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Why do manufacturers still supply misleading miles-per-gallon figures?

Two weeks ago we traded in our Ford Focus 2.0 TDCI 138 Estate Titanium for a new 1.0-litre EcoBoost 125 PS, petrol-engined Focus Estate Titanium X. What an amazing, quiet, comfortable car with a performance that totally belies expectations for so small an engine and with only three cylinders. But it's high time that manufacturers stopped cynically hiding behind EC Standard Testing Procedures that 'force' them to publish misleading fuel economy statistics.

The Ford brochure quotes mpg of 44.1 Urban, 64.2 Extra Urban and 55.4 Combined. Admittedly our Focus is 'new and tight' but we have to struggle in economy mode to record 36mpg on a tankful of fuel; which I see as a dishonest 'con'. I'm certain that if EC Testing procedures forced manufacturers to publish figures that are worse than are achievable, heaven and earth would be shifted to change the situation, or the regulations ignored or circumvented.

Asked on 6 July 2013 by BW, Chelmsford

Answered by Honest John
The expression is not ‘force’. It is ‘legally compel’. That's why we have been running www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/ for the past two years. Since UK annual car tax is inextricably linked to the EC fuel consumption tests from which CO2 is extrapolated, we would far rather provide a reliable independent record of what drivers are likely to experience in real life than see a more ‘realistic’ EC test that resulted in a big hike in related car taxation and company driver BIK tax. Please add your figure to www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/

Real MPG enables you to register the fuel economy you are actually getting against your make and model of car, its engine and type of transmission.

Every time you enter an average consumption figure against your car, the overall average automatically adjusts to reflect it.

Real MPG
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