People who drive a lot drive these cars
Sunday, January 27th, 2013
Among the many things we check when preparing the reliability stats are unusually high odometer readings. Some people add an extra zero by mistake. Others simply spend an insane amount of time on the road. The latter is especially likely with two cars: VW’s Golf/Jetta/Rabbit TDIs (diesels) and Toyota’s Prius.
Looking at 2010s, with readings averaged over the past four quarters, the Golf TDIs have an average of 38,500 miles, the Prii 37,097 miles. The Honda Accord? 31,230. With 2004s, the averages are 177,964, 128,137, and 102,181 miles, respectively.
This makes rational sense. Diesels and hybrids both get much better fuel economy than regular cars, but they also cost more. The more miles someone drives, the more quickly this extra cost is recouped. Diesel engines also tend to last longer. Hybrids? The jury’s still out, but a few Prii are now well over the 200k mark.


On a recent trip from Detroit to Chicago in a Kia Soul 2.0, I couldn’t quite get 30 miles to the gallon, despite an EPA highway rating of 34. It turns out I wasn’t alone. Hyundai and Kia have now admitted to a “procedural error” in their testing, and will be compensating owners.
This week I’m driving a Buick Verano. Last week I had a BMW 528i xDrive. The first, based on the Chevrolet Cruze, is the smallest car Buick has offered since the J-Body Skyhawk was discontinued back in 1989. It weighs in at 3,300 pounds (midsize territory) and is powered by a 180-horsepower, 171 pound-feet 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine. The latter, for those who don’t speak recent BMW, is the marque’s midsize sedan with a 240-horsepower, 260 pound-feet 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine (yes, a four in a $60,000 car) and all-wheel-drive. So configured, the neu 5er checks in at 4,000 pounds. Which would you expect to get better gas mileage?
Instead, it looks like the EPA will post two numbers for vehicles like the Volt: one in energy equivalent for the first 30 miles run on electricity, and a second for MPG on gas once the battery has been depleted. Car & Driver posted the potential new sticker you see here in its new
Alamo gave me the choice of any car in their minivan lane. Aside from a Dodge Grand Caravan and a Toyota Sienna, they also had a Toyota Sequoia, Saturn Outlook, and Ford Flex. I went with the Ford, since a previous test drive had found the seats to be extremely comfortable. It also had more space behind the third row for our luggage than did the Sequoia and Outlook (the minvans do best here). Luggage for five people fit. A bag for the sixth went on the floor between the second and third rows.
The biggest surprise of all, though: this massive vehicle got about 25 MPG running a fairly steady 75-80 with three adults and three kids aboard and the A/C on. (Manual calculations were a few tenths short of this figure, the trip computer read a couple tenths higher than this figure.) Running about 65 MPH on a later stretch, the trip computer read over 27–average, not instanteous–until I hit some hills.