Ford Finds Itself in Court Over Fuel-Economy Claims

[FFTeam]

Watching Ford follow Hyundai, Kia, Honda, and GM in getting hit with a class-action lawsuit over its cars’ advertised fuel economy, one wonders if the plaintiffs’ lawyers behind these actions have tried to figure out a way to sue the manufacturers of the metaphorical floodgates that are now open. This isn’t to suggest that Ford’s C-Max hybrid and Fusion hybrid, the vehicles at issue in the lawsuit, use as little fuel in the real world as their 47-overall-mpg EPA stats suggest. Even with lighter-footed drivers than those in the Car and Driver offices, C-Max and Fusion hybrids have fallen way short of the official EPA numbers, delivering 37 and 39 miles per gallon respectively to Consumer Reports. (Both returned fuel economy of 32 mpg in our testing). Our upside-down system for quantifying fuel economy makes this sound worse than it is—2.56 to 2.7 gallons per 100 miles instead of 2.13—but it’s a big drop.

Ford has, understandably, centered its C-Max and Fusion hybrid advertising on the cars’ EPA numbers. Both are rated at 47 mpg across the board—city, highway, and combined. The plaintiffs argue that Ford oversimplifies the EPA numbers in its ads: They don’t say that these are EPA-based estimates, or describe the EPA’s testing procedure, or that drivers probably won’t see comparable numbers driving these cars in the real world. Altogether, the plaintiffs say, the high numbers in the advertising led them to buy C-Max and Fusion hybrids when they otherwise wouldn’t have, to pay more for them than if the fuel-economy numbers were more accurate. And they all say they’ve used more fuel than they were promised they would.

But what cars don’t exhibit a gap between EPA estimates and real-world performance? For everyone who says their Honda Civic beats the 40-mpg-highway EPA number, there are three more who haven’t broken 30 yet. So many factors affect how much fuel a car needs—tires, road surfaces, temperature, driving style, driving conditions, elevation and atmospheric pressure, grade of fuel, and break-in of the engine, to name a few—it’s extremely difficult to come up with a widely applicable mileage estimate. We assume that Ford, like most automakers, to a certain extent “games” the EPA tests—they ensure their cars can meet certain parameters of the test even if those don’t have the biggest impact on real-world fuel economy. That’s a problem with the EPA’s regimen though, not a particular car company. Altogether, these are strong reasons to scrap the EPA fuel-economy estimations altogether. Until then, if the C-Max hybrid or the Hyundai Sonata are indeed rated at 47 miles per gallon on the EPA test cycle, the companies should be allowed to say so.

Text Source: Car & Driver

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[felixthecat]

Sounds like the EPA is letting the manufactors police them selfs. Well thats a given since the goverment is out of cashola. Guess Hyundai got caught big time.

[incubus625]

But then you have cars like the fiesta. Its rated 29city 38 highway. Ive maintained lower to mid 40mpg with out trying. Ive been doing more city now with winter gas, avg mpg now is like 33. You think Ford would rate a non Hybrid higher?

<a href="http://www.fuelly.com/driver/rjs907/fiesta" target="_blank"><img src="http://badges.fuelly.com/images/sig-us/141266.png" width="500" height="63" alt="Fuelly" title="Share and compare MPG at Fuelly" border="0"/></a>

[FLYLOW]

Originally Posted by incubus625

But then you have cars like the fiesta. Its rated 29city 38 highway. Ive maintained lower to mid 40mpg with out trying. Ive been doing more city now with winter gas, avg mpg now is like 33. You think Ford would rate a non Hybrid higher?

<a href="http://www.fuelly.com/driver/rjs907/fiesta" target="_blank"><img src="http://badges.fuelly.com/images/sig-us/141266.png" width="500" height="63" alt="Fuelly" title="Share and compare MPG at Fuelly" border="0"/></a>

Reading the little dash gauge is not the correct way to measure mpgs...

[incubus625]

Originally Posted by FLYLOW

Reading the little dash gauge is not the correct way to measure mpgs...

Where did I say I used the little dash gauge, lol. My HTML sucks, but you can still make out in the url that I attempted to post. I've been keeping track of my mpg on fuelly since I got the car.

[Darth_Focus]

I just read how the EPA runs the test the cars weight does not seem to enter the equation.

[cyfocus01]

Geesh. This half the problem with our country.
Anyway, I think it says right on the window sticker "EPA ESTIMATE"!! And I am pretty sure there is some laguage that talks about variences as you all listed above.
We have all read MPG posts on here that go on for days about how to calculate and so forth, some people just need to pull their heads out.

[elsolo]

They need to overhaul the EPA estimate procedures.
I don't know how the EPA guesses at it, spherical Fords traveling trough a vacuum?

They are completely BS, and most manufacturers are getting sued over it now that fuel mileage is a major selling point.

[cyfocus01]

ESTIMATE MPG, they even say it on TV comercials.

too many ignorant people out there think everything in print is true, like it is set in stone.

[felixthecat]

Originally Posted by cyfocus01

ESTIMATE MPG, they even say it on TV comercials.

too many ignorant people out there think everything in print is true, like it is set in stone.

Pretty much like all the warnings on everthing & I mean everthing, even stupid things. All it is is common sense stuff. Lot of sue happy people out there. As far as the estimated mpg's, I just use that as a ball park figure to compare other vechicles, like the Foci to its comp. Just a rough idea.