Anyone else fed up with Consumers Reports?

[TicTocTach]

Your EB only gets 15 mpg? Is it modified at all?
My stock EB convertible is getting pretty close to 25, 24.7 to be exact. I daily it 60 miles round trip and it's a mix of city and highway and I can't say I baby it. Quite the contrary actually...
On my highway trips of a few hundred miles it hovers around 30.

It’s a perfect package car with the FP tune, so really no mods that would affect fuel economy either way. Running down the highway on an extended road trip, I can push 30mpg if the speed limit is under 70. However when I’m only taking my kid to school on side streets, stop and go for less than 5 miles each way, well, 15mpg is what I get. I do drive in Sport+ or Track mode which does push mileage down, but they provide more joy than Normal mode... Here’s the full-up before the big ice storm hit:

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[J-orange]

I am a subscriber. I took them to task in their survey question regarding car repair. They made no distinction between preventive maintenance and repair because something is broken. That skews the results. Never change oil or transmission fluid=reliable car. They have subsequently changed their verbiage.

 

[ORRadtech]

It’s a perfect package car with the FP tune, so really no mods that would affect fuel economy either way. Running down the highway on an extended road trip, I can push 30mpg if the speed limit is under 70. However when I’m only taking my kid to school on side streets, stop and go for less than 5 miles each way, well, 15mpg is what I get. I do drive in Sport+ or Track mode which does push mileage down, but they provide more joy than Normal mode... Here’s the full-up before the big ice storm hit:

Hmm, I believe you but find it odd.
Since the convertible is heavier I'd expect that to adversely affect mpg versus a coupe. Also, i have the SmartTop module and it's set to automatically go to the last driving mode which is set to Sport+ 90% of the time. As I said, I drive a 60 mike round trip commut of which about 10 miles each way is through downtown Atlanta and Atlanta is constantly in the top 10 worst commutes in the US. It's not too unusual to take 40 minutes to go 6 or 7 miles in the evening.

 

[TicTocTach]

Hmm, I believe you but find it odd.
Since the convertible is heavier I'd expect that to adversely affect mpg versus a coupe. Also, i have the SmartTop module and it's set to automatically go to the last driving mode which is set to Sport+ 90% of the time. As I said, I drive a 60 mike round trip commut of which about 10 miles each way is through downtown Atlanta and Atlanta is constantly in the top 10 worst commutes in the US. It's not too unusual to take 40 minutes to go 6 or 7 miles in the evening.

I have been tracking my mileage (old habit from when I had my Fit), and until Covid hit (March, 2020) the lifetime mileage was 22.30 mpg @ 21,700 miles. Then my commute went from 16 miles each way with 4 of that in town, to less than 5 miles each way, twice a day, getting my kid tto school and back. I filled up last on Feb 11 with just 5,138 more miles on the odometer. Overall mileage is down to 21.58, and the Covid average is 18.60. Short trip driving kills mileage.

 

[13GetThere]

Dang! You can still get Consumer Reports?
I thought that rag died decades ago. What a waist of trees, unless you still use an outhouse since the Sears catalog is gone.
I had a subscription for a couple of years a long, long time ago, and it was a waist of money. I literally thought people had wised up and put CR out of business. I guess good salesmen can still sell space heaters in hell.

 

[JohnD]

Yeah, shell game of a mag. Stopped reading it and its brethren years ago. Seems like the best info these days comes from people you know and can trust, every other source is highly suspect.

 

[T123456]

Hmm, I believe you but find it odd.
Since the convertible is heavier I'd expect that to adversely affect mpg versus a coupe. Also, i have the SmartTop module and it's set to automatically go to the last driving mode which is set to Sport+ 90% of the time. As I said, I drive a 60 mike round trip commut of which about 10 miles each way is through downtown Atlanta and Atlanta is constantly in the top 10 worst commutes in the US. It's not too unusual to take 40 minutes to go 6 or 7 miles in the evening.

Question about the SmartTop! When it goes into Sport+ automatically, does that change the start up exhaust to Sport+ too or does the exhaust still start up “normal”?
Also, not sure if you can answer this but does the quiet time mode override the smarttop (if set) for the exhaust, or does the module override the quiet time?

 

[ORRadtech]

Don't have the exhaust features you're asking about.
But,
The SmartTop does not actually start in the saved modes. What it does is automatically/electronically steps through the modes to what the module is set to. So, when you start the car it starts in normal mode then a few seconds later the mode info panel pops up in the display and you can watch the module step through the modes until it gets to where it's set for. My module is set to go to the last mode in use so if I was in normal it does nothing but if I was in rain/snow it would step all the way to the end.
I would assume, but cannot confirm, that the stepping would activate the same things that stepping through using the physical switch would.

 

[boB]

If I want reviews of a refrigerator/washer/dryer I go to CR. Sunscreen? Sure, their test methods and ratings look ok to me. But a car? No way, I can find better reviewers ( I hope).

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