DetNews: 40 mpg claims grab headlines, miss mark

I think that's not so good. The non-eco cruze (and the ECO version is what $2k more for another 1-2 mpg) has 35 or 36 EPA highway depending on model. A 200 horsepower Sonata has 35. The 2012 Camry also 35. Larger cars with more power, I find their figures far more impressive.

 

The ECO 6MT is $770 more than the 1LT, and is rated at 42 highway. The auto is another $1k, and is only rated at 37 highway, compared to the 2011 LT models' 36 highway (they changed the final drive ratio for the auto 2012, and the LT is now rated at 38 highway)... Our '11 ECO cost $20,1xx out the door, said and done.

Cyclopathic is right about the non-urban commuters... I drive 80 miles/day, pretty much all highway (Engineer). My wife drives 45 miles/day, mostly highway. She drives into downtown (scientist for the state), but the interstate gets to within a mile from her parking garage, and the lights are timed so you really only stop once between the highway and parking garage...The month I drove the thing this summer, I averaged 41mpg. The wife and I went to Chicago this summer, A/C on, some rain here and there (which kills rolling resistance), 70mph, and 20 miles of city driving, and got 47.4mpg on the DIC for the trip (which is about 46-46.4 actual, based on the error in my logs vs. the DIC), with 2 cold starts included. The wife drives everything like it a F-ing F-1 car, so she only averages 35mpg with the ECO, but she'd only average MAYBE 40mpg with a Prius... MAYBE... ETA: I'll say that, now that she's driving it full time, and I only drive it when we go somewhere, I probably only get 38 with it, because with the turbo and the manual trans, coupled with the VERY well done chassis and suspension (somewhat let down by the LRR tires, though), it's one Hell of a LOT of FUN to drive!

With the price difference, the fact that we do -by far- mostly highway (in a vehicle that does very well on the highway), and the fact that I keep cars until everything's worth $2k (so I don't care about resale), it's cheaper in the short AND the long run for me to own/drive the ECO... If I lived in, or drove a lot in a city with a lot of traffic, I'd have had a hybrid several years ago... but I/we don't...

Really, the only time I've ever been at or below the city numbers is when I've been towing with the truck...

Mike

 

Perfectly rational post by bartonmd.

Talking to people I get the impression that they want the long trips on the highway to be in a fuel economical car, but are less concerned about city MPG because those are short trips.

I am not saying this is smart or reasonable, but the distorted marketing does in fact often tell people what they want to know.

I think Toyota and honda would do well by having an advert say something like "I drive 20,000 miles a year, and trading my old SUV for my hybrid saves me $200 in gas every month. That is half my car payment!" Americans DO need help with arithmetic.

 

You're saying a Cruze Eco got you 47 MPG on the gage? I'd like to see that photo.

Prius only got 57 MPG all day at 65 on highway, and it goes down a whopping 2 MPG to 55 MPG in the city. Just terrible fuel economy. Was even worse at the pump - 59 MPG.


And can you believe they're selling new 2011 Prius Two's for $21.5k? The nerve of them!!

Keep talking up the Elantras (40 MPG hwy/ 29 city / little cargo space) and all. You'll never get anywhere near 40 unless all you do is cruise the highway. Who the hell does that? Plus you get to hear your engine idle away gas at all stoplights, parking lots, drive throughs, etc... woohoo, conventional cars are the future. I just love automatic transmissions, they're so coool!! I even get to fumble with my keyto use the remote entry key fob with my car. And I get to stick a key in the ignition and turn it to crank a starter !!!

 

My brother in law out in Nevada bought a Cruze Eco and traded in his Insight. He started driving much longer highway (50 miles) and a local dealer had a "teaser ad" offering a great tradein for cars and he got his for an unbelievable price (they didn't want to sell it but he has some legal experience / reputation and they did). He also likes bare bone vehicles and prefered to have the standard transmission when possible. He said he gets better mpg that the insight but didn't give any specifics.

with regards to 47 MPG i have gotten over 40MPG on highway (actual) with 2009 Corolla and that's going to Madison from Chicago so I can believe 47...

 

Chevrolet Cruze Eco Video Review by High Gear Media!
MPG for 250 miles with MT.

 

This was before it got dark, and before the last 5 miles of city and 7 miles of rural...



Didn't take a picture of it, because it's kind of expected by now, but last weekend, the wife and I had our 7th anniversary vacation to TN, and got 44.5mpg on the gauge back in the driveway, after a 1026 mile weekend. This was with winter fuel, 35-45DegF (far from optimal temp for mileage), cruise set on 74mph, no hill anticipation (or downshifting) by me, plus the 3 days of driving "around" while we were down there, 6 cold starts, tires at 35psi, and not being especially easy on it in the city while we were there...

A Prius 2 starts at $24,280 (+TTL), and I don't know about where you are, but they don't deal on them, here...

Was this directed at me? I don't see how.

I will say, though, that there are 6 stop lights in my 80 mile round trip commute (3 morning, 3 evening), so my vehicles don't idle much... And as I said above, with my duty cycle and ownership habits, the financial math doesn't work for a Prius, vs. the ECO. (not to mention that there just flat weren't Prii availabile when we got our ECO, and if you could find a new one, they were NOT dealing). One other reason for the ECO over some other cars in the class was the rather large trunk (and rear seat that 2 full sized adults can comfortably sit in)...

I'm out for now... Gotta go drive my pollution-belching Cummins down to my grandparents' land and kill and process some organic forrest rats to feed my family all year...

Mike

 

At least we can do a reality check with Fuelly. Hopefully everyone is truthful in their reporting.

2012 Cruze, 33.5 mpg avg for all reporters

Chevrolet Cruze MPG Reports | Fuelly

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Interesting to hear poster above say near Indianapolis, they don't discount Prius. Not surprised considering Indy not too far from Detroit.

 

Re: Ford ad

GM is damned if they do, damned if they don't support the volt. Management seems all mixed up, supporting it one day, ignoring it the next. Don't like his attitude, or his lack of ability to explain why phevs are better than efficient cars. I hope it improves.

Looked at the clip, and when it was made the cruze was the best selling compact. The CEO did say compact, the announcer said car. The best selling vehicle has been a truck for a long time, the best selling car segment is midsize not compact.

 

The ECO 6MT are a small percentage of Cruzes, though, admittedly, likely a larger percentage of Fuelly users... We would not have purchased an automatic transmission Cruze for the mileage, as they get substantially worse. Having said that, 33mpg is actually about what my wife has been getting commuting in the winter, vs. the 35-36 she was getting in the summer... With the way she drives, she'd likely be averaging 35 winter and 38 summer in a Prius, anyway... She drives everything like it's a Fing F-1 car... If it's not spinning at least 3.5-4krpm, it's not her driving, and she stops too fast to get any regen braking, etc...

You're really trying to imply that the Toyota dealers are loyal to the big-3 (the competition), being 6 hours from Detriot, and that's why they don't discount them? So, why is it that they stock a lot of Tundras, Tacomas, and SUVs, when that's the big-3's bread and butter? They don't order a ton of prius (what's the plural for that? Priui?) here, because there isn't a ton of traffic, and there aren't a ton of people who drive ALL city, so there aren't a ton of people for which a Prius is far and above THE way to go, like on the coasts (or large cities like Chicago)... Most of the people, here, who have a hybrid, have it because they want a hybrid, not because it actually saves them any serious amount of money. Dealerships don't order a TON of them, so they don't have a TON of them to unload when the model year changes and they didn't sell as many as they expected... That's not to say they don't have 1-2 leftover that you could talk them down on, but they don't advertize "we need to unload these 11 models to make room for the 12s!" or anything... Hell, good friends of ours had to special order their hybrid Lexus, because they didn't stock enough of them at the dealer, to get close to the option package they wanted...

Mike

 

The Whole Foods one really was classic! "I pay my $80 for 5 things and roll out" ugh... My wife has a dairy intolerance, so we get "cheese" (in air quotes) there... So, so true...

This one... not so much...

Mike

 

I saw this yesterday and it also irritated me. It's willful ignorance.

If you are going to speak of a single MPG number it is absolutely disingenuous to use anything but the combined figure, which when applied puts all of these vehicles in the low 30's for MPG.

 

Resurrecting an old thread to say I've been seeing constant camry hybrid ads (print and vide0) with only the 43mpg (city) stated and not the lower combined or hwy figures. Granted all of the hycam figures rock but Toyota is no innocent angel here folks. BTW, the new nissan altima ads are also doing the same thing:

 

I can't blame them. In fact, I think they should make a commercial and spam the words 50mpg EVERYWHERE not just highway for cars like the Prius.

 

This Altima ad clearly says "38 mpg highway" in the same size font. I'm fine with that , so long as the voiceover says the same.

 

You don't think the TCH is in the same class as the Altima? Aren't they both mid-size sedans?