In what’s become a mileage challenge tradition, we wrap up our spring series with some driving impressions of each car. After all, two editors and our editor in chief spent nearly seven hours in these luxury crossovers.
Yesterday we brought you results from Cars.com’s latest mileage challenge, a 300-plus-mile trip, mostly on highways. The BMW X3 came in first with 23.7 mpg. The Land Rover LR2 came in second with 22.8 mpg, while the Volvo XC60 brought up the rear with 21.0 mpg.
Case closed? Not quite. Premium cars often need premium gas, but these cars are a diverse bunch. BMW’s high-tech Valvetronic engines — like the one in the X3 — require premium fuel. For the LR2, Land Rover merely recommends premium; spokeswoman Kim Binder-Daniel said regular will do, though “performance will degrade.”
The spring’s mileage challenge took three entry-level luxury crossovers — the BMW X3, Land Rover LR2 and Volvo XC60 — on 300-plus miles of mostly highway driving around northeast Illinois and southern Wisconsin. The results? Read on:
Yesterday, we outlined the routes and cars for our latest mileage challenge: about 315 miles, mostly highway, in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. We’ll report the full results tomorrow; today, we’re looking at the effects of Sport mode, something many luxury cars and an increasing number of non-luxury models offer. The X3 and LR2 both had it, activated by moving the shifter from Drive to the manual-shift gate.
Memorial Day is nigh, and that means the summer driving season will soon kick off. AAA recently reported that it expects 27 million Americans — that’s 83% of all Memorial Day travelers — to hit the road this weekend. That’s down from 2007 but up nearly 3 percent over last year, when sky-high gas prices took quite a toll on Memorial Day travel.
Gas may be cheap, but gas mileage is still top of mind. That’s why it’s time for another installment of Cars.com’s Mileage Challenge. After last fall’s econocar shootout, we felt ready for something a bit more upscale. So we turned to entry-level luxury crossovers, a segment once dominated by the Lexus RX and BMW X3. With starting prices around $35,000, that segment now includes models from at least 10 premium brands, most of which boast lower prices, better gas mileage and cozier cabins than their larger SUV siblings. We matched one of the latest — Volvo’s all-new XC60 — against the venerable X3 and the Land Rover LR2 in its sophomore season.
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