceptional MPG around town.

I recently got a new job and work out of town (approx 25 miles away. I travel to and from work down a motorway and was getting around 26-27 mpg from my BMW 320i.

As the journey still isn't long enough to expect the MINI to reach its full mpg potential I will be expecting somewhere between 35-40 mpg. The Extra urban figures of around 50 mpg is only really obtainable if traveling the length of the country, which most will never do (atleast on a regular basis).

I will agree when you buy a car your eyes automatically go straight to the combined mpg figure, as impressive as it is most will need to create a new average between combined and urban in order to get a more realistic figure.

I have done this for you and the figure is 36.85 mpg this is closer to most peoples figures but is still only an average.

I quite suprised that most are shocked with there average consumption because just consider that the urban figure is actually only 31 mpg anything more than that should be a bonus.