My 1.8 weekend has always been good on fuel. We got just under 39 MPG over the Christmas/new year holiday when we covered 1080 miles. This included being stuck on the A1 in that snow in sight of the Angel of the North. Local use sees it drop down to around 35, still good for a car of that sixe. It's 100% standard and serviced per the book. Currently showing 104K miles I do use economy driving techniques which once you get intersted in it is anything but boring . We have another car for performance use.