aussieoutback

I have had my 2004 outback for 5 months and find the fuel consumption pretty poor. Most of my travel is city driving and I barely get 18 MPG and thats trying to be very light on the gas. If you drive the car normally without looking at the displayed fuel use the consumption goes down to 16 MPG.Fuel in the land down under is currently at $4.72AUD per gallon. What happened to the notion of modern fuel efficient cars? Apart from that its a very nice car