dcap8424

i get anywhere from 30 to 32.5 in my '05 auto tC. and that is a mix of city and highway. these numbers seem pointless.

Tomas

OK.

(1) The EPA figures are an average - some will get better, some worse.

(2) The EPA figures are from two different test scenarios, city driving and highway driving, all done on a dyno.

(3) The EPA "Combined" average is just that: an average of two averages. If one's normal driving has different percentages of city and highway driving, that average will be way off.

My driving time is probably 90% actual stop-and-go, signal-every-other-block, urban driving, with only about 10% highway drive time. For my particular driving style and driving environment, the new (corrected) EPA figures match within about 0.5 MPG the actual results from over two years of tracking my mileage.

Again, some will get better, some worse, and even I can drop my MPG in my '05 xB to 22 MPG if I drive it like I stole it, or pull 36 MPG on the highway at ten over the limit...

Most people get the idea that the EPA figures are to compare vehicle to vehicle under ideal test conditions. Comparing two vehicles EPA mileage figures will give an excellent comparison of how they match up compared to one another.

The EPA figures are NOT a valid benchmark all drivers can expect to match. Too many variables.

HOWEVER, if you compare YOUR mileage figures with the EPA estimates for your vehicle (using the new corrected estimates), you will know how what you get compares to the EPA estimates.

Now, using that same percentage (91% or 112% of the EPA numbers, for example), one can apply that percentage to OTHER vehicles one is considering and get a pretty good guess what one might expect from those others using them in the same way and in the same environment you do now.

The EPA has explained this for decades, but most folks don't even bother to listen. Maybe they are just that dumb.

You KNOW how dumb the average Joe on the street is, right? Well, by definition, half of them are even dumber...

Basstrack17

^^^ well said

Mickie3

I think you are giving too much credit to those who are above the norm (average.)


My wife used to get what the old EPA estimate was on her Corolla and gets well in excess of the 08 standard on her xB. She is a very cautious driver and doesn't do jack-rabbit starts and the "sliding to the red light" maneuver, either.

Myself, I do get about the EPA estimates because I accelerate a bit faster than she does, so if I drove her vehicles, I would not get as high of gas mileage as she does. I DO drive within the limits, and make an effort to get decent MPG, however, driving styles are different, so no matter how they changed the EPA estimates, they are and always will be a vehicle/drive-train estimate, that is all, not an absolute prediction of what YOU will get.

/rant on

However, from what I am seeing, it looks to me as if the EPA has traded in one messed up method of calculations for another. The "old" estimates were overstatements of what you could realistically expect and the "new" ones seem to be underestimates. Maybe that is what the folks at the EPA wanted? Why would the EPA want this?

Hmmmmmm...... if you think about it for a minute, the auto and oil lobbyists have been able to keep Congress from passing more stringent MPG regulations for years. The lobbyists have NOT been able to get the CAFE regulations (fleet EPA mileage penalties come under this set of laws) repealed, however, as much as they have tried. Underestimating the EPA mileage intentionally would be a highly effective method of making the auto sellers in the US increase the actual MPG of their vehicles without new legislation being passed. Is this "back-door" legislation? Yep, sure is. Has the EPA ever done anything like this in the past? Sure they have, in fact they have a time-tested track record of it (just ask the chemical companies, tobacco companies, utilities, et. al.) May well be that the only way we will ever see an increase in the fleet MPG of all cars sold in the US (as intended by the laws starting in the 70s) will be by the EPA redoing their "MPG estimate formulas" every few years. Is that a bad thing? Not in my opinion, although YMMV.

/rant off