Just for your information Jed, my Forester, which is AWD, gets 25 mpg at 7000 ft in the city and over 28 mpg at 70 mph.
That's still not as good on the highway as my '95 Volvo station wagon, which is a great hulking vehicle capable of carrying more stuff than most SUVs. Actually, it is rated at 30 mpg highway, but it does better when I'm driving. (Most SUVs have lots of room but very limited cargo capacity measured in weight, so people overload them without realizing it, and this causes accidents. Their brakes are particularly unsuited for heavy loads. See: "High And Mighty.")
If I lived up north where there is snow I would get an AWD vehicle. My sister, who lives out in the middle of nowhere in Virginia, has something similar to the Forester.
- Jed
