Canadian Auto Ads lying about MPG numbers
 

This has been burning me for a few months now, quietly festering...

It's not just one particular car company and they are all using it in ALL their advertising -- Window clings, on-lot signs, and TV broadcast ads.

Canadian auto companies are publishing misleading, nay, deceptive ads where they publish the proper Litres per 100km figures, but are ALSO using Imperial (UK) mileage figures instead of US MPG figures.

I realize it's a muddy area, since we are officially a metric country, and they are "free" to use whatever converted units they so wish. They aren't false numbers, they're deceptive.

But Canada sits right next to the U.S. of A., and the VAST majority of the population* would assume that the MPG figures quoted would be equivalent to the MPG figures you would see in the US.

We up in Canada don't shorten "fuel efficiency" down to "kilometerage" ... we use the word "mileage". In the same bent, everyone here assumes that Miles Per Gallon (MPG) assumes a mile of 5,280 feet, and a US gallon.


If Canada were right smack against the European continent, or a stone's throw from the United Kingdom, then I would not have this beef about which gallon is used. But, this misleading play with "unofficial" numbers preys on the math-phobic, at a time where they are concerned with the high cost of petroleum based fuels.

A US gallon is 128 fluid ounces, and a UK gallon is 160 fluid ounces.

When converted*, that means:

1 US Gallon is 3.78541178 litres
and
1 Imperial Gallon is 4.54609188 litres

The difference is around 20% -- which means, stating Imperial MPG figures, when the logical convention in Canada would be to use the US gallon, overstates MPG figures by 20%.

I honestly don't know why carmakers and dealerships in Canada are pulling this stunt -- it's only going to hurt them.

They WILL get blowback from consumers that buy cars on the promise of better mileage, even if they don't hear it themselves. They'll just have their dissatisfied customers gripe and rant and complain to their friends, their coworkers, and random people they bump into, for that matter.

Examples:

Signage:

No pictures yet, but the Volkswagen d(st)ealership in town has a portable sign extolling how the new 2011 TDI gets 61 highway MPG. This matches the equivalent imperial MPG for the 4.6 L/100km official figure on vw.ca for the '11 TDI Golf and Jetta; the US MPG equivalent to 4.6 L/100km is 51 MPG.

TV ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9L3EJGGgEk

(Hrm, just realized, this is a 2009 model year ad... so they've been doing this in Canada for 3 years and I just noticed this year?



My dilemma:

Well, I'm right ticked off about this, and I know it's misleading, deceitful, and WRONG... and unless I really hunt around, there are no exceptions to the carmakers that are not using imperial mileage figures.

So, how do I fix this?

---------------------------------------------------

** Conversions courtesy Unit Conversions and, Google also shows the correct conversions (plural):
liters per gallon - Google Search
liters per imperial gallon - Google Search

...standards are SO great, we have such a plethora to choose from, and all sufficiently & uniquely different to guarantee confusion.

...good thing we're not heading to Mars or something similar!

But it's really only misleading in that it.s overreporting the figures based on peoples assumptions, right? I mean, It's not saying that an suv is doing better than your neighbors civic, right?

I feel like anyone with half a brain will figure it out pretty quickly. Maybe I'm wrong?

I really don't understand why you are upset.

Canada has always used the imperial gallon and never the US gallon.

I am old enough to remember when we bought gas and the pumps dispensed in....imperial gallons.

When I see those ads I knew instinctively they were in imperial gallons.

Perhaps you are younger and have succumbed to the US culture? Not meaning that as a slight but a reality of living next to a large country.

I'm younger (mid 30s), and never bought anything in Imperial gallons in Canada. I'm from the Metric / mixed measure age.

Any imperial measures, I've only ever associated with the ones used here, AND in the US.
That means, no fluid measures in Imperial gallons / quarts / pints / gills / etc.

Maybe I'm wrong and the majority of the population does think of Imperial fluid measures in Canada. But you folks won't live forever, and the rest of us "young" pups are utterly ignorant of that.

Just a suggestion....take pride that the advertisers are being "Canadian" in using imperial.

Down the road we will be purely metric. It is us older folks that allow them to use imperial.

Times change. My son is a licensed mechanic. Carbs are a mystery to him :)

Nothing wrong with going metric, it's actually a lot easier to use. ;)

I agree with you.

I am 55 and I am beginning to "think" metric now. Temperature has to be Celsius for me. Fuel economy I can switch either way. Building materials are all English.

My dad built out house starting when I was eight -- so all feet and inches linearly, square feet and yards for areas. I only learnt metric in school at that time. I think they un-bannished other measures now in Onterrible, but it was the metric system only in school.

I learnt or reinforced the concept of fractions from tape measures and wrenches during that housebuilding time. The shop work I did years later, having people forty and under, generally had a VERY difficult time figuring out how to add 5-3/16 to 4-1/2 correctly.

I certainly don't hate ye olde english measurement system; it did help me knowing it. :)

It's just that I cannot see the justification for Imperial MPG measures in Canada, when no one is going to take a ferry for 2 weeks across the Atlantic to go fuel up in Ireland or England. Given that the majority of Canadians live within 200 miles or closer to the US border, they are MUCH more likely to fuel up on the US side, or buy a car from the US to import it back, and it'd be more sensible to have comparable MPG figures. Over 3/4 of our trade is with the US, not the UK.

That's my perspective, and why I think it's utterly unreasonable to market mileage figures that fit better in the UK, than they do in the country that sits right next to the US.

What Canada (and other metric users) needs to fix is the way they report fuel efficiency in metric. Their speed limits aren't in minutes per 100 Km, so why do they calculate fuel in liters per 100 Km? Km per hour works and so would Km per liter.

I have a unit of time. MPH and KPH tell me how efficiently I'm using it. I have of unit of fuel, too. MPG and KPL tell me how efficiently I'm using that. MPG is easier to understand than the contortionist thinking that L/100Km takes, even if the gallons being used are somewhat inflated ones that nobody on this continent actually uses. It's misleadingly inflated, yes, but it's still more useful information.

At home I buy my fuel by the gallon. North of here I buy it by the liter. Nobody sells me fuel in 100Km units. It's more useful to know how far the unit of fuel I'm buying will take me than it is to know how many units of fuel I need to buy to make it 100Km.

Nobody sells you gas in miles :)

I don`t understand your logic :)

I know this was a joke, but if they did. Hmmm.... ;)

"Why yes sir, 100 miles in your SUV, that will be...."

EDIT : If they did, would Ecomodder issue passports stating MPG for hypermilers ?

It's also a cultural thing.
The Dutch, just north of the border and speaking the same language, use km per liter.
Over here in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium) hardly anybody uses km/L.

ChrstphrR -

Hmmmm, I would have expected UK MPG figures in Canada.

Is a Gallon of milk in Canada imperial or US?

CarloSW2

I wish my Focus got 50 USMPG.

litres...Canada is metric

Except for VW Dealer ads - apparently.

JunkBonds -

Yeah, but in the USA I see both measurements on the carton, so I wondered. Oh well.

CarloSW2

It's sold in Litres, like Junk Bonds said.

ALTHOUGH, there are gallon containers that milk, and some juices are sometimes sold in. They're marked as 3.78L -- or, 1 US Gallon. I have not, in my lifetime*, seen an imperial gallon measure sold for anything in Canada.

I've seen the US gallons in Litres containers in four provinces that I can recall, and as far north as Edmonton.


* As far back as I can recall in my lifetime, so 30 years or so.

To make it even more perplexing, in the USA booze (meaning hard liquor and wine) is all sold by the liter. Soft drinks are also usually sold by the liter in the larger bottles of 1, 2, or 3 liters, but not in smaller bottles which are usually 12 ounces or 16 ounces. Beer is also sold in bottles or cans but those are measured only in ounces, not liters. (That makes no sense considering that the other alcoholic beverages are only sold in liters, but none of this makes any sense, anyway.)

Milk is sold in pints, quarts, half-gallons and gallons.

So you thought only Canada is weird, eh? :confused:

At least it makes it harder to confuse booze with milk. :rolleyes:

I'm fairly certain that 1/2 of rum I just kicked last weekend off was a half GALLON...

At least my 1.75L bottle is measured in proof, not by how many Ml it takes to get a 100Kg person up to 0.1%BAC in one hour. That would be almost as silly as the way some folks measure fuel economy. I'm not against the metric system at all- measure products in whatever way feels best. What I'm against is insane descriptions of usage. L/100Km FTL.

Don't forget that you can also buy booze by the fifth here.

The sad part about this it ain't some shaddy dealers posting ads in local newspaper but it's ford of canada doing it.

just go to ford.ca and the first thing you'll see is an ad about the new 2012 focus getting 59mpg hwy. Dang I'm ashamed I've got a ford product sitting in my driveway ;)

The problem I've got with that is that 50+ years old still can't really ''understand'' metric unit. Like my father don't calculate in l/100km but in mpg but he's still better than my father in-law who told me his last car should be economic as the salesman told him it doesn't cost more than 40$ to fill-up when it's empty!

Are they really "lying" though, or being Economical with the truth or even just using the units which apply in Canada where, like the UK, both metric and imperial are used ?

It seems from the responses it is confusing, but is it being deceptive or just cleverly using the available units ? Checking ford.ca just now its giving me FE for the new Focus in l/100KM - the S Sedan does 7.8l/100km city. I did decline the option of entering my postcode though so maybe it changes if you do ?

This is what I see on ford.ca webpage

59mpg at 2 places and it's even bigger than the l/100km.

http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/t...fordcanada.jpg

I see it to now, I have flashblock (recommended) installed so didn't see the home page nonsense. :thumbup:

The us gallon is the problem. It was invented so merchants could sell smaller amounts of a product at the same price,making more money, pretending to the u.s buyer that it was a full gallon, its not, The Imperial gallon is.

No, this is not an evil Big Oil conspiracy. The origin of the US gallon is with vinters and brewers measures, and done merely to facilitate trade.

1707 was when England standardized the gallon (the wine gallon of 231 cubic inches) that the US continues to use, and was chosen from the plethora of different gallon sizes in use during trade.

And 1824 was when Parliment re-standardized the Imperial Gallon as the volume of 10 lbs of water at 62F. So the larger gallon that is being compared, came into being AFTER, not before.

Both gallons long, LONG predate the conventional petroleum industry.

I thought it was done for milk sales.. but i would of still been wrong, but Hey, great history lesson!
We about never use the imperial gallon anymore in Canada. They switched to metric when I was in grade 3 or 4, about the same time they started forcing all Canadians to learn French in school.. fun times. NOT

That's why we use the liter :)
It's the same everywhere, and it fits in nicely with the metric system.