U.S. FTC: rules concerning fuel economy advertising may be updated

[Frank Lee]

Yes, but anyone not aware of that is either hopeless or they don't care anyway.

[gone-ot]

In politics, they're called Spin Doctors.

In car sales, the same people are called Marketing personnel.

[cbaber]

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

Only showing highway mpg can be deceptive because the ratio of highway to city mpg varies between vehicles. It's not telling the whole story.

This would apply only to advertising, and no ads tell the whole story. It's already mandated that new cars have the specific highway and city EPA ratings displayed on the window sticker, so the buyer does get the whole story before making a purchase.

Based on the fact that the information is readily available from many sources pre-purchase, and that all other industries practice the same technique, I can't see why any changes need to be made, or how this would improve the customer experience.

[gone-ot]

When you test-drive a new car, do you look at the MPG meter to see what numbers it's showing? Well, now you know *WHY* almost every OEM MPG-meter is 5-7% optimistic...because the manufacturers are NOT afraid to "push/play with" the truth envelope.

[ksa8907]

The part I find most annoying in car advertising is when they show their top of the line model with every option under the sun and then give the mileage of their base model/ small engine version.

Other than that, I look at their mpg rating, highway, and then add 10% and figure that's what I would get out of it.

[Simonas]

If everyone were honest, we'd never need to waste our breath on such threads. But since people are dishonest, we may as well discuss how to keep from getting ripped off. Consider it this way--you are keeping them from getting away with doing something wrong. If everybody made it hard for others to lie, others would not lie as much.

[BrandonMods]

I would have to agree with most of you when speaking about the chevy cruze. No I do not have the cruze diesel unfortunately . But I was most frustrated by the window sticker claiming I would get 42 mpg highway and that I do but only when the highway is flat seamless road. I fight to get above 42 mpg on my 26 mile commute to and from work. I'm just saying some actual quantitative testing from the EPA would be beneficial to the general public when it concerns deciding on a car for fuel economy if they're not familiar with hypermiling.

[gone-ot]

General DRIVERS = 99% of the "Bell Curve" of driving skills & techniques.

HYPERMILERS = 1% of the "Bell Curve" of driving skills & techniques.

[NachtRitter]

Originally Posted by BrandonMods

I'm just saying some actual quantitative testing from the EPA would be beneficial to the general public when it concerns deciding on a car for fuel economy if they're not familiar with hypermiling.

Puzzled by this... isn't that what the EPA sticker on the car tells you? What the FE of the car is based on a set of common tests (applied equally to all cars) as specified by the EPA?

[NachtRitter]

Originally Posted by Simonas

If everyone were honest, we'd never need to waste our breath on such threads. But since people are dishonest, we may as well discuss how to keep from getting ripped off. Consider it this way--you are keeping them from getting away with doing something wrong. If everybody made it hard for others to lie, others would not lie as much.

Conversely, if everyone where skeptical about claims being made without substantiation, then we'd never need to waste our breath on such threads either. Since many people aren't, we have to discuss how to put more laws in place to protect the sheeple...