Hyundai and KIA are lowering the fuel economy rates on most 2011-2013 models due to a exaggerate declared mileage that affects to a vast majority of both makers lineup.
Today, KIA Motors America (KMA)’s CEO Byung Mo Ahn reported a corporative message apologizing to customers and dealers for the procedural misinterpretations and errors that led into this action. In this open letter, Mo Ahn declared that thay will start relabeling the fuel consumption on dealers and media, and more importantly, KMA will compensate current and former owners covering the added fuels costs derivated from the MPG adjustments.
The major models affected by this campaign are the 2012 Hyundai Accent, 2012/13 Elantra and 2012/13 Veloster (all rated at EPA estimated 40 MPG highway, to be underrated to 36-38 MPG depending on models) and nearly the full KIA lineup, including the Optima Hybrid, Rio, Soul, Sportage and certain Sorento models equipped with GDi engines.
However, new EPA estimated ratings for those KIA models are unknown yet. Stay tuned for further details.
Too bad they have to do this; the cars speak for themselves, even if the mileage isn’t quite what is claimed. I’ve never seen too many cars which did return the EPA estimates anyway. After all, unless you are operating the vehicle in the same conditions in which it is originally tested, you’re not too likely to see that mileage anyway.
From our families experience with Hyundai’s, many of them returned better than rated mileage. So will this be an issue which will make me consider an alternative when choosing another vehicle, no.
I usually get better than the EPA estimates bu as much as 10 percent, I also deal with a lot of traffic backed up behind me and getting honked at when the light turns(for not taking off like in a drag race)
Too bad they have to do this; the cars speak for themselves, even if the mileage isn’t quite what is claimed. I’ve never seen too many cars which did return the EPA estimates anyway. After all, unless you are operating the vehicle in the same conditions in which it is originally tested, you’re not too likely to see that mileage anyway.
From our families experience with Hyundai’s, many of them returned better than rated mileage. So will this be an issue which will make me consider an alternative when choosing another vehicle, no.
I usually get better than the EPA estimates bu as much as 10 percent, I also deal with a lot of traffic backed up behind me and getting honked at when the light turns(for not taking off like in a drag race)
I think we need new and better ways of talking about mileage. I get that the official figures are highly synthetic – the problem is that they don’t *sound* synthetic. They sound like claims of expected mileage, which they definitely aren’t.
In reality mileage has as much to do with conditions and driving style as with the car, with the result that people’s real-life experience will always differ. And all that happens is that manufacturers optimize for the specific ‘typical’ conditions used by the tests. Here in the UK/EU the official test doesn’t involve travelling at speeds over 50 mph at all, with the result that most cars sold here are effectively optimized for low speeds: travel at 80mph on the highway your mileage plummets.
I’d prefer simple objective measures of fuel economy: tell me that a certain car gets 38.5 mpg at a constant 70 mph on a flat road in top gear, while another gets 36.5 mpg, and let me do the generalization to real-world conditions myself.
I agree. There are far too many variables to effect mileage. To state claims as they do actually leads to many people experiencing lower results than expected. Providing something that will equated to more accurate results that most people can likely achieve would be difficult, but should be worked towards.
I think we need new and better ways of talking about mileage. I get that the official figures are highly synthetic – the problem is that they don’t *sound* synthetic. They sound like claims of expected mileage, which they definitely aren’t.
In reality mileage has as much to do with conditions and driving style as with the car, with the result that people’s real-life experience will always differ. And all that happens is that manufacturers optimize for the specific ‘typical’ conditions used by the tests. Here in the UK/EU the official test doesn’t involve travelling at speeds over 50 mph at all, with the result that most cars sold here are effectively optimized for low speeds: travel at 80mph on the highway your mileage plummets.
I’d prefer simple objective measures of fuel economy: tell me that a certain car gets 38.5 mpg at a constant 70 mph on a flat road in top gear, while another gets 36.5 mpg, and let me do the generalization to real-world conditions myself.
I agree. There are far too many variables to effect mileage. To state claims as they do actually leads to many people experiencing lower results than expected. Providing something that will equated to more accurate results that most people can likely achieve would be difficult, but should be worked towards.