Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Wayne, Well for one, YOU reported the ecoboost SS mpg 70 mph at 22.3. That's meeting(beating) epa with 4 peeps and a load in the back. Here's a link: lol http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39079&page=12
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You On the hybrids, It's my understanding that a Honda insight (especially the I, but the II also) will beat highway mpg at 70 mph steady state. The Prius will not.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You I'm sure the weight has something to do with it. But I'd say maybe too much weight and not enough travel, or not enough $ thrown into the suspension. (my 4,900 lb pickup takes the hard hits in stride, my old bmw ..... well, it used to be outstanding in this regard ... it could use some new struts now. /add, to me, ... the suspension parts are a lot of what you pay for when you buy a higher end automobile -- the germans seem to know it best (i.e. bmw, mercedes, some vw's, etc...) I've upgraded the suspension on both my motorcycles over the past year, ... man what a difference. They feel like different bikes.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Hi Carcus: There is one. Your Cruze rental did not. And neither did any of the high FE drives we have driven in the past year. In fact, many fail at 65 mph too I am not sure the Insight II will best its EPA at 70 mph either. Andrew, the Sonic took the sharp curb impact so much better than the Cruze Eco so the GM engineers simply shorted the Cruze is all. The Malibu having an independent rear end would surely take a harsh impact better but with that super rigid chassis, the rough roads around Austin allowed some of that harshness to sneak back into the cabin. On rolling hills with decent pavement however, the Malibu Eco was a dream! Wayne
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You It's disappointing that the Cruze's mpg display is so far off , then. Maybe I'll just keep the old beemer around for a while. It'll hold over 30 mpg at 70 mph. (and only drops to 28 at 75 mph). City ?? that's another story -- tuned for the autobahn, I guess.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Hi Carcus: Watch your average speeds from drive to parking spot. Most find them to be in the mid 30's even if they have a run up to 80 on the Interstates for a short period of time. I doubt the Malibu would satisfy you but the KOH/HSH might? If it is more of a city commute, you cannot beat the FFH and TCH. They will eat up city traffic like a snack after too long of a period between meals. Where the Malibu Eco may excel somewhat is long Interstate drives if your rear end fits the seat? At $25K + however, that is a big pill to swallow. Wayne
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You On the Honda Insights at 70 mph (going from memory and the car's mpg display) The 2002 would hold low 65 at 70 mph. Temp was probably 70 ish. pretty good crosswind The 2010 would hold 44-46 mpg at 70 mph. Again temp was about 75. not much wind I always thought the Honda readouts were very accurate, but I guess that could be wrong.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Finally -- I had a nice used Golf TDI (5 speed) bought a couple weeks ago, but the seller welched on the deal -- he let me know before I could arrange to pick the car up via a text that started with ... "hey bro". Kind of soured me car on shopping after all the searching/test driving -- thinking I'd finally come to a solution. / I've noticed the average speed thing -- kind of surprising. It varies from year to year..... but I do a fair amount of commuting into another state (about 500 miles RT). I can do it at 65 mph but that's the minimum for me.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Hmmmm. I think maybe my Civic can beat EPA at 70 MPH. I usually don't go that fast , except on my trip last year (Chicago-Phoenix-Chicago). My average mpg beat the stuffing out of the EPA but it was achieved using DWL 55-70 mph. I think when the weather warms up here , I will go on my old FE loop which is about 120 miles of I-88. I can try some steady-state 70 mph there , both CC and my right foot. I'll keep you posted.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Hi Carcus: The old Insight was almost dead on other than the 2% over report of odometer miles. The new one actually reports less than you are receiving by about 2 mpg! Edwin, I will be looking forward to your Civics results in a "Honda" thread Wayne
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You My HCH-2 gets HWY EPA at 70 MPH .... with the a/c on. Sure my tires are pumped up but I easily get 45 mpg at 70. I have to push 75 with the a/c on to get 40. Now my particular unit is getting 43-45 overall when I used to get 50 which I think is software related. But the HWY mileage is fine. I have a common RT roadtrip that is about 300 miles so I get some pretty reliable numbers. BTW - PSL is 70 here.... All this talk is making me spend a few more years with my HCH. I won't replace until I can get 50+ at 70 mph.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Hi 300TTto545: Honda’s perform much better than the rest for whatever reason The 41 mpgUS highway rated 2012 Civic HF allowed an actual 42.05 mpg RT loop at 70 mph with the aFCD displaying (40.0 avg of both directions). The 44 mpgUS highway rated 2012 HCH-III allowed an actual 48.2 mpg RT loop at 70 mph with the aFCD displaying (45.2 avg of both directions). I saw some similar sky high highway numbers from my drive of both the 2012 Coupe with the stick and the 2012 EX-L with NAVI in CA last month. I did not perform a steady state but only maximums in those two cars as that is the reason why I was there. Wayne
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Hi All: I just completed the Preview with what will hopefully be the last edit as I incorporated the exterior/interior design highpoints and lowlights. While some of it may sound a bit campy, the interior in particular is one of the Malibu Eco's strengths. This is the third Chevrolet in a row, the Cruze ECO and Sonic previously, that provides not only a competitive interior but improves upon each segments best with classy interior appointments and high quality materials. I am not sure what was going on within Chevrolet's interior design group over the past 3-years but the new Chevrolet is a welcome addition to the B, C and D-segment competitive landscape. Wayne
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Consumer Reports checks to see if cars can achieve 40mpg on the hwy.. The Sonata Hybrid gets 40mpg at 65mph. The Elantra is the only car to miss the goal (by 1 mile) at 65mph. As usual they abuse the domestics. http://news.consumerreports.org/car...r-actually-achieve-the-advertised-40-mpg.html "Our highway fuel economy numbers are measured using two different drivers, driving on a stretch of highway at 65 mph, going in both directions to mitigate wind and roadway slope effects. Wind speed must be below a nominal amount and results are temperature corrected. Since we test in all seasons, the air conditioning is shut off for consistency."
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You ...I don't think it gets any clearer than that. Focus? Cruz? Fiesta? Sonic? What a garbage magazine...despicable.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You http://news.consumerreports.org/car...r-actually-achieve-the-advertised-40-mpg.html "These test results are accurate, real-world figures and they are both repeatable and comparable." 65mph constant speed on fairly level ground, little wind, temperature corrected, no AC is "real world"???? What we really have is two numbers measured under two different artificial controlled conditions: the EPA highway number and the CR constant-65mph number. It's not clear to me that either one is closer to "real world", which is a nebulous concept at best. It is slightly interesting that the differences between the two numbers varies for different cars, which is what one would have expected, and how variable the differences are. It is annoying that CR refers to the EPA number as "claimed" or "advertised". Why not simply refer to it as "EPA highway"?? Do they have any evidence that the manufacturers are falsifying EPA numbers?? Do the results for many of the vehicles that the EPA tests in their own labs disagree with the manufacturer's results?? If so I'd certainly like to hear about it. P.S. Constant-speed mpg at 65 or 70mph is of little interest to me because I almost never reach those speeds. Slower speeds net me higher mpg's (as in "cleanmpg"), which is what I got these cars for. They are slightly interesting because, together with constant-speed mpg's at 40, 50, and 60mph, they show the mpg penalty of higher speeds.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Ditto, lightfoot. Their 65 mpg steady states are good to have, as is the EPA. But one does not invalidate the other. To refute EPA 'claims' they would need to duplicate the EPA cycle.
Re: 2013 Malibu ECOs Making Their Way to Driveways near You Hi All: Regarding the Malibu Eco @65 or 70 mph, it has decent aero, great tires (Goodyear Assurance FuelMaxs) and the ICE is being run at slightly < 1,500 RPM at 60 mph. Hopefully we will get a chance to find out at the Mama Spring Rally in two months. And when did CR begin a 65 mph report? Wayne
Re: CleanMPG Previews the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu Eco Mark Phelan reviews the 'Bu Eco. gets 44 mpg at 70 mph while using the cruise control.. http://tinyurl.com/7g9yha6 "The Malibu Eco I had topped the highway figure by a whopping 7.4 m.p.g. for 44.4 m.p.g. in real-world driving. I set the cruise control to 70 m.p.h. for a total of 234 miles in two separate stints on my way to Chicago and back earlier this month. The electric motor and battery -- essentially the same system Buick calls eAssist in the Regal and LaCrosse -- provide a smooth boost for acceleration. The result is like driving a small diesel engine: plenty of torque for confident passing and acceleration teamed with low fuel consumption."
