Why has the USA banned the practice of misrepresenting fuel consumption figures?
I thought your readers might be interested to know that when we were in Texas 2 weeks ago we saw a Fiat 500 Pop (1.4 MultiAir) as part of a promotion in a shopping mall. Interestingly the official fuel consumption was stated as 27mpg around town and 34mpg on the highway. This is for the smaller US gallon of 0.83, as the UK gallon equates to a fuel consumption of around 32 mpg around town and 41 mpg on the interstate, on the US's much less congested roads. Later I was told that some time ago the US authorities changed the Rules to stop the "fraudulent" practice of misrepresenting fuel consumption employed by EU car manufacturers.
Asked on 8 November 2012 by RW, Northallerton
Answered by
Honest John
Yes. Rules and Consumer Protection are far tougher in the USA (where the Fiat 500 isn’t selling in the numbers expected). The problem is that European annual car tax is based on CO2 emissions. So anything done that makes official fuel economy more realistic will put up motoring taxes. That's why we're happy to provide the totally independent real life fuel economy register at www.honestjohn.co.uk/real mpg
Drivers can find out the truth here, without setting themselves up for a tax hike. My Fiat 500 1.2 averaged about 46mpg in the winter and about 54mpg in the summer. This is actually close to the official figure, which is measured in summer conditions. At the time of writing a Fiat 500 1.4 is averaging 41.4mpg, a 1.2 48.8mpg and a TwinAir 48.7mpg.
Drivers can find out the truth here, without setting themselves up for a tax hike. My Fiat 500 1.2 averaged about 46mpg in the winter and about 54mpg in the summer. This is actually close to the official figure, which is measured in summer conditions. At the time of writing a Fiat 500 1.4 is averaging 41.4mpg, a 1.2 48.8mpg and a TwinAir 48.7mpg.
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.
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