2.3HOT Aero Estate

[steventon95]

The ol' girl (2.2tid) is reaching the end of her useful life, and there seem to be quite a few 2.3HOT's around with fairly modest mileages.

I know if I bought one, it's going to cost me more in insurance (about £80) and VED (variable depending on year), but what is a realistic fuel consumption? We go to France a fair bit, plus the small people live in York, so I do a lot of motorway miles. Again, it's going to be a helluva lot more than the ol' 2.2tid which does what it says on the tin ...

[Steve440]

Mine gets used for a variety of trips.

Lots of local stuff say less than 15 miles or even less an I get 27mpg ish. In that will be a few fast blast's and traffic.

A reasonable run say 50 or so miles through the Cotswolds and it will go over 30mpg.

On a recent trip to Aberdeen which was nearly 1000 miles round trip, cruise control set to 75mph and 95% motorways it was doing 38mpg.

I have managed to get it to 44mpg once but there is no point in having an Aero if that is how you are going to drive it all the time.

Like with all Turbo cars especially ones with lots of boost you go fast and you will end up paying for it. If you can keep the boost gauge out of the orange sector it makes a big saving and the red sector is costly but sooooo much fun.

Go for it, they are a bargain at the moment.

Steve

[aljshep]

On long journeys expect 35mpg
(can be more with sensible driving but who drives an Aero sensibly?)
Around town you might get 25-28 mpg
Less if stationary most of the time in the city.
An auto will use 15% more than a manual.

[mikeloadsasaabs]

My 2.3HOT auto estate has consistently returned 27mpg in everyday use, including A-roads but no motorways. On longer journeys consisting of mainly motorway, it has consistently returned 33mpg, but never more. It doesn't seem to matter whether we cruise at 70mph or 100mph. We now live in Austria so it has had a good number of long-distance motorway thrashes across Germany! It has now covered 196,000 trouble free miles and the consumption hasn't really changed over the last six years and 125,000 miles that we've owned the car.

[sgould]

I've had an Aero saloon followed by an Aero estate.  Both autos. Both were upgraded withe the Hirsch remap and hardware.

Around town consumption was normally 22 mpg when I was commuting into West London.  That was a mix of motorway to the North Circular Road followed by dodging through back streets.

My regular trip to Devon at a weekend along the M3/A303 usually gave 28 mpg, but it was rarely done leisurely.  It was an after work Friday evening dash, then back on Sunday night to London.

The other regular trip was to South Yorkshire by the A1 which was flatter and had more dual carriageway.  30mpg was normal.

Our recent drive to the south of Spain and Gibraltar and back, including several excursions along small back roads and passes in the mountains gave 30 mpg.  Same the previous year to the Alps.

The best I ever saw was the 44 mpg on a quiet trip from Rouen towards Biarritz, taking the loop via Caen, Rennes, Nantes & Bordeaux when we set the cruise at the speed limit (130 or 110 kph) and saw little traffic. We chickened out and filled up after 660 miles as it was Sunday and not all filling stations were manned and the auto ones wouldn't take UK credit cards.

Worst I ever got was 14 mpg when there were three consecutive days of very bad weather and accidents that made my 12 mile commute take over 2 hours!

[TomPaine]

I went from a [manual, saloon] 2.0 lpt to an [auto, estate] Aero and the summary would be that the very small increase in insurance and small decrease in fuel consumption were more than offset by the big increase in smiles per mile. They've been a bargain used buy for some time now, and quite a few come with high spec in terms of the toys.

[mikeloadsasaabs]

My 2.3HOT auto estate has consistently returned 27mpg in everyday use, including A-roads but no motorways. On longer journeys consisting of mainly motorway, it has consistently returned 33mpg, but never more. It doesn't seem to matter whether we cruise at 70mph or 100mph. We now live in Austria so it has had a good number of long-distance motorway thrashes across Germany! It has now covered 196,000 trouble free miles and the consumption hasn't really changed over the last six years and 125,000 miles that we've owned the car.

Forgot to say that it's got a Maptun Stage 1 ECU (265bhp/420Nm). I only ran it for around 5,000 miles without it, but I don't recall it making any difference.

[steventon95]

Many thanks chaps, time to go and have a look at a few. Any recommendations manual v auto?

[ScarbSaab]

Aero auto is still pretty quick and good fun in Sport mode. With the manual paddle shift there's no real loss in setting off, such as when you need a quick response for crossing junctions. This is the second 9-5 I've had with auto. Occasionally I'd prefer a manual but now more of my driving is about getting from A-B the auto wins hands down, particularly around town.

The one downside is its sluggish response if you need to quickly reverse direction, for example, reversing into a parking space. There is a definite lag before it engages, which can be awkward with busy traffic.

[Geoff1951]

FWIW, reading and summarising previous posts and also historic ones,what the 2.3 petrol engine is like for economy is rather like measuring the length of a piece of string.
The 2.3 petrol engine whether in bog standard tune at 185 bhp (very early ones had 170) or anything up to the HOT's 250bhp will give you low to mid 20s round town and mid to high 30s mpg on a long journey.
Manuals will give a few miles more, (in my own experience it's not as wide as the 15% margin aljshep mentions, but we're probably both right!) but the biggest factor is how heavy your right foot is, regardless of power output.
Various after-market tuning options, apart from maybe the extreme top end stuff, also seem to have negligible effect on consumption, ignoring the greater likelihood of a heavier right foot.

I've been running a 2.3t Vector auto for almost 100k, 185 bhp originally then Hirsched to 220 bhp at around 50k.
Overall consumption before was 26.5 mpg, 25.6 after. But for the past 20k I've been doing more short journeys than the previous 80k. Worst tankfuls are around 21mpg, best was 35.9. I think my right foot is heavier than average, but my figures are reasonably typical of those others have posted.

Whatever you get, it will certainly be a lot less than the 2.2 diesel gives. But, hey, it'll be much more fun!

As mentioned, check the VED rates -  they can vary enormously with age of car being a big factor.
IMHO again, a 2.3 Aero will be enough. While aftermarket tuning is great, the insurance cos don't like it - see many, many posts. I love my car, especially with the Hirsch tuning and springs (fitted 10k after the remap), but looking back I should have gone straight for an Aero in the beginning rather than a 2.3 Vector. Would have been less grief from the faceless ones.

I echo ScarbSaab's comment on the Sport button. And the convenience of an auto around town. I've never really bothered with the paddles though.

D'you need anyone to come window shopping? There'll be a dozen or more of us willing to help you choose!

[idlerider]

Concur with most of what's been said. I get 26-27 going 6 miles to work and back around the lanes - around 33-34 going down to England (manual gearbox). Power is more than adequate in standard form (apparently, these things are faster from 40-80 mph than a Porsche 911 turbo) - any extra is more than the shell can happily handle.

[TomPaine]

Many thanks chaps, time to go and have a look at a few. Any recommendations manual v auto?

Auto for sure. It's just such a smooth box and suits the car so well. You've always got the paddles if you want manual control, though I really don't think anyone uses them: I haven't touched mine since establishing on the test drive years ago that they work. It's my first auto, and I fretted that being a motoring enthusiast I would regret losing the control and driving experience of a manual, but for a big car like this I wouldn't go back. Though we do also have a manual car which allows my left foot to stay in tune.

Bear in mind also that there seem to have been more Aero autos than manuals built - certainly in estates, not so sure about saloons - so your field of choice will be wider with an auto.

[steventon95]

Off we go tomorrow to look at the first one ...

[rhodgie]

Same as most of above......   My 2.3t auto estate which has been noob'd averages 28/29 over a mixture of roads... Motorways at 70 gets 36-39mpg, managed 44mpg once also but that was in convoy with others who were towing trailers at 60mph. Can't comment on any difference between auto and manuals but I'd always have an auto as a personal preference. Its been pretty consistent since getting it at 45k and now at 107k.

[steventon95]

Curses.

A lovely thing to drive, but oh those blasted sports seats. Both myself and SWMBO find them uncomfortable. Much prefer the old style comfy armchairs for a long run. None of the more modern cars seem to have proper seats.