honest john real mpg fuel efficency

A report by the kind folks at HonestJohn.co.uk has revealed that small cars have shown the greatest shortfall against manufactures official MPG figures.

The report which studied more than 60,000 cars compared “real world” driving figures against those claimed by manufacturers. The revealed that in some cases such as the Nissan Note,  averaged a shortfall of 32.3%.

Managing Editor of HonestJohn.co.uk, Daniel Powell said, “It’s no secret that car buyers are confused by official fuel economy figures. Indeed, HonestJohn.co.uk receives thousands of complaints about misleading fuel economy figures, which shows that many car owners are out of pocket when it comes to calculating real world fuel costs.”

The real world MPG figured are recorded using HJ’s Real Life Fuel Economy Register. It allows drivers to both submit and review MPG figures for most major makes and models of cars in the UK. Judging by the results for my own Mercedes C220 CDI BlueEfficiency Automatic, the figures seem about right for general (non Hypermiling) exercises.

It’s great to see services such as RealMPG and TrueMPG highlighting the discrepancies of manufacturer’s claims vs real word fuel efficiency returns. However I’m also keen to point our that the biggest factor in fuel efficiency is the nut behind the wheel. Road, weather and traffic conditions do play a major part but even the most favorable conditions will still not be able to fix a driver with no regard for good fuel efficiency practices i.e. Hypermiling.

Below is a down of the best and worst performers on Honest John’s RealMPG

Top 5 performing modelsReal mpg ratio
1. Land Rover Defender (1984)106.30%
2. Toyota Celica (2000-2008)103.00%
3. Nissan Micra (2003-2010)102.60%
4. Volvo S60 (2000-2008)102.30%
5. Volvo V70/XC70 (2000-2007)102.20%
Bottom 5 performing modelsReal mpg ratio
1. Nissan Note (2013)67.70%
2. Mini Hatch (2014)68.00%
3. Citroen DS5 (2012)70.80%
4. Renault Captur (2010)70.80%
5. Ford Fiesta (2013)70.80%

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