Most, if not all, of the ads on TV nowdays have the auto manufacturers bragging about the “great” mileage their cars get. One such ad makes the claim that “all their cars get at least 24 mpg” or at least close to that. While 24 mpg isn’t that bad, it is certainly nothing to write home about. It seems the best a new car can get these days is around 34 to 35 mpg. Even the “greatest thing since sliced bread”, the hybrids don’t even do much better than that.
I drive a Geo Metro that gets about 50 mpg at hiway speeds. And it is 16 years old with 186,000 miles on it. If the auto manufacturers could build cars 15 to 20 years ago that get really good mileage, why have they gone backwards the last few years? And why pretend todays mileage numbers are so great when they could be a whole lot better?
To add a bit more… 24 isn’t the greatest mileage ever, but it might be good for people considering a certain kind of car. If that was mileage for an SUV, that’s pretty good. Also, if people are moving from a very low mileage car, a higher mileage car might be “good enough” for them.
Oh dang, this was an overall OEM claim. So you’re saying that GM (for example) claims it’s cars have a minimum of 24 mpg? That’s not bad at all. Not one car lower than 24 mpg? That’s a very big claim. Consumers definitely do pay attention to these things. If an OEM gets a reputation as having good mileage, than consumers are more likely to consider that OEMs cars.
Because every damned product advertised now has to have an environmental aspect included in the ad. Everything. It drives me nuts. This is the new mantra of the advertising executives who control the proletariat consumer. “We need to tell them how green we are: how environmentally responsible we are!”
I’m sick of it because I see through it as a ploy to try and buy my loyalty when if fact nothing in the product has changed.
The product hasn’t changed? OEMs are pouring** billions **into high mileage cars because that’s what consumers want. Believe me, they’d be happy to keep their development dollars and keep pushing SUVs if anyone would buy them.
For the past several years the trend has been to put larger and peppier engines into every new model of car. This also of course lowers gas mileage. But people loved the extra horsepower and bought it preferentially, so car manufacturers catered to them.
This is absolutely hilarious. If advertising executives had any control over the consumer, the US automakers wouldn’t have lost so many points of market share and so many billions of dollars over the last decade.
It probably also has three cylinders, can’t accelerate to 65MPH on a short on-ramp, and is ‘missing’ about 1000lbs of safety and luxury features that you would find in today’s compact.
A Geo Metro that old weighs in at about 1700lbs.
A Chevy Aveo or a Ford Focus weight in at about 2500-2700lbs nowadays.
Would you get 50 mpg at highway speeds if you piled in 4 250lbs people in your Geo? Would it even go highway speeds?
No, from experience…with 6 cases of paper in the back of my Chevy Sprint, I had to keep it in 2nd gear to maintain 30 MPH going up the Mississippi River bridge. Without cargo or passengers, it got around 50 mpg at 75 mph.
Anyway, I saw a commercial the other day that boasts “The new Mercury Mariner get 425 miles per tank!”. What they fail to mention is that it has a 25 gallon tank.
I can say the same about my '05 Freestar with the giant 4.2 liter V6. It’s still only getting 17 MPG (with no passengers, no cargo, and the rear seats and luggage rack removed).
Every car gets 400 miles per tank. At least at my company. That’s one of the design goals, and has been for a long time. That’s based on benchmarking other companies, and customer expectations. Come to think of it, every car I’ve ever had has gotten in the neighborhood of 400 miles per tank, depending on my driving habits at the time.
Oh, and the Mariner actually has a 16.5 US gallon tank.
Yes, but the product hasn’t changed. New things are in the works, but the vehicles in the showroom are the same guzzlers that were around before gas prices spiked. The auto industry is just trying to put lipstick on pig with these commercials. I even saw a Hummer ad boasting of its milage.
And, there’s the fact that you likely really don’t get 50MPG. Oh I don’t doubt that under ideal conditions you occ get close, but your real milage is likely close to 40 or so. Still the Metro was known for it high milage, but I am suprised it (and you) are still alive.
I had an 85 Honda CRX that really did get about 50MPG on the hwy. Four cylinders and peppy, it seated only two (with ample leg room) and plenty of cargo space. Wouldn’t it be so nice!
The Hummer ad is kind of crazy, but it reinforces one of my points. You can compete against other cars in it’s class. If you can convince consumers that Hummers compare to “normal” SUVs, then you have made progress.
They are not the same cars. They just aren’t. All the car companies are pouring huge amounts of money into building and promoting high-mileage cars. Just yesterday Ford announced it’s emphasis on small cars. GM is betting the farm on the Volt. Dealers are being killed on big cars, they won’t even take them for trade-ins. Small cars prices are skyrocketing and demand a premium. Every day I read articles about the shift to higher-mileage cars. How can you claim it’s the same old? OEMs respond to consumer demand.
My 1995 Ford Aspire was getting 48-50 mpg (yes, really, I know how to compute mileage), but lately it’s been down to only 44 mpg, boo-hoo. This is my second Aspire; I crash-tested the first one.
