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Hyundai Elantra Real World MPG 2012

745 messages,  Last post on May 18, 2013 at 10:29 AM

You are in the Hyundai Elantra Forum.

What is this discussion about? Hyundai Elantra, Fuel Efficiency (MPG), Hatchback, Sedan

Messages Page 19 of 76

#172 of 745 I'm done with this car by dan_b

Feb 01, 2012 (6:44 pm)

I have a 2011 Elantra Limited, I drive mostly in town and get about 24 mpg combined. I sold my high millage honda civic to get this car because of the mpg claims. I have never owned a car that gets such poor gas millage. The way I see it, this car has a nice comfortable interior and and no other positives. The car handing is subpar compared to other cars in it's class, I am paranoid about blowing a tire and being stranded, and the gas millage sucks! Right now the Hyundai hype-machine is making this car out to be the best thing since sliced bread and the sells are great for them also meaning that resell is high for me. I know that it will sucks to take a loss from the combination of driving it off the lot and sales tax. However, it will suck worse if I wait a year or two when the reputation (gas guzzler) of this car is truly know by the public and the value plummets.
 
At this point I feel that I should sell the car and buy something that I will like. From this I have learned, if you are buying a car for MPG you should test the MPG on the test drive, what is on the window sticker means nothing.
 
Oh, and I will NEVER BUY A HYUNDAI AGAIN!

#173 of 745 Re: This could open a whole big can of worms! [tenpin288] by dan_b

Feb 01, 2012 (7:03 pm)

Replying to: tenpin288 (Feb 01, 2012 6:23 pm)
Yeah, like a wave of lawsuits for false advertizing.... sounds like a good thing for the consumer

#174 of 745 Time/Miles & "Test" Route by g2iowa

Feb 02, 2012 (7:15 am)

Wish posters here would consistently state how long they've owned their Elantra and how many miles they have on it. Is so hard to tell how many people complaining have adequately broken in their Elantra (say with at least 5000 miles on the engine). I have great sympathy for drivers with say 10,000 or more miles on their car who can't get 30 mpg on highway, but someone complaining who has only a couple thousand on their odometer needs to give it some time/miles. I've had mine for 3 months and only driven it a grand total of about 1750 miles, but the mileage has been good on highway and decent in town given the short trips and stops.
 
Anyone who believes they are having serious mpg issues, either city or highway, probably should find some decent "test" area that is decently near your Hyundai dealer. Say some near perfectly level piece of road or highway that is at least 5 miles with no stoplights or stopsigns and not too much traffic. Then check out your computer's mpg reading while driving it continuously at legal speed (say 35 mph for city/suburban or even rural and 65 mph highway/interstate). If when you drive this the reading is seriously low (say 30 mpg for 65 mph steady driving or 20 mpg for steady 35 mph driving), drive the same road a couple of times and see what the average result is. Then if it is still horrible, see if you could get your Hyundai service advisor to drive the same route in your car and watch the readings. At least the advisor would know the road and speed that lead to such a horrible result.

#175 of 745 Re: Time/Miles & "Test" Route [g2iowa] by steven39

Feb 02, 2012 (9:37 am)

Replying to: g2iowa (Feb 02, 2012 7:15 am)
i'll just add my 2 cents here.iv'e had my 2012 elantra gls base model since august 2011..right now as we speak i have approx 3800 miles on the odometer.so far, according to the trip computer iam averaging about 27/city and about 43 mpg highway.not bad with under 5000 miles on the clock.this is about as close as iam going to get to the stated mpg on the msrp label although as i put on more miles hopefully it will go up a notch or two mpg.

#176 of 745 Hyundai Comparison Results by jmorv

Feb 02, 2012 (12:23 pm)

I purposely joined this forum for the sake of airing my frustrations and findings about the 2012 Elantra. Last August I was involved in an accident that totalled my 2007 Hyundai Elantra. Since I have been a faithful buyer of Hyundai for over 15 years and most of the vehicles I have purchased have been Elantras, I decided to stick with it and purchase the 2012. One of the biggest (and trusted at the time) selling points was the mpg. Getting 40mpg is always a good thing to have so I bought into the marketing. After owning the car for about 6 months, I have been very disappointed with the fact that I cannot achieve 40mpg. The first week I owned the car, the mpg was super, then it dramatically declined since then. I am lucky to get 34mpg on the highway. I live in AZ so even during the winter months, we have what can be described as "ideal conditions" and again, the mpg are terrible. I had been doing at least 90% of my driving on the highway, with my speed ranging between 65-75mph.
 
This past week, I traded in an '07 Tiburon for something more fuel efficient so I decided to go with the Accent. I must say I am VERY satisfied with the Accent. Sure, it has a smaller engine, but when it comes to mpgs, it hits the mark rather well. So far I am around 38-39mpg and this is with driving the same percentage of time on the highway, same route, same driving style.
 
I made mention of the mpg decline to my dealer for the Elantraand they said to do a fuel consumption test because the avg mpg indicator on the dash isn't that accurate. To my dismay, I did the test, did the math and low and behold, the results were actually very close to what the indicator was giving me in the first place. The last time I was at the dealer, I rather sarcastically mentioned that I may have bought a "friday car".
 
Needless to say, now that I have a good base comparison, I have to jump on the bandwagon of dissatisfied customers over the Elantra. Fortunately the opposite holds true with the Accent. No complaints about the build, function, performance...I should have bought that instead of the Elantra at the time!

#177 of 745 Poor Milage vs Old Car by skip74

Feb 02, 2012 (7:09 pm)

I have a 2012 Elantra with 6500 miles. The best mileage I have seen to date is 33 MPG. Right now I am getting 27 MPG. Needless to say I am extremely disappointed. My previous car was a 2007 Ford Fusion, the engine was half a liter larger, and the car weighed 600 plus pounds more than the Elantra. I was getting 28 MPG on the same trip to work everyday. Now mind you my window sticker on the fusion was 24/31 not 29/40. So what gives?

#178 of 745 Re: Hyundai Comparison Results [jmorv] by axman2

Feb 02, 2012 (7:12 pm)

Replying to: jmorv (Feb 02, 2012 12:23 pm)
I've had my 2012 Elantra for a few weeks, racking up almost 2000 miles. I also noticed my mileage wasn't as high as what I would have hoped. Recently, I took my family on a trip, totaling about 250 miles. While on the trip, I was using my GPS that I normally use for work (in a car with a certified speedometer). I noticed during the entire trip, my speedometer was off by a little over 2 mph. Along with that, I realized that for every 100 miles of actual driving, my odometer only showed 98 miles. I wonder if this discrepancy in the odometer causes the calculation of the mpg to be off as well.

#179 of 745 Re: Time/Miles & "Test" Route [g2iowa] by backy

Feb 02, 2012 (7:34 pm)

Replying to: g2iowa (Feb 02, 2012 7:15 am)
That's a good idea. Ideally more than a few miles, but 5 miles should be enough to get a steady-state reading. But at steady 35 mph, no stops, level road, mpg should be much higher than 20 mpg in this car, especially if it can be nudged into 6th gear--or at least 5th. I get very good FE on my cars at 35-40 mph steady speed. But the best FE seems to be between 55-65.

#180 of 745 Has Anyone Noticed... by jmorv

Feb 03, 2012 (6:11 am)

I want to amend what I wrote the other day about my mileage issues with the Elantra by stating that one of the obvious "flaws" I see (and experience) is that when you drive the car, it soooo wants to be in 6th gear, no matter if you are on highway or surface streets. It's a nightmare trying to accelerate on an onramp for the highway and the car goes into "duh what gear should I be in?" mode. When I accelerate in the Elantra, the car will increase rpms for 1-3 gear, but when 4th comes around, it's for a breif second, then 5th which is just as quick and then 6th, all the while you are trying to accelerate to the stated speed (here in AZ it's 65). Very frustrating and with that, I find that my foot is mashing the pedal more than it should to get up to the speed I need to be at. It's as if I am really working the engine just to get up to speed when that shouldn't be the case. Of course, during this acceleration period, I watch the mpgs drop like a stone...am I driving an Elantra or a Hummer here?
Not long after I bought this car, I received a very detailed survey from Hyundai which was supposedly going to the Hyundai engineers, to which I aired my frustrations and even made suggestions about how the transmission is NOT acting the way it should for normal acceleration onto highways. I still have yet to hear back and I shudder to think that they are ignoring me (us).
 
I seriously think the MPG issue is tied moreso to the transmission and how it handles acceleration. There is nothing ECO about it, as this is driven home by the dealers and advertisers for the sake of, how do they put it "makes shifting easier and it's easier on the engine"? I would really like to pick the Hyundai engineers brains to find out what the heck they were thinking when they designed the powertrain and equated their super gas mileage to it?

#181 of 745 Re: hyundai elantra 2012 real mpg [elantra4] by jmorv

Feb 03, 2012 (6:17 am)

Replying to: elantra4 (Jan 26, 2012 12:30 pm)
I was told the same thing about how gas stations differ on their "blend". I told them where I get gas (Shell) and they said that was fine, but avoid Costco. I have filled up at a Shell, a Quiktrip and a Pilot...all the same mileage and same results for mpgs. I have filled up early in the morning when the temps are low and midday when the temps are higher. Again, same results. I still say it's the way the computer controls the transmission. I did experiment once with just using the shifttronic feature and not using the full auto. I got a difference of about 2mpg to the good.
 
With my ongoing comparison between the Elantra and the Accent, my Accent is getting a solid 38mpg highway which is still over 4mpg to the Elantra. Yeah, I know, smaller car, smaller engine but not by much and as far as engine control features, they are the same.

Messages Page 19 of 76

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