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Hyundai Overstated MPG On Over 1 Million Cars
Hugh Pickens writes "Reuters reports that Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Motors conceded that they overstated the fuel economy on more than 1 million recently sold vehicles, and agreed to compensate owners for the additional fuel costs after the EPA found the errors in 13 Kia and Hyundai models from the 2011 to 2013 model years. The findings were a blow to the two carmakers, which have centered their marketing campaigns on superior fuel economy. The mileage on most labels will be reduced by 1 to 2 miles per gallon, with the largest adjustment being a 6-mpg highway reduction for one version of the Kia Soul, the EPA said. Hyundai previously touted the fact that many of its models get 40 miles per gallon on the highway. Now three Hyundai models, the Elantra, Accent and Veloster, as well as the Kia Rio fall short of that mark, as will the Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima hybrids."
I'm unconvinced anyway by mileage claims. I can't speak for the US system but in the UK it's done in a test where the car runs for a set period at certain speeds then either accelerates or decelerates to different speeds, all cars are tested at the same speeds and intervals to get comparable figures. On A Rolling Road
If they were comparable to real life it'd be nice: It makes no adjustment for whether some cars coast better than others downhill, effects of wind resistance, effect on drag of the car's turning geometry.... In the real world some cars do significantly better than their official mileages and others can't even get close.
My VW Passat 2.0i 16v (1991) once managed 56mpg on one long run and always beat 45mpg when it was officially meant to do no more than 42mpg, my 1.8D Ford Escort didn't even come close to its official range of 50-60mpg on long runs and my dad's Passat 1.8 20v likewise drank far more than the label indicated it should, and both my mondeo 1.8TD and Volvo V40 2.0i 16v significantly beat their official figures (the Mondeo with ease, it once managed 932 miles on a single tank, the V40 takes careful handling).
TL:DR? Summary: "Official mileage figures are unreliable, live with it"
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I'm british, when I say 'mpg' I mean miles per british gallon, which are bigger.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I have 2010 Genesis and I tend to get a bit above its stated MPG both in city and highway. Highway MPG can be 2-3 over its stated performance using regular unleaded. Premium gas can get another mile or so but the economics are not worth it.
YMMV
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Its like Korea was famous for their high quality car manufacturing business
I'm in the US and the MPG figures are not perfect, but they seem to be a little pessimistic. I can beat them by 5 or 6 percent, typically, for both city and highway driving. Of course, if you drive more aggressively, you can also see the opposite result. But I've never owned a car where I couldn't beat the EPA estimates.
I have noticed that even when you adjust for the gallon size difference, the UK/EU testing cycle gives much more optimistic results for the same vehicle compared to the US testing cycle. So when comparing, one has to adjust both for that, and the gallon difference.
which are bigger.
The miles, or the gallons? :-) Also, everyone else, note that liters and kilometers are the same everywhere! ;)
Ezekiel 23:20
ha ha douche. someone forgot the AC button.
Always check your own mileage. Keep the reciept from when you fill up and write the current mileage down on the back of it then do math next time you fill up
On a related note, for business travelers that need to keep mileage, there are apps available for that.
Well that sucks gass.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Except Saturns. Which is why GM bought them and shut them down because they were making vehicles that weren't pieces of shit.
My wife's saturn LS 4 door has 165,000 and going strong. Such a shame she may not be able to get another one when this one finally gives out.
...which is why people don't buy many American cars any more. Japanese makes top the reliability ratings., while American cars are among the worst.
Except at NASA.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
which are bigger.
The miles, or the gallons? :-) Also, everyone else, note that liters and kilometers are the same everywhere! ;)
Even still litres per 100 km is the better representation than mpg or km per litre as you are better able to compare different fuel consumptions. See Fuel economy in automobiles
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
True, your mileage may vary, but due to strict govt. regulations, it's difficulty to deviate from such metrics, especially considering the technology available to measure such performance.
On the other hand, printers vastly overstate their lifetime, ppm, toner capacity, etc. Little to no oversight either by its own industry or the govt., except maybe when when it comes to recycling.
What does this rant have to do with the topic of the article?
I remember that MPG used to be under estimated. I had a 2000 Escort 5psd coupe that was rated 33MPG Highway, but when I would drive to see my friend and required me to do nearly 2 hours on the highway each way I'd routinely get 40-42MPG. On the other hand NYC is roughly 100 miles from me and in my mustang that should be about 1/4-1/3 tank based on ratings, but it was actually closer to 1/2 a tank.
Don't know where you are, but the same is true of any car outside of its domestic market.
For example I won't buy a Volvo or a VW here in Canada because the repair costs are absolutely fucking insane. The same is true of pretty much every foreign car maker outside of a select few models(not companies, models) that sell like hotcakes for some unknown(to me) reason. Even those models only the regular maintenance parts are affordable. Wait till an exhaust header cracks or a fuel pump goes.
I bring my scanguage II. plug it in so I can read codes and on the t est drive see REAL gas mileage numbers. Not the overly optimistic dashboard economy number.
I find that almost ALL cars are 2-6 mpg off from reality.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Is that similar to buying a new printer because it's cheaper than replacing the carts? I remember the old days when the entire vehicle would cost less than a set of keys
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
In 2007 I bought my wife a KIA Soul
One of the main factors was the advertised mileage.
In our experience the mileage was not very good.
Even my wife commented that it was barely better than our Honda Odyssey!
Finally, earlier this year we sold it.
GM always owned Saturn.
Of course, your own mileage will vary, based on ambient temperature, road conditions, tire pressure/type, the gas you're using, your level of wakefulness, and your level of anger/stress. It's extremely unlikely that your real-world mileage will be even close to the EPA posted mileage.
Time for a lesson in comprehension, I guess: -
It has everything to do with the topic because it plays into the whle notion of mediocrity and gimmicry, among the subject car companies. They bamboozle Americans and have been doing so for a while now.
These companies lack candor. Please convince us that they do in fact have the honesty they protray among the buying public.
Ridiculous. Cars are more reliable than ever, and that's because they are designed well. For god's sake, we are at a point where a car needs practically no regular maintenance. No adjusting carburetors, no cleaning points, no timing adjustments, no changing spark plugs every spring, no adjusting brakes every fall, no engine rebuilds because bearings wear out.
The tradeoff is that every now and then, a sensor fails and you have to replace it. The problem is that they are more difficult to diagnose. You need to know how the engine's control systems work, and you very often need diagnostic equipment to pinpoint which sensor is the source of the problem. Dudes who grew up fixin' on cars by feel and superstition have no idea what to do, and just throw parts at the problem until it disappears- either the problem eventually gets fixed by one of the parts, or the customer goes away.
Very few people understand the important part of machine diagnosis: narrow the failure down to which part *actually* failed. Advising customers to replace rather than repair is giving up on that- its hard to do diagnosis, so the easy way out is to just replace the whole thing.
A classic example of dumb-ass diagnosis is the oxygen sensor system in a car. There is a sensor that tests for the right mixture, and then there is a sensor after the catalytic converter that makes sure the converter is working right. If the first sensor gets stupid, the catalytic sensor will think the catalytic converter is broken, and idiots replace that sensor, and then the catalytic converter, and then throw up their hands. If you know that the first sensor can feed false information to the rest of the system, you know to test it first.
The post 2008 ones tend to be perhaps, but I think the old way of measuring was consistently a mile or two high.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I read the article (yes, I know fop-aux) but how can they "overstate" mileage? They submit the car to the EPA and the EPA tells them the numbers. There is no testing at the car manufacturers site. The EPA farms this out, but that is still the rule of law by the EPA. Were they not listing the numbers provided by the EPA? Then fine Hyundai's ass into oblivion. If they marked on the window stickers what the EPA told them, even if Hyundai knew the numbers were wrong, then there is no issues in my mind and people should sue the hell out of the EPA.
Honda recently has lost it's stellar reputation. Many of the cars eating up rear tires because of crap suspension parts, engine mounts coming apart, and electrical issues.
I noticed that myself on the road, where the rear tires of Hondas would splay outward when hitting bumps or when heavily loaded. They must have made some stupid compromise, like sacrificing a good suspension geometry for trunk space or a flat rear floor.
Its ~correct~ itself its
Even still litres per 100 km is the better representation than mpg or km per litre
Not at all. It's the same information.
I'm Canadian. When I read "MPG" I see "Moving Picture Experts Group".
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
If you consistently beat them by the same amount regardless of the car, then they're doing a good job - you have useful gauge to compare different models, and you have a good estimate for yourself after applying the correction factor.
The question is whether the real-world numbers match the estimates. I'm not sure we could get that without requiring the cars collect the data themselves and mechanics submit the data at the regular service intervals.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
But can you explain this incompetence?
Let's focus on GM. Consider the Impala:
It sits on a 20 year old platform employing a V6 engine (which means fuel economy isn't great), whose horse power is less than some 4-cylinders! To make it worse, it will not get updated till 2014! Think about that, and you convince me. That this is not blatant gimmcry. To add insult to injury, you always hear, "American enginners are the best!"...and stuff like, "The best products are made in America!" Ohh Jeeze..!
The topic is how Hyundai and Kia overstated fuel efficiency for certain models and is now having to compensate owners for the error.
The topic is not planned obsolescence, product mediocrity, or "gimmickery."
I'm in the US and the MPG figures are not perfect, but they seem to be a little pessimistic. I can beat them by 5 or 6 percent, typically, for both city and highway driving. Of course, if you drive more aggressively, you can also see the opposite result. But I've never owned a car where I couldn't beat the EPA estimates.
I have noticed that even when you adjust for the gallon size difference, the UK/EU testing cycle gives much more optimistic results for the same vehicle compared to the US testing cycle. So when comparing, one has to adjust both for that, and the gallon difference.
They are intended to be typical for most drivers, not the best you can get. There are many factors that affect it: driver habits, the routes you drive and the traffic on those routes, your altitude, climate, etc.
GM shut Saturn down because they had too many marques to begin with. Look at the successful names and how many marques they have - the Japanese companies usually have two, there's VW/Audi/Porsche, Daimler has two that they are shrinking down to one. BMW has three in radically different market segments.
GM had Saab, Chevrolet, GMC, Chevy Trucks (separate from Chevrolet) Saturn, Buick, Hummer and Cadillac. They trimmed down to four, which is still a lot (they could probably loose the redundant Chevy Truck and GMC marques)
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
It's the same information presented in an easier to use form, because it's easier to multiply in your head than to divide. Also, if you live anywhere but the USA and your fuel is sold in liters and your odometer reads kilometers... In the USA, I contend we would be better off to report fuel economy in gallons per hundred miles.
Shoot, I forgot Pontiac. Seriously they had a stupid number of marques.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
My real world mileage on my Fiat 500 is about 5 mpg more than the sticker label. (42 mpg average)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
We could report it in dBmicroliters/lightyear and that would also be the same information. Sometimes the value of information depends on how it is presented.
...and whether or not you have the common sense [that God gave a grapefruit] to stay the fuck off the ass of the car in front of you so that you're not forever riding your brakes!
Even still litres per 100
Hold on.... I thought we were talking about liters, not litres.
Even still litres per 100 km is the better representation than mpg or km per litre
Not at all. It's the same information.
I said representation not information. Did you even read the link?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
And you think whatever was done was an error, right?
I will not blame you for that, but I will assure you that it is part of a well planned marketing gimmick by many of these companies.
...yet no mention (that I read, anyhow) of the lower numbers caused by fuel contaminated with alcohol. Interestingly enough, I live in one of the only states (if not the only state) that requires gas stations to state whether their fuel contains ethanol or not. I've driven to each and every one of the surrounding states and people looked at me funny when I asked them if their fuel was 100% gasoline. For what it's worth, I can get gas w/10% ethanol (87 octane) for $3.03 a gallon and 100%-pure (87 octane) for $3.19 a gallon. The cost savings of running the contaminated stuff (~5%) don't even begin to make up for the greatly reduced mileage I get - on anything I've driven.
"Except Saturns"
Ha ha ha ha ha! That's a funny one! Well, it would be funny it weren't so tragic - truth is the 1.9L-4 that they put in the SL2 was a piece of crap, and they knew it. There were problems with the head on most of them (mine was one, so I know whereof I speak) - they were not cast correctly and had a tendency to crack. GM never fixed this, or acknowledged it. They would replace heads that failed within 60K miles with another that would fail within another 60K, but by then it would no longer be under warranty, so they did not care. Should have been a recall, but never was.
Look on the web, you'll see hundreds (if not thousands) of others saying the same thing. Maybe the initial Saturn was great (I bought mine because of that reputation), but the later ones were crap. Uncomfortable for long rides, too, but that has nothing to do with reliability.
Suckers.
"You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" (1939) by W.C. Fields.
Fields plays "Larsen E. Whipsnade", the owner of a shady carnival that is constantly on the run from the law. The whimsical title comes from a line in an earlier film, in which he says that his grandfather's last words, "just before they sprung the trap", were "You can't cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump."
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Saturn was a subsidiary of GM from the day it opened its doors to the day it closed them. Their whole purpose for existence was to establish and benchmark different manufacturing methods. What was successful, they rolled into their other factories. Saturn cars were never really strong sellers in the market, so they eliminated the brand. They eliminated Hummer and Pontiac about the same time.
Their current US brands are Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC.
Their international brands include Opel, Vauxhall and Holden. (English-speakers will likely be familiar with these.) They also own some Chinese and Korean brands.
My real world mileage on my Fiat 500 is about 5 mpg more than the sticker label. (42 mpg average)
In my experience the EPA figures have usually off by several MPG, with "American" cars typically having lower MPG than the EPA estimates and "foreign" cars typically higher. It's odd that I don't see GM and Chrysler being investgated. Or perhaps the EPA itself needs to be investigated...
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Oldsmobile
Strange, I always match or beat EPA, except on my truck which came with huge mudder tires. yes of course driving through deep snow lowers my mileage considerably but I am talking about lifetime. Am I an anomaly?
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
imperial gallons is about 1.2 us gallons. So take 17% off any MPG number using imperial gallons to get a number that is just as meaningless because the conditions used to evaluate the mileage are different anyway. Eternal confusion achieved.
Was the LS an actual saturn or a rebadge? I don't remember. My 97 SC2, a genuine saturn not a rebadge, simply wont die although I've had all the "typical saturn" problems.
They start sipping oil at 100K miles about 1 quart every 2K miles. Supposedly a $1500 valve job will perma-fix that, although at $5/qt for fancy synthetic that valve job would take more than the realistic life of the car before I'd break even vs just burning some oil... so I just buy 6 qts or so at each oil change and then dump another in every month or two.
Also the brakes are legendarily bad and need replacement pads and disks every year or so. If you ever, ever take a saturn into a 3rd party service center, maybe to stick a new muffler on or something, they'll put the wheels back on wrong, and warp the disks. Some cars/brakes you can get away with ignoring wheel tightening pattern, but not saturns. Torque one lug nut to 100 or whatever, then the put the next nut and torque it full, repeat until they're all on and you've got a guaranteed warped disk on a Saturn. You're not supposed to install wheel nuts like that but people do anyway.
The ECU goes completely insane if the battery fails and you only get 10 volts on the bus. Absolutely bonkers. The car will crank and even halfway start but the ECU is insane so it'll smoke and ping and go crazy, leading to terror that its going to be a 4 figure repair bill, and then it turns out a simple battery will fix it. Also the battery design is such that you'll have to tighten the battery bolt as the average monkey leaves it too loose, so you'll think "complete electrical failure" and it'll turn out to just be loose battery..
Finally if it misfires for whatever reason you'll get a crankshaft position sensor failure code, which is mystifying once you figure out there is no crank position sensor on a saturn... thats their cute way of saying the ECU detected a misfire, something to do with the current drawn by the coil or something.
Overall a nice unkillable car. I also have no idea what to buy to replace it. GM doesn't want to make cars like Saturns anymore. Probably a new Toyota. My wife's old prius is basically perfect.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
There are driving techniques that can help with this. I use both pulse and glide (push on the gas to get about 5-10 MPH over the speed limit and let off until you are 5-10 MPH under, and let the vehicle slow down up hills) as well as drafting to get very good numbers from my vehicle. Yes, people might have to whine about having to turn off cruise control, but fuck them. My gas is more important, period. You don't have to be right up on a semi's rear end for drafting either. A few car lengths still keeps you in the envelope. Only downside is the semis with the fish-mouth on the back don't offer benefits to drafting, so find one of the ones that don't.
Ignore the EPA MPG ratings on cars. Go get an online Consumer Reports subscription, and see what their real-world testing revealed about MPG. I've been doing that for all of my car purchases (two recent, because I helped my girlfriend shop for hers).
"For god's sake, we are at a point where a car needs practically no regular maintenance. No adjusting carburetors, no cleaning points, no timing adjustments, no changing spark plugs every spring, no adjusting brakes every fall, no engine rebuilds because bearings wear out."
My 22 year old car passes this test, its carb has never needed adjustment in its life, no brake problems, no points (transistor controlled)...
People forget, or never knew, how much bigger of a pain car ownership used to be. I spent the first part of my young adult life keeping the family's '71 Super Beetle alive. Easy to fix is very different from reliable. Brakes that don't self-adjust, carburetor disassembly and cleaning to allow the engine to keep from stalling for a few more months, different starting and driving methods for different temperatures. Maybe a relaxing hobby for some, but a source of life shortening stress if you depend on it for daily transportation.
Now I look forward to the time that we feel sorry for people that had to struggle with 21st century computer hassles.
So you are one of those jerks who is constantly speeding up/slowing down and, as a result, forcing others to do so at times when it harms their gas mileage by causing more congestion and/or making others apply their brakes.
Thanks and one day soon may you misjudge or drop you attention for a few minutes and cram your car and your empty head under the underride guard on the truck you're drafting behind and thereby improve the gene pool.
Why not, right? I mean, it's not like there's much independant honesty in the other ads in the 2012 race.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm getting up to 84 (UK) MPG, against the "best" published 80mpg for my model.
I regulary get 65mpg over a tank - around 900 km per 40 lire tank.
Does real driving match the tests? No, not in any way. Sometimes it's massively better.
The really weird thing is that my wife's Focus gets 35 mpg around town, but for the same driving in my Rio, it's still the "best" 65 mpg.
Bingo. GPM is far more accurate than MPG. Yes, the difference between 30 MPG and 50 MPG sounds great, but in reality, the 1.3 gallons saved it is not anywhere near the difference between 10 and 20 MPG (which saves 5 gallons per 100 miles.)
Here in the US, one thing that businesses are doing is moving from the typical V8 vans to the Mercedes Sprinters [1]. Even though the Sprinter has a small diesel V-6, its 20+ MPG is a lot better than the 10-15 MPG, and can make a difference both in budget and PR value.
[1]: Of course, if something Mercedes needs service, be prepared to pay and pay dearly. New DPF? I've read $3200 for that because you can't clean them out manually like most diesel filters. Hopefully Ford can get the Transit line to the US soonish because it provides the same benefits... and it is far easier to find a Ford dealer than a Mercedes dealer who specializes in vans.
I (an American) find mpg way easier to grok than LpGm. So maybe the lesson is to recognize that our experiences affect our comprehension of presentation formats?
Here in the US, one thing that businesses are doing is moving from the typical V8 vans to the Mercedes Sprinters
Not if they have any sense they aren't. We tried a few of the sprinters a few years back. Our fleet usually lasts 200,000 to 400,000 with vehicles regularly making it past 500,000. The sprinters all had to be junked well below the 200k mark. They just came apart. The frames cracked, the engines failed. It was just too damn expensive to maintain them. We went back to the tried and true Freightliners and haven't looked back. There was once a time when Mercedes made a top tier product. Those days are long gone.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
It's the same information presented in an easier to use form, because it's easier to multiply in your head than to divide.
Nonsense. You would have to divide as well. For example, while figuring out how many miles you can go on your tank of gas. There's no benefit here.
As a former Fiat owner I can speak about how low my fuel costs were. The damn thing was always in the shop.
The "Fix It Again Tony" meme lives on but Fiat along with all other car makers have upped their game.
The new Fiat 500 is first quality. I've had it for almost 2 years and 20,000 miles and it has been flawless.
I do admit that I was worried about an Fiat built in Mexico but I haven't found a single thing wrong with it and I do love it. It's got plenty of power to go over the mountains here and it's a lot of fun to drive. It's even good in the snow thanks to electronic traction control and stability control. Plus 42 MPG average over 20,000 miles has saved me thousands in gas costs.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
GPM is far more accurate than MPG. Yes, the difference between 30 MPG and 50 MPG sounds great, but in reality, the 1.3 gallons saved it is not anywhere near the difference between 10 and 20 MPG (which saves 5 gallons per 100 miles.
No, it's not. That's not what "accuracy" means. I shouldn't have to tell you this. I'm just amazed at the number of people who have an opinion on a pretty irrelevant matter (which due to common usage of MPG, probably isn't ever going to happen either).
My real world mileage on my Fiat 500 is about 5 mpg more than the sticker label. (42 mpg average)
Without even trying, I see similar results on my Honda Fit. It's estimated for 27 city, 33 highway, and driving about 40/60 split of city and highway miles, I average about 38 mpg, and this is in hilly New Jersey. In flat Texas (DFW area) I would regularly average 42 to 43 mpg, and if I was really trying to save gas, I could eek out upper 40s or low 50s just by driving conservatively. (No crazy stuff like shutting off the engine while moving, or other bizarre stuff I've heard of self proclaimed "hypermilers" doing.)
*slight crashing sound*
The idea that you "can never get" the EPA gas mileage on an actual real-life car is this Gospel According to Leaden Footed Car Reviewers in hip car review magazines and Web sites.
You can, in all likelihood, get close to the EPA gas mileage -- if you drive an EPA drive cycle.
First off, the EPA numbers on the window sticker are way de-rated from the mileage numbers in the official EPA tests. The De-rating is in response to all of the whining and howling "The EPA numbers are a fiction! I never get the EPA numbers!"
The EPA City cycle originally meant to represent a trip on Los Angeles "surface streets" -- in other words, main arterial roads, not a congested downtown like Manhattan. The average speed was 20 MPH. The EPA highway was meant to represent a trip on "the 405" under mildly congested conditions, essentially urban freeway driving in the days before the 405 became a 24-hour parking facility. The average speed is 50 MPH on the cycle, well below the 65 (or much more) that people do bombing down rural Interstates. The choice of test conditions was not meant to confound people trying to match published gas mileage, rather, it was meant to be a sample of the kind of driving taking place day-to-day in L.A., for purposes of evaluating auto smog controls, not for energy efficiency.
So if "no one drives like the EPA", why do they still use the same test? Because it is written into the CAFE-standard fuel economy laws. The automakers are held to the legal EPA standard so "the government isn't making up the rules of the game as they go along" whereas consumers get a de-rated number so their pride in being good drivers is not hurt.
My experience with a Scan Gauge (bought at Think Geek) that I have calibrated by putting a gas-fill adjustment for the particular car, is that you can too get the EPA City mileage, not the one on the sticker but better than the sticker, the "back room" number (Google "EPA Test Car List" inquiring geeks are going to want to see this data when car shopping). What you do is drive an EPA cycle. Pick a no-wind 70-deg F day, start up the car, and drive it across town (about 10 miles, I believe) without the A/C going, and drive a non-rush hour non-freeway route where you average 20 MPH. If you have a Scan Gauge, you probably can identify a route where you can safely and legally average 20 MPH.
For the highway test, pick a highway where you can drive a constant 55 MPH without people "flipping you off" for holding up traffic. Seriously, if you go out do road testing, you don't want to be a self-righteous person holding people back from going about their daily work, even if they are going a couple miles and hour too fast -- leave that for the cops to enforce. I betcha you can at least get with 5 percent (1 MPG at 20 MPG, 2 MPG at 40 MPG) of the "raw" EPA numbers and you can do a lot better than window sticker.
There are a couple YMMV caveats. I believe the EPA standardizes on a particular fuel that may have higher BTU's gallon than the ethanol-watered-down stuff you get at the pump these days. Also, summer gas has more BTU's than the more volatile winter gas mandated so people can start cars in cold weather (actually, the summer blend is mandated for higher vapor pressure, both to prevent vapor lock stall-outs in hot conditions and to reduce smog from gas left standing).
The other caveat is that the EPA tests rely on the automakers supplying "resistance data" based on "coast-down" road trials -- these result in resistance coefficients that get dialed into the chassis rollers in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There is some opportunity of mischief there. Us true geeks could in our infinite spare time look over the EPA Test Car List Database to see if there are any inconsistencies on either the coast-down times or the dynamometer coefficients reported for the different cars -- this is maybe where Hyundai and Kia got their wrists slapped.
I'm confused. Freightliner also does Sprinters, except with a rebadge...
So the parent post person is doing something wrong . . . like holding on to a job in this sluggish economy?
When you own a hybrid, the difference in mpg from pure gas vs ethanol contaminated fuel is definitely visible.
When I fill up the gas tank with fuel that includes 10% ethanol, I get a 20 to 25%+ drop in millage. That is not negligible number. This means that I have to fill up the tank more often and that for every 4 fill ups, I have to add one more.
Ethanol is a scam. Not only are we destroying food sources and contaminating fertile ground (ie: it is not for consumption, they can pump the fields with whatever chemicals they want to make it grow faster), it causes damages to the engine (specially rubber/plastic parts) and you basically turn an inefficient engine into a gas guzzler.
Let me repeat, since reading comprehension is a lost art these days: You can draft without tailgating. A truck doing a brake check won't result in my car doing anything other than stopping.
As for other people's MPG, if they are behind me, it is their problem and they can pass at any time, or maybe grow some patience. Maybe if they didn't tailgate and followed the law leaving space, their fuel consumption might improve for those types. I know of no law that makes me have to sacrifice my gas for anyone else. Their braking is their problem.
Elon Musk just crap his pants.
Words out that Tesla is about to be slapped by the EPA for 100% refund plus interest.
VW/Audi/Porsche? Didn't you mean VW/Audi/Porche/Bentley/Seat/Skoda/Lamborghini/Bugatti?
Perhaps they were talking about gallons rather than US ones.
What you call a gallon seems to be about 0.729 of a standard gallon that is 4.546 litres in size.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Garbage. If you can compare x you can compare y (where y = k/x), unless you're an innumerate buffoon.
P.S. What are "still litres"? Something to do with whisky?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
VW/Audi/Porsche/Skoda/SEAT/Lamborgini/Bugatti you mean.
And frankly I think I'm forgetting at least one.
Kia Motors conceded that they overstated the fuel economy on more than 1 million recently sold vehicles, and agreed to compensate owners for the additional fuel costs...
When I make a mistake as an individual, I have to make up the difference, pay fines that are sometimes way more than the difference, get charged higher interest rates for a few years, and watch my credit score plummet. When a business makes a mistake, they pay the difference. Yet another way in which businesses aren't just legal individuals, they're better than real people.
The fuel economy isn't great? Which care of similar size gets much better? An Avalon gets 28 highway. A Chrysler 300 gets 31 highway. A BMW 5-series (which is significantly smaller) gets 34 which I guess is good. How long is it going to make back the $25,000 more the BMW costs you in fuel savings?
And it makes 300HP, which isn't less than any normally aspirated 4-cylinder I've seen for sale. And it's higher than any production turbocharged 4 on the market in the US. Also, turbochargers and intercoolers add cost, size and weight. It's not a slam dunk to use a turbocharged 4 over a V6. The thing is the Impala isn't designed to make a ton of HP. The same engine makes 318 or 323HP in a car that is designed to make that much (Cadillacs, Camaros).
I don't see what's wrong with using a V6 when price constraints are in play, especially when it does get decent mpg.
The Impala suffers more than anything from being a cheap car. You don't expect the cheapest anything else to be the best on the market, why would we expect it from cars?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I glanced through the link you provided. There was nothing relevant there so I moved on.
True enough.. I had both a Chevy Silverado 1500 crew cab, and a Hyundai Sonata before my current car a Challenger RT... I tended to do about 5-6mpg higher than rated in the sonata, and about the rating in the silverado... about 2/3 my driving was highway at the time... in my challenger, it's a bigger difference.. I tend to do best around 75mph relatively level than my current drive, about 1/2 highway, and heavy traffic... my general driving is around 19-20mpg, but I made a fairly decent trip a few weeks back averaging around 70-80mph, and got nearly 28mpg. How you drive has a big impact.. but traffic kills any predictability with fuel economy.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
I'm sad about Honda. They were always quite good. Then everything just started slipping away.
I was one of those "buy 'murkan" types (for no real reason) for a long time, then I saw the 2005 Acura TL. I instantly wanted one.
When it finally came time to buy a car, they were phasing out that body style (and the specs too) of the TL, and I started looking around at other Honda products. I ended up buying a Ridgeline.
As I look at their lineup now, the Ridgeline is probably the only thing they have going for them. Sad. All of their cars look and feel cheap. The SUV's are all paper tigers. The van is, well, a van. I don't recommend those to anyone. And the Acuras are all way too expensive for what they are. For example, a luxury-branded European Accord shouldn't cost more than the European Accord with the top trim package, much less cost more than the larger American Accord with the top trim package. (I'm talking about the TSX, if you didn't already know.)
So that leaves the Ridgeline, which is a very capable light truck that gets a lot of bad press for not being enough like the rest of Honda's crappy lineup. Go figure. Mine's a 2008, with about 55k miles on it. The tires aren't showing excessive wear, though the factory tires are probably about due for a replacement. I'll give them until 60k before I start to really look at replacing them. So far, no issues except a broken seat-release lever on one of the rear seats, and a few scratches and dings from idiots in parking lots.
MPG depends immensely on driving style, so official figures are never going to be exactly right for everybody. I drive on empty roads in 5th gear at 30mph as much as possible, and my car has a total lifetime average of 71 British mpg(or 59mpg in US gallons) since I bought it 25k miles ago. It's an ordinary 5-seater estate car too, not some whacky-looking smart-car or fiat 500. http://www.fuelly.com/driver/jaffacake/fabia can anyone do better than that!?
For that purpose, the value for one tank would be better expressed as a total distance, not as miles per gallon. Presumably you want to fill a tank partway and then know what distance that can travel. But when do you ever need to do that?
I need to go x distance, so I multiply by the liquid volume per distance and get a liquid volume I need, then compare to my gas tank, which is not any more difficult. I'm guessing that "just driving for fun" and "how far can I get away when the revolution comes" are the basic purposes of knowing how far you can get per amount of gas, rather than how much gas you need per unit distance.
It's true, there are no laws against being a dick.
But some people's time is worth more than the $1/hr you're saving -- perhaps even your own. Not maintaining a steady speed demonstrably reduces traffic flow, increases congestion, and is, in the big picture, a bigger waste of fuel. Focusing on one aspect of driving -- your MPG -- to the exclusion of all else is shortsighted at best.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I've checked all the sources that you cited and I'm far from convinced.
With resistance being proportional to the square of velocity, it's mathematically intuitive that you'd lose more on the sections where you're faster than average than you'd gain on the sections where you're slower.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
which are bigger.
The miles, or the gallons? :-) Also, everyone else, note that liters and kilometers are the same everywhere! ;)
You must be American. Liters and kilometers are not the same, anywhere. The former measures volume while the latter measures distance.
/removes tongue from cheek.
If one car does twice the miles per gallon of another, the first one goes twice as far on the same fuel.
If one car uses twice the pints per furlong of another, it takes twice as much fuel to go the same distance.
Anyone who can't understand that is frankly so thick they shouldn't be allowed to drive, let alone post on the intarwebs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Never rented a car?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The relevant bit
And frankly I think I'm forgetting at least one.
You do. Bentley.
By that logic you might as well have a different gallon for New York City and Flagstaff, Arizona.
These things are meant as a way of comparing, ceteris paribus, between different vehicles. In themselves there are so many extraneous variables that they mean nothing, and only an utter dunderhead would think otherwise.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In my experience the EPA figures have usually off by several MPG, with "American" cars typically having lower MPG than the EPA estimates and "foreign" cars typically higher. It's odd that I don't see GM and Chrysler being investgated. Or perhaps the EPA itself needs to be investigated...
This used to be true. The EPA revised how MPG is calculated a few years back (2008 I think). It's more-accurate now. That's why you'll see a people posting below that they get better than the EPA estimate.
You don't have to be right up on a semi's rear end for drafting either. A few car lengths still keeps you in the envelope.
Here's German traffic rules: The correct minimum distance in meters is your speed in kilometers per hour, divided by two. So at a speed of 100 km/h (about 62 mph), the correct distance is 50 meters. You can get fined if your distance is less than 50 percent, that is 25 meters. The fine increases as the distance decreases. What gets you into real trouble is claiming that what you do is right. It is totally accepted that people make mistakes and therefore sometimes drive to close. But as you say, intentionally and persistently driving at no more than half the correct distance means that you shouldn't have a driving license.
L/100km might contain the same information, but using distance as the domain is preferred. This is far more useful as people don't drive to burn fuel, they drive to travel. Distance is the important variable so fuel mileage should be with respect to distance. It makes comparing given fuel economy ratings easier as it better correlates with the amount of fuel you will use / cost of driving.
For example, consider the following fuel economy ratings: 4L/100km, 6L/100km, and 8L/100km. For a given distance, it is obvious that the most fuel efficient vehicle will be 1/2 the cost of the least efficient vehicle. The cost of third vehicle being is the average of the two other vehicles - or in the middle.
Now in mpg, those numbers are: 58.8mpg, 39.4mpg, 29.4mpg. Notice the 39.4mpg vehicle will cost the average of the 58.8mpg and 29.4mpg vehicles - but this is not apparent from looking at the numbers. It is because the numbers are represented using the wrong domain. Sure the information is there, it just is not represented in the most useful format.
As a happy owner of an original model Kia Soul, it took me all of about 1 tank of gas to realize the reported fuel numbers were off. 23MPH is about the best I can get, which is horrible for a car that weighs 2650lb and has a 144hp engine.
I have actually yet to figure out how in the world the gas mileage is that bad. (The "I am not sure which gear I should be in" automatic transmission may have something to do with it.)
That said, in every other respect the car is great. Practical beyond all belief and fun to drive. (I have one of the limited edition models that is a fair bit closer to the ground than is typical, so I don't end up upside down all the damn time!)
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I did see that Wikipedia link. A table and some verbiage. Since it doesn't support your argument, it is indeed irrelevant. Maybe I should clean it up since it seems to have a lot of directionless rambling. Deletion appears to be a good approach since there doesn't appear to be any point to the section at all.
L/100km might contain the same information, but using distance as the domain is preferred. This is far more useful as people don't drive to burn fuel, they drive to travel. Distance is the important variable so fuel mileage should be with respect to distance. It makes comparing given fuel economy ratings easier as it better correlates with the amount of fuel you will use / cost of driving.
Fuel use is the other equally important variable. People don't like to run out of gas in the middle of the highway either. So they do like to know how far they can go on the gas they currently have. Please keep in mind that the usual point of traveling between points A and B is to arrive at point B.
So for example, my gas needle is far down. I estimate I have two gallons left in the tank and my car does at least 35 MPG. Hence, I can go safely another 70 miles. Oh look, there's a major town 65 miles down the road. I'll pull off there.
I wager this calculation is done more often than your calculation above.
I've had it for almost 2 years and 20,000 miles and it has been flawless.
That's an amazingly low bar.
I'm not saying I think it will be problematic, but 2 years/20k miles of problem free motoring is pretty much a useless statistic in this day and age.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
That's the one :)
It's true, there are no laws against being a dick.
But some people's time is worth more than the $1/hr you're saving -- perhaps even your own. Not maintaining a steady speed demonstrably reduces traffic flow, increases congestion, and is, in the big picture, a bigger waste of fuel. Focusing on one aspect of driving -- your MPG -- to the exclusion of all else is shortsighted at best.
But focusing solely on yourself at the cost of the collective is the American way.
My basic commute (90% local, stop-and-go traffic) bears little resemblance to the EPA drive cycle. I get between 24-26MPG, well below the rated 33MPG, exactly what I would expect given my drive cycle. When I take trips, I routinely exceed the 40MPG rating, no doubt due to the 6-gear transmission and low rolling-resistance tires.
In all other respects, the 2013 Elantra is a wonderful little car, very nicely designed and solidly built. Couldn't be happier.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
As an American citizen living in South Korea I'm amazed sometimes at the level of education these people force on their young. It's insane. And it doesn't seem to produce smarter people. This article is proof of that. The MPG tests are done by the car companies - by following the EPA guidelines. Apparently the Korean engineers couldn't figure out the guidelines and do the tests correctly. I see this kind of thing everyday here - a million book smart people that can recite facts but can't solve a problem to save their ass. How many rocket launch attempts have they failed and still can't get a satellite up? Whatever you do, America, don't follow Korea's example on education.
Cry about it more, it's not even likely that it will affect you at all.
VW/Audi/Porsche/Skoda/Seat/Bugatti/Lamborghini/Bentley you mean? Assuming we're just sticking to cars... I don't /think/ I've missed any, but I wouldn't be surprised.
jh
It's odd that I don't see GM and Chrysler being investgated. Or perhaps the EPA itself needs to be investigated...
They have been, and they have been caught. 2001 Dodge Ram, 1 mpg overstatement.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Cars should have been at this level of reliability to begin with. The problem is that they were so useful that people wanted them even in their beta state, a state that was not really ready for deployment to end users. At that time, you either learned to be a car mechanic or you had to afford one. The equivalent of selling IT to home users instead of a self-contained PC.
These days one doesn't normally need to visit the shop except for oil changes, true, but oil changes too are something that feels antiquated. The concept is simple enough - drain old oil, replace filter, add new oil. Why then does this require getting under the car and getting really dirty? A properly engineered system should make this a very simple process, but we still don't have it.
My experience has been quite diverse. I had a 97 Dodge Caravan that always exceeded the rated mpg even though the mpg test back then produced higher numbers then most people would get. A Dodge Neon of mine got worse mpg (25 highway) then my next car, a Mustang (28 mpg) even though the neon was rated higher. Both were stick shift, the neon had a 4 cyl, the mustang a 6 cyl. YMMV. Really.
GM did not buy Saturn, they built Saturn from the ground up. They shut it down because they failed to update the vehicles (because GM did not choose to)and slowly withdrew the freedoms they gave to Saturn's management and it showed in the quality of the cars. Sales dwindled. So GM made Saturn then broke them.
True, but lots of cars these day have distance to empty on their trip computer, so it's becoming irrelevant.
I find km/L an easier number in my head, but still agree that L/100km is a better domain to work in.
It's odd that I don't see GM and Chrysler being investgated. Or perhaps the EPA itself needs to be investigated...
They have been, and they have been caught. 2001 Dodge Ram, 1 mpg overstatement.
I had a 2002 Dodge Neon that I bought new in 2001. No matter how conservatively I drove it I got 5-6 MPG less than the EPA estimates. I had a dealer check it out and they said that my mileage was typical. The Mazda3 that replaced it got 3MPG better than EPA estimates and the Altima I have now gets 2MPG better.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
A few years ago I traded in a perfectly reliable Hyundai Elantra that got 24 MPG and bought a Toyota Yaris. The Yaris at half the size and weight got 29MPG, big mistake. Currently I have a Honda Insight, the little display is always off by 2MPG, if it says 44 MPG at the end of a tank I got 42, if it says 48 than I really got 46. Although my wife has the Hyundai Tuscon and it does get 30MPG on the highway and sometime 32 which is what the sticker said.
And Geo.
Tuning and tyre choice are everything. You get better mileage with fabric reinforced somewhat over inflated tyres on light weight rims. Hyundai likely got busted with testing on far better and more expensive tyres and rims than they sold the cars on and likely a more fuel efficient focused engine tuning, than tweaking for performance for the American power focused market.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
And we've long had calculators. The original argument was that we had to do certain calculations in our head. When I pointed out that by that reasoning the reciprocal was more useful for more calculations that we would have to do than the few mentioned, I get the reply that we have "trip computers" for that even though most cars don't.
It really hasn't mattered which equivalent presentation we use. It has the same information content and fairly close computational complexity. Various regions use their own formulation and I see no reason for any of them to change. It simply is not worth the bother.
I have been driving a Sonata Hybrid for more than a year and so far it has performed very close to the advertised 40mpg.
I am no hypermiler, just drive it less agressively, use syntetic oil and keep tires at 40psi.
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
I have 2012 Hyundai Accent. My on-board computer will say that I'm getting 41 MPG, but when I fill up,
it turns out to be more like 36 MPG. So far, whatever my computer tells me turns out to be *over* by
several MPG. And to think that I bought the car for it's mileage!
1 million cars? I never heard of any manufacturer making 1 million models of ca - oh, wait, never mind, it's 13 really.... ffs....
Absolutely. MPG is easy to calculate and is a useful way to predict how far you can go. L/100km might be great for someone comparing vehicles, but once you're actually driving it, I can't see how it would be applied, unless you always drive exactly 100km.
I hope the press picks this up and runs with. I am driving a Honda Civic with near 300,000 miles on it so I have been thinking about replacing it with an Elantra GLS. Hyundai is offering no real incentives because their sales are too high. They need to be knocked down a couple notches so I can get a better deal on a car :) .
To clarify your comment: British miles are the same size. British gallons are smaller than US gallons (for some reason.) British MPG figures, therefore, are larger than US MPG figures for the same fuel efficiency rating.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Always check your own mileage. Keep the reciept from when you fill up and write the current mileage down on the back of it then do math next time you fill up
Mine has an onboard MPG meter actually.
Their explanation: Hyundai and Kia said procedural errors at the companies' joint testing operations in Korea led to the incorrect fuel economy ratings.
My explanation: They're an Asian company so they lied about their products. That does seem to be a theme over there.
I purchased a 2013 Elantra GLS sedan in April. I kept very careful gas mileage records over the first 4500 miles. Highway miles were at 65 MPH over gently rolling terrain in north central Wisconsin with NO stops or slowdowns. City miles were at most 30 MPH with frequent stoplights/stopsigns, but little traffic idling/slowdowns. Stock tires and wheels. Air conditioning was used perhaps 1/3 during the summer. "Eco" mode on all the time.
I found that the estimated MPG the Elantra displays is almost always overly optimistic (the same is true for my Subaru Outback, however). I don't doubt that Hyundai wanted to use the magic 40 MPG so desperately in marketing campaigns that they exaggerated their claims. However, the Elantra (which meets EPA requirements for a midsize, not compact car, given its 103 cubic ft interior), is competitive to its peers. I ultimately achieved 36 MPG, but with about 75% highway miles. I'm content with its MPG performance.
If I had purchased a Ford C-Max instead, rated at 47 MPG, at $4/gal, I would have to drive about 300,000 miles just to hit the break even point in gas savings for the $7K price differential. I don't keep cars that long. The automakers will need to reduce this price differential to attract buyers like me.
[Note: I attempted to post a small ASCII table showing my data points. Slashdot rejected it with the message. "Please use fewer 'junk' characters". Geez. I think many readers would have been interested in the actual MPG I measured. Sorry, Slashdot community. I can only post my conclusions.
------------------
Mileage for first 4,500 mi: (C=city, H=highway, Odo = Odometer, MPG = real MPG, Est MPG = displayed, estimated MPG)
Overall gas used: 124.213
Overall miles driven: 4495
Overall city %: 24.2
Overall highway %: 75.8
Overall city miles: 884
Overall highway miles: 3611
Overall MPG: 36.19
Dealers will often say that any problem is typical. I remember having a used saturn with a lot of play in the steering wheel, and they said it was "typical".
Same info regardless. It is easier to measure how much one might save between 36 and 40 MPG but the information is the same.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
So when is GM being taken to court for the same type of fraud?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Equinox#Debate_about_EPA_fuel_economy_ratings
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I've had it for almost 2 years and 20,000 miles and it has been flawless.
That's an amazingly low bar.
I'm not saying I think it will be problematic, but 2 years/20k miles of problem free motoring is pretty much a useless statistic in this day and age.
Great indicator that the car isn't a Mercury Sable or a Ford.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
I'm confused. Freightliner also does Sprinters, except with a rebadge...
Different model. We know about the re badged sprinters and don't buy those either. We use a different model that is designed and built by Freightliner. Different frame altogether. Same model we have been buying for over a decade now. The newer ones are using gasoline engines instead of diesel. Something to do with the availability of diesels because of California's laws, but otherwise they're the same truck.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Please don't clarify things you don't understand as it adds no clarity to be flat-out wrong. British gallons are BIGGER than American gallons. 4.54 litres instead of 3.78 litres. Thats why a car doing 40mpg in the UK on British gallons does 33mpg in the USA on American gallons.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I agree completely... I purchased a 2006 C class sometime back and had more trouble with it than my 1986 VW Rabbit! I've owned Audi, BMW and Mecedes, and the Merc didn't even come close, not in terms of build quality, fuel efficiency or reliability! Mercedes used to make cars that lasted for ever. Now it makes crap, and keeps the same price tag!
I own a 2011 Elantra. I have recorded mileage at every fill-up since I bought the car in May of 2011. With my mostly interstate travel (70 mph) and light stop and go traffic, I get a combined fuel efficiency of 32.1 mpg. This is exactly the EPA estimate for combined mileage. My best fill-up was 36 mpg. My lowest was around 29 mpg.
I couldn't agree more about the all around feel of the Elantra. Solid and fun to drive.
God is imaginary
Always check your own mileage. Keep the reciept from when you fill up and write the current mileage down on the back of it then do math next time you fill up
Mine has an onboard MPG meter actually.
Not so fast: trust, but verify.
Case in point: Honda was caught for defective odometers reading faster than the true miles traveled. In this case, warranty was the big deal, but that same number goes into the on-board computer MPG calculations.
More Twoson than Cupertino
It's not bad enough that car dealers lie, now the car manufacturers lie too?
note that liters and kilometers are the same everywhere! ;)
Except everywhere outside the US where they're known as 'litres' and 'kilometres'.
Odd. I routinely get better (and worse!) than EPA guesstimates from every single car I have driven throughout my life. I assumed they must be doing some deranged math to get those numbers.
For example, I had a 2006 Subaru Legacy GT. The city and highway miles were listed as 17/24 (22?) iirc. In serious city driving, I would closer to 12 mpg. I once achieved 30 MPG driving in the mountains from Colorado Springs to Denver and then on highway from Denver back to Colorado Springs, 28 MPG. I would routinely get 25 to 27 mpg for highway driving. Oddly, with cruise control enabled, I would get exactly 24 MPG. This was an automatic transmission so I am unsure what the difference could have been.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Except when they are litres.
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.