Hyundai Overstated MPG On Over 1 Million Cars 238
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."
MPG testing (Score:5, Insightful)
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"
Re:MPG testing - just to add (Score:3, Informative)
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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.
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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.
Re:MPG testing - just to add (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [autoblog.com] your car and your empty head under the underride guard on the truck you're drafting behind and thereby improve the gene pool.
Re:MPG testing - just to add (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
Re:MPG testing - just to add (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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.
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Re:MPG testing - just to add (Score:5, Funny)
which are bigger.
The miles, or the gallons? :-) Also, everyone else, note that liters and kilometers are the same everywhere! ;)
Re:MPG testing - just to add (Score:5, Funny)
Except at NASA.
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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 [wikipedia.org]
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Even still litres per 100 km is the better representation than mpg or km per litre
Not at all. It's the same information.
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Re:MPG testing - just to add (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Never rented a car?
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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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).
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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.
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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?
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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
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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 t
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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?
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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.
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Hyundai is at least doing the honorable thing and reimbursing all customers who bought the affected vehicles for the difference between the new EPA ratings and the original ones, for the life of the vehicle. That's pretty good - but I'm sure tens of thousands or hundreds of thousand
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So even though Hyundai may be doing the right thing for its customers, their deception - even if it was unintentional - unfairly gave them a sales advantage against the competition.
The question is, who else is doing this, and by how much? I think mileage ratings are a lot of bullshit anyway, but I wouldn't be surprised if automakers regularly fudge them by very small amounts. Presumably, you could do the math (and some significant market research, but they all do that) to figure out how much you have to fudge it before you start making significant profit. And of course, the old mileage rating system was a ridiculous joke, you literally could not achieve the mileage ratings in some cas
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Re:MPG testing (Score:4, Informative)
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I bought a 2013 VW Jetta TDI w/manual transmission a couple of weeks ago. My commute to work is 65 miles each way. 45 of Interstate highway, 20 of thru-town traffic .
I've averaged 46-48 mpg according to the dash gauge that computes this. It matches my calculations when purchasing fuel.
Pure stop-and-go, heart of Washington, DC w/construction at rush hour, brings it down to about 25-27 mpg. If I did that every day I would definitely want a hybrid or electric. But for my situation I absolutely LOVE the Jetta T
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My commute to work is 65 miles each way
Doing something wrong (Score:2)
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Not necessarily. You should look at the cost of living in the area surrounding Washington, DC. The commute was a compromise allowing me to have a decent-sized home for my family, in a nice neighborhood, without paying $3,000+ a month in rent.
I'm eyeing moving, and while I'll still be 65-70 miles from work, I'll be 5 miles from a commuter train station.
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Hyundai is at least doing the honorable thing and reimbursing all customers who bought the affected vehicles for the difference between the new EPA ratings and the original ones, for the life of the vehicle.
Honorable? They're trying to avoid being charged with fraud. They may be charged anyway.
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I bought my 2011 Elantra in great part ot the claimed MPG rating, and have been sorely disappointed. I consistently get 20-21 MPG while the rating was in the mid 30s.
I admit I do almost all city driving, but my 1999 Civic got 29-30 mpg for its life doing basically the same thing for 11 years, so it's not a hard number to hit.
I've complained to the Hyundai dealer and everyone I speak to gives me a different answer: "lying salesmen", "break-in period", "cheap gas", etc.
I've tried cheap, mid-price, and top-end
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I just used their reimbursement calculator, and they say I should expect about $67 back. Hey, it's better than nothing, but my own conservative calculation indicates that if I was getting 25mpg instead of the 20 I'm getting, they'd owe me over $450. Oh well. At least my wife's Tucson gets the mileage we expected.
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In the UK the law says that goods must be "as advertised", so failure to get anywhere near the rated MPG would be grounds for returning the car for a full refund. Doesn't the US have any similar consumer protection laws covering instances when the advertised specs were outrageous lies?
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Something's gotta be wrong with your car. I have a 2008, and get 25mph and higher in city driving. And I floor it from stoplights and seldom gradually coast to a stop. The 2011 got better mileage than the 2008 IIRC.
Maybe its your tires?
I'd try taking it to another dealer and have them check it out.
Do you drive it with the A/C running a lot of the time, either for cooling or defogging? I've found the A/C in mine isn't terribly effective, although I haven't noticed it being a huge gas suck.
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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 2003 Mercedes C200 diesel wagon gets 51½mpg in mixed driving in summer (with a lot of highway in the mix, it gets better than 60mpg). In winter, the economy drops to about 45mpg. The "official" rating for the car according to the carbon tax people is 43½mpg. Oh, these are also Imperial gallons.
Official mileage figures are unreliable, live with it.
Unfortunately, we pay a vehicle carbon tax which is assessed on these "official" figures, whether accurate or not.
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Why unfortunately? You wind up paying less because the mileage is always overstated.
Unfortunately, because in my case the official economy figures are worse than the actual economy of the car. As a result, I pay more in the annual carbon tax on the car than I would if the correct figure was used. Note that the carbon tax on the car does not depend on how far it was driven; it's just a tax grab. Any properly devised carbon tax should be on the fuel only, but that would reduce the tax income as people migrate to more economical cars. One result is that cars with Diesel engines (which are fa
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Your analysis sounds spot on. What sense does it make to have a carbon tax on a car for just existing? It sounds more like a "car tax" than a tax on carbon emissions. Fuels burn in very predictable ways - so taxing gasoline and diesel based on their expected CO2 emissions should be easy. Just count up the average carbon atoms per molecule and you've got your answer. That'd be fair enough, if you want to institute a "carbon tax".
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...and drivers.
The wife, bless her, gets low 30mpg (Royal miles to the Greenwich gallon) from our Zafira. I can get it into the 40s on the same roads just by being all round awesome and penisey.
Speaking of which, any government that was serious about increasing economy would mandate an instant, trip and "high score" MPG counter that's always displayed. We all like gaming, right?
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Speaking of which, any government that was serious about increasing economy would mandate an instant, trip and "high score" MPG counter that's always displayed. We all like gaming, right?
Yeah, but the idea is a low score, not a high score. Personally, I get giggle fits when accelerating hard, and seing the instant fuel economy jump to > 50L/100km (normal highway economy varies from 4-7L/100km depending on conditions, and can spike to 10-12L when going up a hill or into the wind). It's like those roadside speed radar machines they put up in residential areas where people complain about folks driving too fast. Normally I drive pretty close to the speed limit, but when I see one of those, I
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Of course they're YMMV because it's completely dependent upon how the car is driven. For example my MkV Jetta is rated at 29 mpg highway. However my best was 46 mpg from Sacramento to San Diego and back (that's right, 46 mpg from a 5 cylinder petrol engine). I even tried to enter this on the EPA's website (fueleconomy.gov) but it wouldn't let me because it said it was too high.
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I frequently drive a mini cooper and a VW Jetta. The MPG is fairly accurate between the constructor and what I actually get (number of miles travelled divided by what the pump tell me I need to fuel it). The difference is less than 2mpg.
What appears to make a huge difference is: AC or heating and when there is snow on the road, keeping the engine idle or the window opened.
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effects of wind resistance, effect on drag of the car's turning geometry
Actually the NEDC tests can be carried out on a real road or rolling road, and in the latter case air resistance and vehicle inertia are accounted for.
There are other issues with the test but that isn't one of them.
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Standard disclaimer (Score:5, Funny)
YMMV
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When I go car shopping.... (Score:2)
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.
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The scangauge isn't going to give you substantially more accurate readings than the trip computer in the car, when there even is one, in any but the most perplexing of situations. Its opinion of fuel delivery is based on the same information.
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The scanguage II gets its information from the ecu via the can-bus just like the instrument cluster on the dash, and as such, is no more accurate. The only real way to properly gauge average fuel economy is by comparing the litres or gallons put in vs. the km or miles since the last fill up.
I will say that while the Kia we own doesn't get the claimed fuel economy that was on its window sticker, at least the speedometer doesn't read 8% higher like the '08 Mini Cooper S we traded in. The scanguage is only as
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Both cars had the same ratings according to the window stickers, 28 city, 34 highway
I get 32MPG (real-world mileage, not manufacturer claims) on my '95 Impreza. Auto makers are doing it wrong.
We sold our KIA due to horrible mileage (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Lot of posts... (Score:5, Interesting)
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This is why I stopped reading /.
So how do you know when to post a snarky comment like this?
And you believed them. (Score:2)
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."
Consumer Reports (Score:3)
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So if the EPA rates one car at 30 MPG and another at 33 MPG, you're unlikely to get exactly 30 and 33 MPG when you drive them. But wh
Hyundai/Kia 2012 (Score:2)
Why not, right? I mean, it's not like there's much independant honesty in the other ads in the 2012 race.
Perhaps (Score:2)
What you call a gallon seems to be about 0.729 of a standard gallon that is 4.546 litres in size.
Double standards (Score:3)
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.
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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.
Re:A Modus Operandi from American manufacturers (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Your reasons are roght...[to some extent]... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 Impala gets 30mpg highway this year (Score:4, Informative)
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?
Thank you (Score:3)
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
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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
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Shoot, I forgot Pontiac. Seriously they had a stupid number of marques.
Re:A Modus Operandi - Just 3 for VM? (Score:2)
VW/Audi/Porsche/Skoda/SEAT/Lamborgini/Bugatti you mean.
And frankly I think I'm forgetting at least one.
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That's the one :)
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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 a
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Oh No! Global warming is wrong! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: Oh No! Global warming is wrong! (Score:2)
My real world mileage on my Fiat 500 is about 5 mpg more than the sticker label. (42 mpg average)
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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...
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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.
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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. [detroitnews.com]
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.
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As a former Fiat owner I can speak about how low my fuel costs were. The damn thing was always in the shop.
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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
Re: Oh No! Global warming is wrong! (Score:4)
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.
Re:Oh No! Global warming is wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Your mileage, in fact, won't vary (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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!"
I didn't say you wouldn't be able to meet or exceed the EPA numbers, I said that you were statistically unlikely to see the same numbers as the EPA rating. :) This thread (and the whole discussion) is full of people talking about how they're able to exceed the EPA numbers simply by driving like normal people.
Personal example: when I had a 2007 Chevrolet Aveo, I was not able to meet the EPA rating... the car was just badly designed, I think. With my 2011 Subaru Impreza, I have no problem beating the EPA rati
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=29712 [fueleconomy.gov]
You can see the EPA rating and the average user's rating are similar, but not exact. The more popular a car is, the more estimates there are. If you click on view individual estimates, it'll show you the locale, driving conditions, and the last time the estimate was updated. I f
Re:I am not sure I understand (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
A colleague of mine used to do that as well, but he figured out finally that engines didn't last very long when driven like that.