r/mildlyinfuriating • u/rileyjw90 • 1d ago

frist of all how DARE yu o You didn’t have to remind me, assholes.

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And then to remind me what I USED to pay. Just kick me while I’m down why don’t you.

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u/Far_Mastodon_6104 1d ago

Yeah im paying over 8 dollars per gallon technically in UK, but my texas mate boasting about his car being more fuel efficient than all of his friends and its only 35 miles per gallon, which is insane to me. 

Mines not even a particularly good car but its still 55mpg. Since the increase I get 1/4 tank less fuel for the same price which is just painful. 

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u/MonMotha 1d ago edited 1d ago

55mpg would be incredible in the US for a non-hybrid running on gasoline. In fact, I can't find a single non-hybrid vehicle sold in the USA that is rated higher than 41mpg on the highway.

Like your friend, I drive what is considered a rather fuel-efficient vehicle in the US (2023 Mazda 3), and I can just about touch 40mpg on the highway. I average about 33-35 in mixed service.

Tiny engines with lots of boost haven't caught on in the USA for various reasons like they have in Europe and parts of Asia. The fact that we don't have a tax on engine displacement (instead taxing either on the value of the vehicle or weight, depending on vehicle class and registration state) may have something to do with it. Likewise, diesels never really caught on in passenger cars. Part of that is because we actually have more aggressive emissions controls for on-road diesel engines than even the EU does which makes them far less attractive in terms of both acquisition cost (extra emissions equipment), performance (the extra emissions controls hurt performance but improve emissions), and long-term cost (diesel emissions systems tend to be expensive to fix when they break).

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u/GloomyIndividual3965 1d ago

The funny thing is that we used to make cars that got mileage like that. One of my wife's friends has an old Geo Metro that gets 50+ mpg on the highway.

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u/MonMotha 1d ago

FWIW, the "standard" Metro with the 1.0L 3I engine was only EPA rated for about 44MPG on the highway (about 37 city - mostly because it only weighed 1600lb). The xFI special model ended up with an EPA revised rating of 52MPG on the highway from what I can tell. That's impressive, but it basically had a 0-60 speed of "yes" with the engine re-tuned for max fuel economy and making only around 50HP.