One cold morning you turn the key and your car engine does not fire up. You found that the vehicle has a flat-dead battery read more
What fuel economy are you really getting?
07/03/2019 Audi Q3 35 SUV 1.5TFSI S line STron Auto7 - £31,166 with cash purchase, or £30,166 including deposit contribution with Audi PCP Finance. APR 5.9% Save 11.7% - £3,985 off list price
06/03/2019 Ford Focus Hatch 1.0T EcoBoost 125 Titanium X 6Spd - £17,910 Save 22.6% - £5,220 off list price
05/03/2019 Mercedes-Benz A180 Hatch AMG Line 7G-DCT Auto - £22,494 Save 17.8% - £4,881 off list price
04/03/2019 Mazda MX-5 Convertible 1.5 SKYACTIV SE-L Nav+ 6Spd - £18,581 with cash purchase, or £16,581 including deposit contribution with Mazda finance APR 4.1% Save 20.3% - £4,214 off list price
With the price of fuel seemingly rising inexorably, fuel economy is now dictating which car buyers choose instead of aesthetic, speed or even price to buy. The problem is that manufacturers’ fuel economy and emissions figures are generated under laboratory conditions and test cars are even geared differently to achieve more encouraging figures.
The bottom line is that buyers looking for good new car deals are being misled, and manufacturers’ figures are normally more than 10% better than reality. WhatCar? has been running its own real-world tests, in an experiment called ‘True MPG’, to build a database of accurate fuel economy and emissions figures for new cars on sale today. Simply select your car, choose your driving style and annual mileage, and your real-world mpg is calculated.
For example, a Nissan Juke 1.6 DiG-T Nismo covering 10,000 mainly motorway miles per annum, with little congestion, will return 33.1mpg if driven fairly hastily. This is far below the claimed 40.9mpg buyers might expect to achieve.
A BMW 320d EfficientDynamics driven in the same environment would return 50.6mpg. That’s certainly impressive, but it’s still some way short of the claimed 68.9mpg.
AutoeBid can offer thousands of pounds of the price of a brand new car but unfortunately real-world fuel economy is another matter altogether.
Below are a handful of new car deals for vehicles with exceptional fuel economy in their class (but still not as good as claimed). The AutoeBid saving represents the minimum saving for that vehicle, and dealers competing in a reverse auction will often offer further money off the price of the car to win business.
BMW 320d BluePerformance RRP £32,695 AutoeBid £29,805 Saving £2,890
Ford Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost RRP £13,745 AutoeBid £11,752 Saving £1,993
Volvo V40 D2 SE Nav RRP £23,070 AutoeBid £20,185 Saving £2,885
Renault Clio 1.5 dCi 90 ECO RRP £14,545 AutoeBid £13,157 Saving £1,388
