After six months, the Avensis 2.2 D-4D Tourer has returned to Toyota. During its half-year test, it continually impressed with its fuel economy.

Average consumption has been steady at just over 50mpg (50.9mpg), while the last motorway cruise of close to 150 miles returned 63mpg.

Around town, as expected, the car returned figures in the low to mid-40s, which is still above expectations.

However, that average figure is impressive as it betters Toyota’s claim of 50.4mpg – it’s not often a car out-performs in this way.

On the downside, the satellite navigation led me astray several times.

On one occasion I was diverted back into the middle of roadworks, on another it repeatedly warned of delays close to home, still 80 miles away, but failed to warn of a one-hour delay just a mile ahead.

Toyota said the disc-based system in our test Avensis (there is now an ungraded version that uses a hard-drive) receives its on-going traffic announcements via the Classic FM frequency and is reliant on that for updates.

Toyota said it is continuing to revise the system.

Where Toyota’s technology did impress was its hard-drive stereo, which records CDs when they are first played.

This means CDs only need to be in the car once, and then the hard-drive recording can be played any time in the future. Simple and inspired.

Other attractive touches that will appeal include memory seats, auto wipers and lights and keyless entry (though I have often got out and walked away with the key in my pocket, leaving my wife stranded in the driver’s seat).

It’s a well-equipped model, and in running cost terms stacks up, too.

Our Avensis will cost 34.72ppm to run over four years and 80,000 miles, compared to 35.88ppm in the Vauxhall Insignia Sport Tourer 2.0 CDTi 160 SRi and 38.83ppm in the Ford Mondeo estate 2.2 TDCi Zetec.