EPA Mileage Estimates vs Real World

[Bird]

Timb,

Do as I did if they don't sell the vehicle with the engine that you want in your state. Buy it where you can get what you want then register it there in PA. I had this problem because NY does not sell diesel cars (but trucks are okay?) so I purchased mine out of state and took it home.

I understand the push for better emissions but look at the lost of fuel economy too. Cars should be getting better fuel economy than they did 10 -20 years ago. Even though they are better now, I feel they are far from where they should be. Cars in Europe get 40 to 50 MPG on average.

Oops I wasn't going to let my conspiracy feelings get involved.

That might work. On the other hand, it might not. I knew an Oklahoma car dealer several years ago who sold a California relative a new car, but after driving it all the way to California, the California DMV refused to register it, so it was driven back to Oklahoma. That was quite a few miles on the odometer for a vehicle that had never been registered.

 

[timb]

No - unfortunately they got you there. The law is actually not that these can't be *sold* here but they can't be *registered* here. There's only a couple of exceptions (inherit or move here from another state) but I'm out of luck on them.

 

[HUCKthe1]

It was the same here but I registered mine in another state and then after I had the 5000 mile I brought it in as a used vehicle by transferring the title. There are ways around these ridiculous rules as you mentioned a few. I like my 50mpg and very glad I went to the trouble to get my car.

I think our law makers should make some real laws that makes car manufactures sell only cars that get a minimum of 30-40mpg or better. They instead make these laws that help only corporations and themselves and cost the little man like ourselves.

The new VW diesels will be out next year that will pass the crazy NY/CA (PA?) emission test that cars have to pass but trucks dont. Diesel trucks/pickups put out way more emissions than any diesel car and yet they do not have to come close to meeting the emission rules as cars do. Just hope by passing the emissions that the VW's will still get decent fuel economy.

 

[VA_Joe]

Depends on which hemi you have. ALL hemi's don't drop cylinders

Even with the dropped cylinders - the 5.7 hemi is a gas hog. Don't expect better than 17 mpg highway and maybe 15 or so "city" on a Grand Cherokee.

 

[timb]

VA Joe - do you speak from personal experience on a Hemi Grand Cherokee?

Again - the reason I started this thread was such a disparity between mileage reports. There are the people struggling to break 12-13 mpg, yet there (as has happened in this thread) are other owners who seemed to be keeping the best actual track over a long time reporting a consistent 21/22 highway and 17/18-ish overall (and their's are typically not fully broken in yet - all of my vehicles mileage improved up through the 10,000 mile point).

Makes it tough to guess but I've got a hunch I'll see - with the way and where I drive - roughly 1 mpg less cith/mix/higheway than I'm getting now on my Cherokee.

 

[VA_Joe]

VA Joe - do you speak from personal experience on a Hemi Grand Cherokee?

Again - the reason I started this thread was such a disparity between mileage reports. There are the people struggling to break 12-13 mpg, yet there (as has happened in this thread) are other owners who seemed to be keeping the best actual track over a long time reporting a consistent 21/22 highway and 17/18-ish overall (and their's are typically not fully broken in yet - all of my vehicles mileage improved up through the 10,000 mile point).

Makes it tough to guess but I've got a hunch I'll see - with the way and where I drive - roughly 1 mpg less cith/mix/higheway than I'm getting now on my Cherokee.

I base my numbers on what the car reports in the info center. Because I live in the "burbs" my city numbers are a little higher than what a city driver will likely find. The 12-13 mpg number is probably closer to reality for those folks. With the 5.7 Hemi (and because there are four available engine options on the Grand Cherokee - your mileage may vary) - I have never seen anything over the low 17 mpg (like 17.2 or 17.3) numbers after sustained highway driving. BTW - this engine does have the cylinder shutdown feature.

Joe

 

[jdbower]

My SUV was rated at 14/17 (15 combined) and is now 12/16 (14 combined). I used to average a bit over 18mpg, then I put a blower in it and I dropped down to 17mph. The really nice thing is my 0-60 times pre-blower were also much better than advertised so I got a really nice build!

The biggest problem with standardized testing is that manufactures design their car to pass the test, not perform in the real world. This is even worse with hybrids where they can tune the battery size and gas/electric ratio throughout the power band to the test (the poor real-life mileage of the Prius was the catalyst for the update). Of course the most scary thing is that cars are also designed to protect crash test dummies from very specific impacts to get a 5-star rating rather than protect people in actual accidents. It would be nice if they actually randomized the test a little every year without telling the manufacturers, putting extra supports at the exact point of impact is cheating if moving the impact a few inches causes a catastrophic failure of the unibody structure.