Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Fuel Efficiency in a Car Purchasing Decision

Efficiency in a Car Purchasing Decision

By on April 21, 2012 4:30 am
With the increasing petrol price worldwide, the fuel efficiency of a vehicle determines the purchasing decision of many car buyers. Despite allowing you to calculate the monthly cost of the vehicle, the understanding of a vehicle’s efficiency also allows you in determining the purchase of two car models. In order to have an insight of a vehicle’s miles per gallon (mpg), numerous resources can be look into.


While browsing through the vehicle lots in a dealership, you can locate the vehicle’s mpg through the EPA section of a window sticker. The EPA label will jot down the three main fuel economy numbers from city to highway to a combined mpg. Normally, car manufacturers will want buyers to look only at the highway mpg ratings, however such does not apply in real life, as many vehicles are cruising the city streets rather then highway, thus the city rating were included. Drivers too do travel on highways and city streets together, hence a combined mpg ratings were also jotted down, in order to present a better and clearer fuel efficient picture to the buyers. However, the ratings are normally written in a small print that is located at the bottom of the label, so close observation is needed to find it.
Despite getting the mpg ratings from the window sticker, buyers can also turn to the Internet, as there are website that shows detailed stats of mpg ratings on the entire automobile market, and such information are usually printed under the consumer review link for the basic city and highway mpg. To obtain the combined mpg ratings, search through the power-trains and performance heading. Some website also compile all the information under the fuel rating link, hence search for it to get a better picture of the mpg ratings on vehicle that you want to purchase.
Image courtesy of acura-legend.com
Besides that, another best search engine that successfully displays the mpg ratings of a vehicle is the US department of Energy website. Any vehicle even those that were dated back to 1984 can have their mpg ratings traced through the website. The best feature of this website is that it allows you to customise the driving data for a more precise result. Simply click on the ‘personalize’ button, a screen with the annual mileage, price of fuel and percentage of miles you stop and drive at a traffic light can be documented. When done, the ‘fuel economics’ will display a series of results such as the cost to filled a full tank, to drive up to 25 miles, fuel used in 25 miles, estimated annual fuel cost, etc.
Image courtesy of buzztrader.com

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