They are tempting. Cars that claim to give you forty miles per gallon and more.
Here’s an assortment of ads you may have seen.
From Chevy: “The Chevy Cruze Eco gets up to 42 miles per gallon.
From Honda: “… 41 mile per gallon highway Civic HF.”
And, Hyundai: “The 40 miles per gallon Elantra.”
The ads get your attention. But Consumer Reports auto editor Rick Paul says the numbers can be deceiving.
“The numbers in the ads are for highway driving only. The estimate for city driving is below 30 miles per gallon for most of these cars. So unless you drive mainly on freeways, you’re not going to see 40 miles per gallon,” says Paul.
And, you can’t always get the best mileage with the base model.
That’s likely buried in the fine print. With theFord Focus, you’ll need to spend $17,000 for the SE sedan and add a $500 Super Fuel Economy Package to go further.
And with the Chevy Cruze, you’ll need to buy the $18,000 Eco version that only comes with a manual transmission. The Honda Civic HF advertised goes for $20,000. That’s $5,000 more than the base model.
“People think of these cars as relatively inexpensive. But to get the highest gas mileage, you’ll likely have to pay more than you might want for an economy car,” says Paul.
The Hyundai Elantra promises 40 miles per gallon for it’s base model. It starts at $15,000.
“In our tests the Elantra got 39 miles per gallon on the highway, 29 overall. That’s pretty good for this class, but it’s not quite the promised 40 miles per gallon.”
The Toyota Yaris and Corolla and Mazda 3 do deliver 40 miles per gallon on the highway or even more.
But those numbers are for the highway. The overall mileage is much lower.
Article courtesy of wusa9.com