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Old 04-20-2016, 11:49 AM   #1 (permalink)
MetroMPG
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Location: 1000 Islands, Ontario, Canada
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Blackfly - '98 Geo Metro
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Even Fancier Metro - '14 Mitsubishi Mirage top spec
90 day: 70.75 mpg (US)

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Mitsubishi busted for cheating on fuel economy/emissions tests


JDM Mitsubishi eK Wagon. Only Kei class cars affected for now, but the company says they're looking at other models' tests.

Looks like Mitsu is following in Hyundai & Ford's footsteps, gaming fuel economy ratings with "erroneous" road load/rolling resistance values.

The ratings overstated fuel efficiency by 5 to 10 percent.

Mitsu was outed by Nissan, which rebrands some of Mitsu's cars for sale in Japan.

Quote:
The models affected include the eK Wagon and eK Space, manufactured and sold by Mitsubishi, and the Dayz and Dayz Roox, manufactured by Mitsubishi and supplied to Nissan for sale. According to Mitsubishi, it was Nissan's in-house testers that discovered the discrepancy between the cars' published fuel efficiency data, and their real-life results.

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/20/11...ficiency-tests
So far they're saying it's just the Kei vehicles, but they're saying likely more are affected:
Quote:
During our internal investigation, we have found that the testing method which was different from the one required by Japanese law has been applied to other models manufactured by MMC for the Japanese domestic market.

Taking into account the seriousness of these issues, we will also conduct an investigation into products manufactured for overseas markets.

Source: http://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/pub...etailg420.html
Will the Mirage be affected?

The company has gone to great lengths advertising it as the most fuel efficient non-hybrid available in North America (and at/near the top of its class in many other countries).



I'm thinking probably not.

1) Real world stats show the Mirage's EPA ratings are already conservative/realistic. 125 owners on average are already beating the rating by a good amount over 1.2 million km of real world driving:
2) The cheat appears to apply to JDM testing only. The EPA has already revised coastdown/road load testing in the States after busting Hyundai for similar cheats. Ford too.

For the 2017 model year, coastdown testing procedures are stricter. The 2017 Mirage already has a ~1 MPG lower rating than the 2014/15 model years, possibly because of this change. (Although they also changed the engine slightly.)

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