Hyundai and Kia Acknowledge Overstating fuel economy, will pay owners difference

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Buger

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Mazda Protege5
Wow, I was wondering how both Hyundai and Kia which were relatively small automakers before suddenly had the engineering to drastically increase their fuel economy in recent years. Now there is news that really haven't. Below are some articles from the Wall Street Journal, NY times and LA times on this.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204712904578094412515725112.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/b...stating-the-gas-mileage-of-vehicles.html?_r=0
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-mo-hyundai-kia-mpg-claims-20121102,0,6756011.story

To summarize, the US EPA mileage on some of their vehicles were high by as much as 6mpg in some instances! The Kia Soul Eco for example was listed as 29/36 but is actually 26/31. Each country has their own testing protocol and the US has several different tests to come up with the "official" numbers which you see on window stickers. Each manufacturer has testing facilities which do the exact same standard tests and the results are confirmed by the US EPA on a small percentage of the vehicles.

Apparently the US EPA tests confirmed a big discrepancy, Hyundai and Kia have acknowleged an error in testing procedures and will now offer debit cards which they will continually fund the difference in the stated vs actual fuel economy based on the regional fuel cost.
 
That's funny - I tested the Elantra before buying the 3i. In a "pre-determined" loop it got only 1 mpg worse than the 3i.

I wonder what the big deal is about these cars? Even the few times I rented an Elantra, it had no problem producing as advertised.
 
My genesis gets better mileage then what the EPA is rated for.. I get 19-20 in down compared to the 18 city EPA, and city is right on par for the most part. I get 26-28 mpg on the highway based off the on screeen MPG results depending on speed and road conditions. EPA is 27 hwy.
 
It appears the WSJ link might require a subscription for some. It has some good info on some of the models affected. For the 2012 and 2013 Elantra, it appears the difference was only 1 to 2 mpg so it was not a big difference like in the Soul eco. Apparently, the overstated amounts were between 1 and 6 so the Soul is an example which is on the higher end of the spectrum.

The problems which were acknowleged by Kia and Hyundai are that the fuel economy figures on the 2012 and 2013 window stickers were overstated as the testing methodology on the EPA testing profiles was not fully correct. The articles mention that some of the impetus for the EPA investigating and following up with Kia/Hyundai were a large number of complaints by Kia/Hyundai owners regarding fuel economy.

Everyone gets different fuel economy on cars based on driving style and path profile. There will always be see individual user accounts of gas mileage and none is "proof" of how cars perform on the exact EPA testing profiles or not.

WSJ article said:
The changes will lower the miles-per-gallon estimates on most of Hyundai and Kia's 2012-13 models...

The 2013 vehicles with lower than advertised fuel economy include the Hyundai Accent, Elantra, Genesis Azera, Santa Fe, Tucson and Veloster. Kia's 2013 vehicles include the Rio, Sorento, Soul and Sportage. For 2012 models, Kia's Optima hybrid and Hyundai's Sonata hybrid are added to the list...

Following the EPA readjustment, fuel economy for the Elantra, one of Hyundai's top-selling cars, falls to 28 mpg in city driving and 38 mpg on the highway, from 29 mpg and 40 mpg, respectively...
Click to expand...
 
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StealthWyvern said:
My genesis gets better mileage then what the EPA is rated for.. I get 19-20 in down compared to the 18 city EPA, and city is right on par for the most part. I get 26-28 mpg on the highway based off the on screeen MPG results depending on speed and road conditions. EPA is 27 hwy.
Click to expand...

If you have a 2012 or 2013 Genesis then I guess you will be receiving a debit card from Hyundai for estimated fuel costs on the difference of what was stated and the actual results of the EPA tests (FTP-75, HWFET, US06, SC03). The exact tests can be seen on the following link: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fe_test_schedules.shtml

If a car is put under these exact tests, there should be consistent results which may vary widely with how individuals drive everyday in the real world. Before 2008, there was just the City test (FTP-72), and highway test (HWFET) which only went up to 60mph max. In order to more closely simulate modern driving speeds / conditions, the US modified the city test and added additional testing cycles to test highway driving up to 80mph (US06) and driving while using AC (SC03).
 
It doesn't pay to mislead buyers like this. Not good press.
 
I have a 2012 sorento and it qualifies for the cash back. Sadly tho with 12k miles on the car itll only be worth about 50 bucks...not quite making up for the fact that it gets 19mpg
 
StealthWyvern said:
My genesis gets better mileage then what the EPA is rated for..
Click to expand...

The fun with mpg is so much of it depends on how you drive (and some on where). And how someone drives is completely up to their own interpretation. I'm guessing a lot of people that say they get bad mileage and yet don't drive fast are ones that drive much faster than they realize and do the real crime against mpg and adjust their speed continuously to try to keep it exactly steady.
While some that think they don't hypermile it are actually going much more slowly than they realize and accelerate away from stops much slower too.
We need to build a robot that will get in each car and drive it over the same chunk of road in the exact same way to test cars :)
 
Buger - Thanks for the links to official Hyundai/Kia mpg charts. This kind of negative publicity will drag on the 2 brands for a little while.

Earlier on the Kia Sportage was one of my top choices when shopping for compact SUV. I noticed earlier that Sportage were complaining about actual MPG, now it's obvious how much lower than CX-5 it really is. And the Sportage is no rocket when compared to CX-5 so the difference can't be justified due to performance advantage.
 
are non-car people even seeing these stories? The angle I've seen elsewhere is how wonderful they are that since they discovered that the cars may not get as good as they claim they are giving people money to make up for it.

I'm just curious how much overall it has had an effect on their image. I'd love to see a list of:
Percentage of drivers that even know about the issue.
Percent that think it is a bad thing.
Percent that think 'wow they are stepping up and making this right'.

The off mpg listings aren't helped any when the salesmen liked to point at the range of mpg that you 'might' get and say "See someone could get that much in this car" I had a salesman do that with a car that I'd rented in the past and was able on a flat stretch of road to get the MPG readout to stay at 30 for a couple minutes at 60 mph. The window sticker said 29 and the range was something like 27-32 highway and he gave me the 'you could probably get 35' line.
 
Not sure the statistical analysis of the readers is available or even worth the bother, even if entertaining.

Yes, car salespeople love to make stuff up and stretch the truth, but fudging EPA gas mileage numbers on factory window stickers and paid advertising is Hyundai/Kia's doing.

This is not the preferred form of free publicity sought by better automakers, and when publications like WSJ and CR report on it (widely read), not good.
 
I am so glad we did not buy a Hyundai. My wife liked the Santa Fe and her friends were saying how they liked Hyundai. I was like there is no way i'm driving a Hyundai! their mpg sucks, depreciation, etc... maybe in 5 years if things continue to improve I might drive one... but not now! this latest incident is just another hit on their credibility. I see it as a case of oversell, underdeliver. And they were essentially caught overselling, and underdelivering. It is unf
 
We considered the Santa Fe when we were shopping for a previous vehicle about 11 years ago. Hyundai seemed like an company that was on the rise and I think they had their good warranties back then also. On one hand I thought it was kind of good that Hyundai and Kia seemed to be stepping up their game recently and really competing well. Their recent offerings looked much more modern (both inside and out) and they seemed to have made some great strides to become leaders in the mpg area as Hyundai was marketing that they had the most 40mpg vehicles of all the brands (which has now been retracted of course).

It seems they did a great job of keeping weight lower than a lot of the competition. They weren't shy about having smaller gas tanks of about 12 gallons as one way to keep the weight down but this was an out of the box way to reduce every bit of weight they could. Their engines weren't especially powerful and they seemed to engineer their gearing ratios to hit the magic 40mpg number instead of for performance but I thought it was amazing that they took this strategy and found the fuel economy niche to stand out. So it was disappointing to hear recently that the numbers were just flat out wrong.
 
here's a fun article:
http://www.autoweek.com/article/20121107/CARNEWS/121109871

Seem Hyundai fudges the numbers on whatever the key advertising item is at the time.
When people wanted HP they stretched their HP numbers. When 40 mpg became the magic number for compacts, they had to also get 40 mpg. When larger sedans were just beginning to climb into the 30's they quickly had a model that topped most. I remember people being shocked and impressed that the Sonata got better than an Accord. And when gas prices skyrocketed the local Hyundai dealers couldn't handle the amount of customers that were pouring into their lots.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt when review after review ended up averaging well below 30mpg for the Elantra, figuring it was just enthusiastic driving on the testers parts. Guess not.

I'm curious about what the salespeople would say when someone (and if we had good reporters anymore they'd have found out) goes in to look at the cars and comments "oh, I thought this one got 40 mpg." I'm sure they wouldn't say "we were lying about it" but do they say "it turns out we were testing the cars wrong" or do they even try to sugar coat it more than that and claim the testing methods recently changed or something else.

I don't remember the horsepower thing and haven't heard anyone else mention it with this current 'testing problem'. I guess Hyundai learned that even if you get caught it doesn't hurt you much. I still contend this will pass (has passed) with little fanfare and few will know and less will remember it.
 
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It will pass, but not as easily as the horsepower thing IMO. Common auto buyers are more aware of fuel economy and safety (versus horsepower ratings) in the case of mainstream affordable cars. I know buyers remembered the Firestone tire fiasco on Explorers for quite a length of time.

Separately on the topic of horsepower, the better automakers have on select models sandbagged or purposely rated horsepower lower than average actual for better than expected performance (Porsche, BMW, Lexus).
 
Every auto mag comparo i've come across for the last 2 years showed they're actual mpg's to be way lower then what one would expect with those ratings. Same goes for performance figures. I've been calling Korean car makers bluff for awhile now. I'm glad to see it come to light.
 
I didn't know about the hp thing... seems to me they have a history of inflating to sell... caught twice... really, really bad. I'm surprised more penalties haven't come out... then again, why isn't the EPA auditing all the submissions? Is that that hard? considering the cost of each vehicle and the thousands/millions of vehicles sold each year, as a consumer, it would be nice to know that all the EPA submisssions were properly audited... That would also encourage technological innovation...
 
My older brother was recently car shopping. Within the last couple weeks, actually. I tried and tried to get him (and his wife) interested in the Skyactiv 3, as he was mainly shopping for efficiency. He wanted at least 40 MPG Hwy, and he immediately fell in love with the new Elantra GT hatch after spending some time researching on the internet. He went and drove one and liked it, even after I had e-mailed him several articles detailing Hyundai's inflated efficiency and power ratings of their engines. To his credit, he followed up with a test drive of the 3, and he and his silly wife said it was, "noisey, bumpy and claustrophobic." I then scrambled to share with him at least a half dozen head to head comparo's by reputable publications, which unanimously credit the Skyactiv 3 as being the best on the market for an efficient sub-compact. He then said, "Those guys are car and driving junkies whose idea of a pleasing driving experience behind the wheel is different than most 9 to 5 commuters such as myself."

He then purchased the Elantra hatch.

So, it obviously has little effect on the general market. Sheesh...Hyundai has become just another Toyota chasing, big volume seller (wannabe), auto maker. They have made strides in the past 5-6 years, though. I guess they are tailor made for people looking for a commuter. There is no denying their value/bang for the buck, as far as features anyway.
 
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