Thread: Fuel economy. Listed vs reality

Not sure about utes, but with cars I think the European manufacturers are quite well known for 'gaming' the official test cycles to give much lower official fuel consumption figures for marketing (and lower taxes in some countries where tax is based on nominal co2 output) even if nobody gets that in reality. The Japanese manufacturers have normally tended to be a bit more honest with it, but its still just a lab test that may differ a lot from your driving (especially if you live somewhere hilly or tow trailers etc).

I remember being amused by a UK car magazine test between an Subaru Impreza STI and a VW Golf R a couple of years back. Both 2.0 turbo 4wd with similar power and weight, from memory the VW claimed 39mpg and the Subaru claimed 28mpg... and both did 27mpg in the mags real-world testing.