bad mpg

[steevyg]

i'm shocked by the poor mpg figures on this site.
i'm not a slow driver and i would say most of my everyday journey's are in traffic but i still average over 50 mpg for my car (colt cz2) but others get less.
does this mean everyone drives like lewis hamilton everywhere ! or are they in traffic as soon as they start there journey ?
also, if you look at the fuel figures for north america, well no wonder we have global enviromental crisis !
dont think i'm a mother earth tree hugger. i've had jag's and merc's and love a big engine too but its the cost of fuel and average 25k a year mileage (and being a pauper) that i currently have a small engined car.
i was wondering what other people think

[Draigflag]

I too was quite shocked checking the US cars, ive seen some as low as 14 MPG, and even some hybrids getting 30 MPG. But we have to understand that fuel is dirt cheap in the US, always has been and always will be, so it hasn't forced the car market to change like it has in the UK unfortunatley. What worries me more is the C02 emissions, I think the US now contributes about 25 to 30% of the World's C02 even though they only make up 5% of the World's population. Its not hard to see why, an average Cherokee for example has emissions 400% higher than my car.

[steevyg]

thanks for replying i thought i was going mad !
i believe the US wont sign up to a lot of treaty's regarding climate control as well
they send people to the moon but their auto technology for everyday cars is crap.

[OliverGT]

Don't forget that a US Gallon is a bit smaller than an Imperail Gallon as well.

So a US car doing 20 MPG (US) is actually 24.02 MPG (Imperail) so you can add 20% to the US figures.

Having said that, I agree with both of you, I have a 2002 Peugeot 206 1.4 HDI Diesel, and I have never had less than 65 mpg from a tank (official combined figure is 66). But some of the poeple on here are only getting 50 - 55 mpg which is a big difference. Although I'm now trying to squeeze every last drop out of her, that would not have been the case before when I got the 65mpg.

Maybe everyone is doing lots of very short trips in traffic?

Oliver.

[steevyg]

i think with the cost of fuel now that mpg is the new mph

[Draigflag]

Oliver, the figures you see on here are UK MPG, if you have your settings set to UK, you will see all cars, even those in the US as UK MPG.

Steevyg, I agree. In my last car I used to drive like a nutter, but then I realised I was just throwing money away so I started driving econmically. Then I thought whats the point having a quick car and driving it slowly, so I swapped it for a Clio Diesel. Not as exciting but goes 100% further on the same fuel than my last car!

[OliverGT]

Yep, have to agree, you only need to do some simple maths.

In ireland

15,000 thousand miles a year would cost the following:

(1.50 per litre)

At 50mpg 2045 euro
At 60mpg 1704 euro

Which is roughly 30 euro a month.

Which buys a lot of Ice Creams

[OliverGT]

Draigflag,

Thanks for the clarification, that makes things much worse than I thought.

I'm with you on the having a fast car and driving slowly, although finances mean I'm coming from the other end, why try and dirve a slow car fast!

I have a Land Cruiser Amazon as well as the Peugeot, which is a big, slow old bus, there would be no point trying to drive it fast, so I just drive it slowly. Same with the Peugeot, it's not going to win any drag races, so why try.

Now, if I had a nice M5, I'd gladly pay for the petrol and drive around with a stupid grin on my face.

Oliver.

[Draigflag]

Well yea its easy to say that, but trust me, I was putting £200 a month worth of fuel in the Fiat 500, and that's only a 1.4, hardly Supercar sized!

[andyrobo]

There are laws in the US that the automakers have to get their "fleet average" to 50 MPG by 2020 and 60 MPG by 2025.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpora...r.2C_2011-2025

This means more small cars which is going to be very important in getting some families to downsize from the big SUVs to something more reasonable. Many people have the mindset that they don't want a small car which could get crushed in a wreck to carry their kids. This was the case in the 1980s when trucks were much safter then small passenger vehicles. With advances in technology trucks are now less safe in wrecks and passenger cars are safer. It's going to take time for folks to embrace this new paradigm. Also to note, truck sales have surged in the USA and fall under different regulations. They probably need to fix that loophole and define small trucks as passenger cars and big box trucks as commercial.