My Mom has some Mercury hybrid SUV and she gets in the 30's with it. Forget the model though. Mariner, maybe?
- DAA
X2
We've had great luck with ford escape and mercury mariner hybrids. Never see them in for anything more than routine maintenance. Most owners are reporting high 20s-low 30s combined driving and they aren't as overpriced as the toyota hybrids.
Having said that, we had a 2011 prius hybrid for a month. Jenn loved it and I absolutely hated it. It did go over two weeks worth of driving on seven gallons of gas, but was completely void of any enjoyment in the process.
We were going to grab a touareg diesel for a recent trip but they are insanely expensive and dont seem to get that great of mileage.
Interestingly we took a 2007 range rover HSE to texas and back and loved it (and it didn't even break down). Wow that thing was super-comfortable and got reasonably good mileage for something that weighed almost 5k. Point being, if a range rover can get 20 mpg doing 80mph, you shouldn't have any trouble finding a mid-sized SUV that will suit your needs.