EPA mileage ratings is bull? (Elantra vs Civic vs Corolla)
 

My sister recently decided to buy her first car. She is rather cheap when it comes to cars and therefore fuel efficiency, price and maintenance are all top priorities. She recently test drove the elantra, civic and the corolla. really liked the elantra. I decided to ask her why she hasn't test drove the fit? it has ample cargo and very reliable. Well it turns out the fit is only rated 34mpg highway and the elantra is 39mpg according to US government fuel economy ratings. So i thought to my self this just can't be right, I have driven both the elantra and the fit as rentals and I remember the fit using same if not less than elantra. Surely to find out and to bypass the EPA rating gimmicks I looked at sites like truedelta and fuelly and what I found was according to my thoughts. The fit does in fact average better MPG returns than the elantra. I see 7.8L/100km for the elantra and 7L/100km for the fit. So this begs the question whether EPA ratings are to be totally ignored? I sometimes see new cars with big V6 engines having better EPA ratings than my old corolla, but when you drive them you average much MUCH less than that. eg. ford mustang v6, chrysler 200 and acura RDX.

Wasn't Hyundai one of the companies with grossly overstated EPA numbers ?

There is this, and how they drive. The v6 Mustang gets wicked fuel economy, the 200 is a chrysler, and who is driving the RDX?

The EPA runs the exact same test. So under the exact same conditions, it should show how they compare.

How often are Fits taken to a drag strip? (Mustang turf)

How often are Mustangs driven efficiently? (Fit turf)

How often are RDX owners caring about their fuel economy? (Who cares about cost, turf)

But I do not trust hyundai or their EPA numbers, either.

The wife gets about $90 a year (from Kia) for the overestimate of MPG on her 2012 Sorento. The sticker said 32 highway, now they dropped it to 29 highway. Some Hyundai and Kia models were worse. I could get 32 but only under conditions where my Fiesta (rated at 38 highway) would get over 50.

I can usually meet or beat the top numbers on fuelly, if those numbers are real. Those that do better than my self, on fuelly, are either wrong or drive-ride at slower average speeds. My average speed is high 30s to mid 40s or more on road trips. I have averaged 70 MPH on a few trips without fuel or food stops.

regards
Mech

I'm quite sure some OEMs are 'gaming' the EPA ratings much more than others. There are cars known to get above epa ratings (VW TDIs for example), and cars that get consistently below (kia / hyundai).

The EPA rating system is not the problem. It is those few car makers who cheat & lie that are the problem.

Once they know the test and how it's conducted, they can build the car specifically to get good numbers on the test. Not necessarily to get the best numbers in the real world.

It depends on the kind of driving you do, too. The Fit and most other subcompacts are marketed as "city" cars with close ratio transmissions that aren't going to do as well at 65+ mph.

Absolutely true. The Elantra is a better highway car. Pick the right horse for the course.

The adjusted/new EPA numbers for the Elantra are spot on. Except when its cold of course. Below 40*F the car struggles. With an upper grill block and tires at 40ish psi this summer I got a round trip average of 40mpg at 65 miles an hour. The trip mph avg was 62. 360 miles each way. 30miles of city and 5-10 minutes of idle at the boarder check point included.