As fuel costs go up and up, auto-makers are doing their best to convince potential buyers of the efficiency of their particular products.
In both Canada and the US, estimated fuel consumption figures for each model is listed on stickers in the windows of every car at dealerships.
A couple in Calgary Alberta say they’ve been misled by the fuel claims, and that the car they bought new actually burns about 50% more than the claim.
George Iny is the Director of Canada Automobile Protection Association (APA)
ListenIn this latest incident the Calgary couple say their Chevrolet “Cruze LT” which they bought new in 2011, consumes as much as 50% more gas than the claimed efficiency. “I strongly feel cheated,” said vehicle owner Farah Mocquais. “We didn’t save any money — quite the opposite,” said her husband Pierre-Yves
GM Canada’s spokesperson said many factors can change fuel consumption results.
“Several factors can affect fuel use: driving style and behaviour, vehicle acceleration and driving speed, overall age and operating condition of your vehicle, temperature, weather, traffic, road conditions and drive systems and powered accessories (i.e. air conditioning) installed in your vehicle,” said Adria MacKenzie in an email.
But there have been many other complaints of a similar nature. Vancouver resident David Montgomery bought a 2010 Toyota Yaris for fuel efficiency and said it uses at least 30 per cent more gas than he and his wife were promised.
“The price of gas is going up. We were looking at purely economy. Nothing else mattered,” he said.
“I understand that there will be variables. One day if the weather’s not perfect you may lose up to 10 per cent [fuel efficiency] but not 30 to 50 per cent which is what we’ve shown to be happening.”
Julie Fennell, of Langley, British Columbia says, “I had done my whole budget based on what this car was supposed to get in fuel economy,”
She says she bought her 2011 Kia Rondo specifically because of Kia’s dealership and published figures on fuel consumption rate. She says she set her budget for those figures, but, “…now, it’s an extra 100 dollars in gas a month that I didn’t budget on. To me, that’s groceries for my kids.”
George Iny of the APA, says Canadian fuel ratings and American fuel ratings for the same cars show much different figures.
He said that originally the US Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA) was getting many complaints about their fuel efficiency ratings. Tests were done with cars in a indoor cell on a dynamometer, using special fuel. For highway ratings for example, the engines were run only at a simulated 90km/h. He says that’s far from reality and if you were to drive at that low speed on urban highways now, you’d risk causing or being involved in an accident..
After years of complaints about the wide gap between mileage claims and reality, he says the US beefed up their testing in 2008 but Canada didn’t.
Iny says of the current American standards that if still not reflective of reality, at least now the US ratings are about 20% more conservative and do give a closer estimate to real figures.
He says Canada is now promising to adopt the US methods which should come into effect by 2015.
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