Findings Confirm Consumer Complaints

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Dec 20 2006, 12:15 PM) [snapback]364687[/snapback]</div>

I followed suit, this is my complaint:
I purchased this great mid-sized car, and I keep running into misinformation spread by the technically uninformed or incompetent that keep me from enjoying my vehicle. My car is routinely within 10% of the EPA estimate, but some people don't understand that the EPA estimate is not a guarantee, and that personal driving styles and environments will affect that. What's more, I don't think they understand that 10% of 55 mpg is more variation than 10% of 22 mpg. But even if I only get 45 mpg in my Prius, that's still over twice the mileage in my previous car, greatly reducing our nation's dependence and foreign debt for OPEC oil, reducing expenditures to terrorist-friendly countries and improving our air.

Then in the consequences field:
I spend too much time informing editors of slanted and misleading articles in their papers or online articles. This is starting to affect my work and personal life.

 

My Sebring convertible was supposed to get about 20 mpg in the city, but would often get 16 or 17.

I get about 45 mpg like most people, but if I had a little more patience -- and so did the drivers behind me -- I could easily get that over 50.

I think its wrong to kill off the professional EPA drivers high mileage numbers for the Prius but leave them there for all the other vehicles.

Drive a Sebring vigorously in the city and you'll get 16 mpg like I did, not the 20 mpg the EPA pro drivers got.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sharkmeister @ Dec 20 2006, 10:05 PM) [snapback]364903[/snapback]</div>

Exactly!! And when the new EPA mileage evaluation standards are used across the board, then we'll begin to find out that all the SUV's that are now rated at 19-20 mpg really get 10-12 mpg. It will all even out I believe. Either way, I'll take my 46 mpg Prius over the 14 mpg Xterra I traded in for it. No regrets, no worries.

p.s. and I do certainly agree, there are certainly some lawyers who give the rest of us a bad reputation.

 

According to an article I read the EPA is going to reduce the mileage averages of most cars and SUVs by approximately 20%. The Prius and other Hybrids are going to get hit with a 30% reduction in their gas mileage rating. Detroit flexing their muscle again!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(FBear @ Dec 21 2006, 10:30 AM) [snapback]365075[/snapback]</div>

Actually, it makes sense. You can't get much lower MPG than what SUVs already get (even EPA estimated). 20% off of crappy is even crappier. 30% off of great is still great by comparison.

 

well im getting about 5% less than EPA... well sort of... actually currently only about 2% less, but based on the previous 25 months driving essentially the same vehicle, i will anyway. i should settle at around 52 mpg overall average. i will be at about 50 mpg in the winter, 56-57 in the summer.

sooo, overall average will be under EPA that is with 25% solo driving, 65% with one passenger and 10% with 3 or more, usually 4 occasionally 5.

i am not complaining. the gold standard for customer satisfaction is if i had the choice, would i buy another Prius , i say well,

YA, been there, done that.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Dec 20 2006, 12:43 AM) [snapback]364463[/snapback]</div>

Did the article point out that the Prius has the highest customer satifsfaction rating of any car sold?

Harry

 

What are some of these people thinking? It is frightening how many people just completely miss the point about the Prius and other fuel-efficient vehicles. Maybe they just can't 'really think' at all.

They complain about the gas mileage not being what they expected. They complain about having to pay high gas prices. They complain about the war. They complain in general.

These same folks turn around and drive their gas guzzling vehicles at excessive speeds. Or they modify the heck out a great car and then complain when it barfs up on them. I call that hypocritical behavior. Sadly, that seems to have become the norm in our country. You know who you are. How many exhibit enough maturity to drive the posted speed limit?

Certain Prius owners don't seem to be exempt from this convoluted behavior and thinking pattern. I routinely read on this site where folks brag about "going 80 or greater mph and getting blah-blah-blah mpg and why aren't they getting better mpg?". Or that their commute to work is 5mins and why aren't they getting 60mpg? Prius owners modify their vehicles and then complain they are not getting as good a gas mileage or that something is now broken. Well, no kidding. Some of them have the nerve to suggest the Prius is unreliable because they attempted to perform brain or open-heart surgery on it and the victim now lays dead in the driveway! hahahaha....

Get real people! The Prius gets better gas mileage than most motorcycles and it does it with a fully enclosed body on 4 tires, amenities and with airbags all around! Quit thinking you are a brainiac and know better than the original designers. Quit driving in an unresponsible manner. Quit complaining when you do crazy things to an otherwise great car and your expectations are not met!

This site used to have material worthy of reading. The early adopters of hybrid technology did a wonderful job of putting meaninful content on this site. I rarely even see those great folks posting anymore. I hope they did not get frustrated and go away.

 

We as people are highly emotional; for the majority, logic only works when it supports what we want in the first place.

The Prius is a logical car; I'm not terribly surprised that most people don't understand it...or, more accurately, don't WANT to understand it.

Americans are all about fantasy and escapism and individuality...the Prius is about reality and responsibility and social consciousness.

 

With my normal five-minute drives, I don't expect to get 60 MPG. Hell, I'm happy with the 40 MPG I'm getting since I know it's a lot more than I'd get almost any other car!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Dec 21 2006, 12:44 PM) [snapback]365321[/snapback]</div>

<div align="center">Logic Emotion
</div> [/b][/quote]

very nice pictorial analogy Tony

 

Wow, that was some article. Do people actually get paid real money to write that sort of thing?

So is there a separate article for every other vehicle? Or is the Prius the only vehicle where buyers actually look at the mileage estimates?

If the EPA mileage estimates are prepared by the EPA, then how does that make Toyota at fault for the results?

To all those people upset that they weren't getting EPA mileage: Have you tried subscribing to Consumer Reports instead of Consumer Affairs? I know the names are similar, and someone ought to sue Consumer Reports for using a name that would be so close to the one that Consumer Affairs later decided to use.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Dec 20 2006, 12:43 AM) [snapback]364463[/snapback]</div>

Let's seeeeee. EPA said 60 for the Prius. I get 48 to 49 now in December, and was hitting 55 to 59 in the summer, or about 1 to 5 to 12 mpg less than EPA estimate, depending on the outdoor temperature, etc.

EPA is going to reduce their Prius estimate to 42. I'm not sure why I would expect to get any different than what I currently am now getting.

Suddenly I'm beating the EPA! By 6 mpg in the winter, and 10 to 15 in the summer!

Those government idiots! I'll be even HAPPIER with my mid-sized luxury auto - beating their NEW values -

DANGER! SMUG FACTOR INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY! DANGER!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

They said my moped would get 150mpg and I only got about 120...harumph!!

 

Without saying (alright with saying it) the Prius gets great mileage, especially for the size of the car.

However, as my name implies, lets be honest, Toyota has capitalized off of the EPA's flawed mileage testing methods to market a car with fuel economy numbers that only a few (and yes you are only a few) hard-core mileage maximizers actually get. Lucky for Toyota that they built a car good enough to compensate for a 25%-30% variation in theoretical to real world fuel economy numbers and the vast majority of purchasers are pleased. But had the overall car NOT been as good as it is I'm sure Toyota would have felt some backlash. (especially with dealers gauging the living crapola out of people early on).

Trust me; if a motor-head purchased a car that claimed to have 300 horsepower but turned out to only have 225 there wood have been a lawsuit. (ask Mazda they had this problem with the RX8)

Still have my 04 package 9 approaching 86,000 miles, and will probably buy the next generation if it is as cool as this one when it comes out. (unless Toyota keeps us hanging until 2010!)

 

42 mpg?? is that true??

that is funny because a month after i got my 04, i helped a friend deliver the morning paper for 3 days. even on a multiple stop and go route, i ended up averaging.... 42 mpg... as soon as i went to regular driving, it went up and the tank ended up being 45.2 mpg... that is my lowest tank ever btw.

sure it was summer time and all other summer tanks run 54 mpg + but you get the picture. to average 42 mpg, unless its in the dead of winter, you would have to drive like a maniac

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Dec 28 2006, 06:00 PM) [snapback]367910[/snapback]</div>

Yep, I am rarely the last and usually the first one leaving a traffic light (after I make sure no morons are going to run it the other way) but the biggest reason for my mileage I believe is that about 90% of my driving is high speed (average 80 to 85) between So Cal and Vegas.

I drive this car as if it is any other car and I expect a certain amount of performance, and the Prius, bless it delivers. Of course I pay the fuel penalty, but even independent testing shows the Prius getting 44 to 45 average overall.

I have a record of all 243 refueling if you want to check.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Dec 28 2006, 07:57 PM) [snapback]367905[/snapback]</div>

Toyota has done almost no marketing for the Prius, so you can say it was the EPA who did at least some of it for them. However, if you did any research on the Prius you would see the mileage varies considerably, so the first thing I did when seriously considering it was check a couple websites (like evworld, greenhybrids also has it) for real-world average MPGs (about 47-48 mpg), and that's what I believed more than the EPA rating, which tend to be above real-world averages for any car. Consumer Reports (more widely read by the average consumer) gives the Prius 44 mpg average for mixed driving.

Except horsepower can be explicitly measured, and maximum horsepower can be stated as a fact (along with the RPM that is needed for max HP). The EPA MPG is an estimate. The phrase YMMV didn't come out of thin air. There is a legal difference, which I think is implicitly recognized by any serious car buyer.

Or have a short commute/short trips, like under 10 minutes. Or letting the engine warm up for several minutes before your drive. Or perhaps pulling a trailer even though Toyota states you shouldn't. It's not easy staying under 45 mpg, but there are multiple ways of doing it.

The thing is, the writer of the article that John pointed to was deliberately fishing for people who were upset and probably would sign onto some lawsuit. It appears that's what they do, as opposed to writing balanced, researched stories (one that shows how the Prius compares to other cars and their variations on the EPA estimates; what are the reasons some people might get low mileage; the fact it is a mid-size car, not "the little car"; etc.). But it's easy for a story like this to get passed around and considered objective justification for people who don't like hybirds or Prii.