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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
YMMV
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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
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?
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.
I agree. I have a 2012 Accent, and its performance is vastly improved using premium gas. It probably isn't economically worth it, but the extra dollar a tank is worth it for driving pleasure. It's little 1600 cc engine is pleasantly torquey for its size, when fed good gas. (I know that reads like an advertisement, but it's not. I am just really happy with the car. I bought it simply because it was cheap and had a long warranty, and was surprised at how good of a car it ended up being.)
But I was suspicious about the MPG claims. I've always been able to easily exceed the US MPG ratings on my cars, but on this one I was barely able to meet them. Especially frustrating considering that the test was de-rated a few years ago. I can easily exceed the 40 MPG rating, but only on dead flat ground at 55 MPH. I can probably get about 50 - 60 MPG in that use case. But if I up the speed or climb a grade, its mileage suffers quickly.
However, it's stated 33 MPG in combined driving is pretty much dead on. I average 31-34 all the time.
I'm disappointed at Hyundai for doing this, because they really didn't have to. They have worked really hard at improving their cars in the last 10 years, and this stupid blunder will harm their reputation. In many categories, their cars are top in class, and fudging the MPG numbers really wasn't going to get them very much more in sales.
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.
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.
Even still litres per 100 km is the better representation than mpg or km per litre
Not at all. It's the same information.
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..!
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.
...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!
...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.
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.
That's not correct. For most cars, the manufacturer's self-declare "EPA Mileage." The EPA spot-checks some models each year.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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."
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.
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.
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.