Gas mileage: Are you getting what you should? (CBC Marketplace)

this week on marketplace you know how much gas you're really gusting you never really get what they tell you are you spending hundreds more than what you were promised I believe the salesperson what the auto industry isn't telling you about those numbers on the window we never got to five point your engine has to walk see how far we go to test whether you're promised gas mileage really is you'll prove raindrops keep fallin on my head we're at this gas station in Toronto's East End I'm Tom Arrington from marketplace at CBC oh my goodness I got that Facebook to see how important gas mileage is to you how you doing no I'm not the guy in my seat what's up with CPC Oh how important is fuel efficiency very important very important I do a lot of driving I have a handicapped son that's involve in Special Olympics so the driving sports all over the place when you bought the vehicle how important was fuel efficiency to you all right where's quite important you well you always want better gas mileage hey guys and car makers no how's it going Stan gas stations just that where nobody knows your name so ads such as this promise the gas station will become unfamiliar territory the Chevrolet Cruze eco with a remarkable highway fuel efficiency rating but our car makers just pumping up those claims we're putting them to the test using the number one selling pickup in Canada the 2014 Ford f-150 now you might be thinking it's a big truck can the mileage be that good but Ford says their EcoBoost engine makes a difference test drive a Ford vehicle with an EcoBoost engine and feel the performance of a larger engine with a fuel efficiency of a smaller one before heading out a mechanic gives our truck the once-over yep good yep everything looks good the on-board computer will tell us our average fuel consumption the lower the number of leaders use to cover 100 kilometers the better the fuel efficiency how far will I get on only one tank of gas we're about to find out for fueled up let's fire it up and hit the road these are the fuel efficiency numbers for the f-150 that Ford advertises the highway where the rate is better and the city where you use more gas so based on our route we should be able to travel more than 1400 kilometers on one fill-up plenty enough to get me back to c.b.c without running out of gas will I make it we're heading west from the first leg of our trip from Toronto to the Sarnia area about 300 klicks computer is telling us we're getting about 12 liters per 100 kilometers that's after about 205 kilometres we've been on the road and it's um almost entirely highway driving so we'll see if this average keeps up gets better or worse after another 100k or so I arrived in Wyoming Ontario Mary Ferlin drives a Volkswagen Jetta TDI Clean Diesel marries a nurse and when she bought the car three years ago her home visits meant driving 1,000 kilometres a week hey Mary are you doing well very different marketplace when you are putting that kind of kilometres on a car you want some that's good on gas and so the number one reason that I bought that car was because I was promised that it had good gas mileage and Mary got that pitch from her local Volkswagen dealer he said look at the math and you'll find out that you're going to save money and gas when did you first realize that what they promised him what you were getting were different it was not even probably two months down the road Volkswagen Canada claims this model delivers a combined mileage rate of 5.8 liters per 100 kilometers Mary was only getting 6.9 and complains to the dealer I said to them that the car that you sold me is not getting the gas mileage that you promised and I'd like you to do something what did they say - they make up excuses they just said that I basically needed to drive like an old woman and I needed to follow the speed limit and that sort of thing old tricks for fuel conservation so it's back to our road trip test and the start of day two so far we're burning up gas faster than we should the numbers are really close right now I don't know what we're gonna get but we have a five hour drive to parry sound we'll see how that ends up it is a long drive to parry sound thank goodness for a satellite radio as we pass through the top of the big city we get off the highway to get in some city driving I'm actually putting myself in Toronto traffic I'm really crazy now a stress-free we're heading into Northern Ontario soon I'm pulling at the cottage country on Lake Wabash catch now this is an escape from life on the road we're here to talk to Pete drink water he actually owns an f-150 EcoBoost same as our test truck back in 2011 it was Ford's TV commercials that sold him it was a denis leary right and i always remember his voice and how he said thirty two miles a gallon unbelievable EcoBoost you won't be putting a chokehold they redone you for luck because you can also get the best fuel economy you won't believe the mileage you're right I don't believe he is able to get only about 16 miles per gallon about half what Ford advertises within two weeks I took it in and since I think something's wrong with it because I'm not getting the gas much and they told me the beginning I'll just have to be broken in which I did and I left it it broke in no difference did you go back to the dealer and talk to them again about it yes they said that I was probably driving too fast they said that it's that that 32 miles the gallon was taken on perfect Road conditions I said what's perfect downhill with the wind behind so how to explain the difference we catch up with automotive journalist Michael Betancourt should people expect to get the mileage of their promise from their vehicle not the ones that are currently on the window sticker unfortunately and the reality is the official numbers in Canada for the last seven years are conflated they really are inflated inflated how by whom turns out all automakers do their mileage testing in a lab as you see in this recent video from Ford you never go out on the road you're never using your climate control systems a lot of people don't realize it only measures a fuel efficiency up to 97 kilometers an hour now you go on to 400 highways and nobody's going 97 kilometers an hour so all of those things will mean that when you do go on the road and they do do those things those numbers that you see won't be anywhere near the numbers then there's tests did Ford ever tell that to Pete not on a highway not in a city it's in a lab see they don't tell me that should they they should they should tell exactly how they test it because I'm buying it I'm the consumer doesn't exactly build confidence as we're into the final leg of our marketplace road trip it's getting dark as we leave parry sound heading back to Toronto and right now I'm less than 100 kilometres away from being empty I'm getting the warning signal now fuel is low when we come back a stormy night raises the stakes this is insane and a stormy exchange is that on yeah start off I'm sorry God whew a lot more tips for getting better mileage and share yours on Facebook and Twitter it's the marketplace roadtrip challenge trying to fight out at this f-150 pickup with an EcoBoost engine and deliver the fuel efficiency Ford promises but now as evening closes in I see a warning the fuel level is low and I'm still about 200 clicks away from the CBC in downtown Toronto then the weather turns nasty it's bad enough to be on FD but it's a dark and stormy night it's tough to drive let's see anything this is insane there you go finally still half an hour from CBC that's it I'm out of gas so is this our final average fuel efficiency has 12 liters per 100 kilometers not as good as Ford advertises bottom line is the amount of mileage that Ford said we get on a single tank of gas in this f150 we did not get while it rains I pour raindrops keep fallin on my head we asked to talk to Ford but they apparently don't have a spokesperson available so I head to the group that represents the big three for GM and Chrysler the Canadian vehicle Manufacturers Association to meet president mark Dante the only way you're going to achieve that number and they are achievable if you follow all good driving behaviors and the fuel efficiency driving tips that are offered by both the government as well as vehicle manufacturers and their owner manuals which most people don't do right but yet they're marketed this information to make them feel like they're going to get this kind of mileage well I guess so you can make an informed decision on your new vehicle purchase those are that's the purpose of those event of those values we talked to car buyers who felt that when they were buying a car when they were being pitched on the sales floor they were being told they were going to get numbers they were being promised performance well you know car dealers are independent business people the question becomes are they adequately trained to give people the right information when it comes to those those values and what those values mean so we take our hidden cameras into some showrooms this mazda3 promises 4.8 liters per 100 kilometers on the highway the fine print says the actual fuel consumption may vary so would we be able to actually get that yeah you're gonna be getting a 40 maybe even better so you can get better than yeah because I tell you what because sometimes there's a pinch speed as well wind speed next we visit this Chrysler dealership the window sticker on this 2013 Dodge Dart says five point four liters per 100 kilometers on the highway so we go for a test drive right now this is nine point six we don't seem to be getting what the window sticker suggests remember I'm an efficient running sir that a little bit when we come off the highway we never got to five point it does it's will go down or your engine has to walk hmm next we check out this Ford dealership we asked about the fuel rating on the window of this f-150 EcoBoost like our test vehicle you're not gonna see any vehicle doing what they say the way they test those vehicles they only testing that in an environment this time a more straight-up answer then we hear this they actually changing the tested methods on everything because to come up to more realistic yeah this is not really this very updated wait what changing the testing methods starting now Ottawa is making all automakers put their 2015 models through additional testing accounting for air conditioning colder weather driving at higher speeds and more rapid accelerating and braking this government video makes it sound like good news all round fuel consumption ratings will immediately jump up by 10 to 20 percent for most vehicles what it really means is the fuel numbers on the car you bought are 10 to 20 percent worse than what you were told back in Wyoming Ontario we tell Mary Ferlin about what these new fuel numbers mean for her for your car these are your old numbers six point seven City four point seven highway now they're going to be this seven point nine and five point seven I'm not surprised because that's the numbers I'm getting right now on my own vehicle when we do our math but it that's not my about the car up on Lake Wabash cast peat drink water isn't exactly thrilled his Ford pickup has been picking his pocket they must have known they were lying about it like I don't know how they can faulty advertise and then when I questioned them about it they say everything's fine that's that's what I understand and then now they're changing it well it's too late I've already bought it I've already spent the money in fact Canadian dealers and automakers should have known us pairing companies have been advertising higher more realistic fuel numbers for the same kind of cars and trucks sold here since 2008 after the US government changed their tests so what about the millions of us who bought cars and trucks based on the promise of gas savings that aren't real as a society if we take a stance on that I believe we can all get together and say you know what this is wrong you know I think we should be compensated should people be compensated if they've been driving a car under false oh absolutely yes sir they should should people get compensated for that in some way position almost definitely people have been telling us they feel misled by these numbers but these two different systems tell them that mean I bought my car under essentially false pretenses on the fuel efficiency do they have a point well again I go back to the fact that these are for comparative purposes the numbers that were issued in the code also marketed that way well they're monetizing television commercials all push a certain number but again those numbers are all relative and they're all relative to comparable vehicles in the same class but this is a case where it appears that Canadian car buyers were being treated differently than American car buyers on fuel efficiency and they believe that's just not right not fair yes there's differences but we're moving away from that and the numbers are going to be improved and you know unless there are some error is made or companies purposely misled them then that's that would be a different question Mary Ferland does feel misled she's ended up pumping out a lot more gas money than she expected we do the calculations and reveal how much money that is you paid that much more in gas a year because of this difference $650 that's a lot of money you know that I don't know what to even to say about that do you feel like your own compensation in some way for the gas money you spend I feel like I'm owed something her dealer won't talk to us so we go there along with Mary hi there we want to talk to somebody here about the problem she's having with the mileage on her car hi there hey good thanks I'm Tom Harrington from marketplace at CBC that one yeah sure doc I'm sorry Jer God out comes the man who sold the Jetta to Mary sales manager Mike van Acker hi Mike Rader Mike agrees to talk to me alone in his office she spent hundreds of dollars more than she expected to pay for gas and no one's helping her at all no was giving her any compensation Mike leaves and comes back with the dealership owner Joe and Ally hey Lucy charge she was being told you're gonna save a lot of money driving this vehicle so they agreed to talk to Mary Mary after a long discussion they make Mary Ann offer a free tank of gas at a promise to test her car's mileage again thanks for talking Casey thank you he said he just read the numbers that Volkswagen has yeah and that he didn't even consider that they would be not quite right he didn't feel that well why would this car not get that they borrow Mary's Jetta and two weeks later their test result it all depends on how you drive but Mary still says they should tell you that when you buy the car and as for that free tank of gas well when she gets her car back from the dealer the needle is on empty you

Channel: CBC News

Views: 763,088

Rating: 4.5759125 out of 5

Keywords: CBC News CBCNews CBC broadcasting media public broadcasting news Canadian News, Canadian Broadcasting Corportation (TV network), CBC News Network, CBC News.ca, gas mileage, fuel, gas, Gasoline (Fuel), Cars (Award-Winning Work)

Id: UpisWMtZ6mE

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 13 2015