I have been towing the last few years with a Subaru Forester. It has been running around 30 mpg when it is clean (i.e. no boat and roof racks removed) Mileage drops to around 24 towing an iceboat trailer and around 21-22 towing an A cat.

What I find most interesting is that just adding Thule roof racks to the cat costs about 2 mpg

I drive about 30,000 miles per year of which about 20,000 miles is traveling to sailing or iceboating events. The Subaru does a lot better on gas then the Toyota tundra it replaced

What was a real shocker was traveling to Europe last winter to go iceboating. Almost all of the hard core ice boaters drive diesel cars. I spent a week driving in a large diesel BMW hatchback~7 series equivalent. I figured out what we were getting in gas mileage after the trip. Overall it got around 50 mpg. About ½ the distance we drove we had 11 DN Iceboat masts strapped to the roof rack. Most of the driving took place between 90 and 150 mph depending on the country. The drag from the masts reduced our top speed from about 240 kph down to about 224 kph.
In contrast I rented a car to get back from Bremen to Frankfurt to go to the airport. It was a 3 series BMW hatchback (gas) with no roof racks. I burned 104 liters (~ 25 gallons) =160$ going 400 Kilometers ~250 miles. That car only went about 215 kph. (Piece of [censored])

My conclusions are the euro diesels are very efficient, quiet, accelerate well, and start just fine at ~ -15°C (the coldest it got in Sweden while we were there). I would think long and hard about getting a VW Passat when I need a new Car

Cheers,
Eric