More on Consumer Reports ratings

[acdii]

Prove me wrong otherwise. I never stated fact, however you believe that I am. How is it Toyota cars hit EPA when driven properly and no others do? Gee could it be because Toyota actually does test them?

 

And yes it did go WAY over your HEAD(using your own obnoxious typing here). Theories are what EPA testing is all about. You run mathematical formulas and put a car on a dyno to simulate those formulas, and the end result are your EPA numbers. How do you prove them out? Real world testing. If a theory is flawed, the outcome is skewed results such as what Ford found. So maybe Toyota has better mathematicians, or maybe they just test longer and more frequent to ensure that what they sell to a customer is what the customer is expecting. It does not matter what EPA says, if a theory is flawed, a theory is flawed. If a car company follows those theories and the outcome is wrong because of a mathematical error it does not matter what EPA says, the outcome is wrong. You MUST prove out any theory, no matter what. After all the reports of low MPG Ford looked long and hard at their test results and found the error. Where did those tests come from? EPA.

 

So what I am saying is Trust but verify, Ford could have done some extensive testing prior to releasing the EPA numbers, and had they done so, might have found the flaw and corrected it in time to prevent any bad press. That is there choice in all this, so prove me wrong. Any car manufacturer can test after submitting their EPA tests to verify them that is their choice, and if they find the real world numbers don't match up, it is up to them to figure out why and resubmit. That is their choice.

 

Going back to what I originally stated, any car company has a choice prior to releasing their official EPA numbers. They run their Dyno tests based on their calculations, and submit that, or they run the dyno tests and run real world tests to validate the results. If the two match, they are golden, if they dont, then they go back and find out why. End result is they still meet all the EPA regulations, but they also know that they are valid.

[Easy Rider]

I'm not going to be baited into a crap throwing contest.

 

YOU are the one who first suggested that the car makers have some latitude in how they test.....stated as a fact......and that is not true.

 

They must preform the mandated tests and report the numbers that result.

Those tests have nothing to do with actually driving the car down the road.

Some cars work out closer to the "estimated" numbers than others.

I doubt that ALL of the Toyota models are really closer than anybody else's and the ones that are is just the luck of the draw.

Their design performs better in the prescribed tests than some others do.

 

Ford made a mistake, either by accident or on purpose and then re-did the same tests properly and came up with different numbers.

These numbers are NOT the result of different tests.

Real world experience may have contributed to finally suspecting that the numbers were off......but real world testing had NOTHING to do with the revised numbers.

 

It took me about 10 seconds with Google to find this from www.fueleconomy.gov:

 

How Vehicles Are Tested

Fuel economy is measured under controlled conditions in a laboratory using a standardized test procedure specified by federal law. Manufacturers test their own vehicles—usually pre-production prototypes—and report the results to EPA. EPA reviews the results and confirms about 10-15 percent of them through their own tests at the National Vehicles and Fuel Emissions Laboratory.

[end quote]

 

If you want to argue about this further, I suggest that you call the EPA.

 

I quit.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Easy Rider

[SteveB_TX]

:bliss:

[jeff_h]

I quit.

 

Promise?

[Waldo]

Ford runs physical coast down testing on all of it's vehicles about a year before EPA results are ever published. But this issue is far more complicated than just running physical tests vs models. My understanding is the mathematical models are used to match the data acquired between the physical tests of wind tunnels and coast down. After all, you don't want to get screwed because you ran your test on a windy day.

 

As for Toyota, I thought they actually admitted that many of their recent recalls were largely due to the fact that they had eliminated physical testing from their process and were going to revise their development cycle to add testing back in. The reason they likely come closer to EPA in the real world is because they don't take advantage of the many (perfectly legal) loopholes that Ford is exploiting.

[jeff_h]

As for Toyota, I thought they actually admitted that many of their recent recalls were largely due to the fact that they had eliminated physical testing from their process and were going to revise their development cycle to add testing back in. The reason they likely come closer to EPA in the real world is because they don't take advantage of the many (perfectly legal) loopholes that Ford is exploiting.

 

I think that may have changed from a few years ago? My 2005 Prius had sticker ratings of 60/51 and I read all the same type stuff on the Prius forums back around that timeframe, and then somewhere around 2006-2008(ish?) they lowered that to the 48/47 or whatever it is, I just remember that the 60/51 numbers were gone, unknown if they were also taking advantage of the "many (perfectly legal) loopholes" as you note but back around 2004 it sure would have been a nice marketing tool to be able to claim 60 MPG, right? BTW, my lifetime average MPG was around 53 but a lot of my commute is highway, who knows I might have been able to get close to that 60 if more city was mixed in....

[Waldo]

That was due to the change in EPA test procedure that took effect in 2008. It made pretty much all cars lower, but the Prius was hit harder than most. Toyota didn't have anything to do with it.