Visiting At Christmas? The Costs Might Add Up…

New research from the What Car? True MPG team confirms that drivers who need to put in extra miles to visit family and friends over the holidays could face hidden costs.

A recent test on a selection of popular vehicles shows that fuel efficiency can be cut by more than 7% when cars are driven with four occupants and a packed boot.

The team tested three different sized family cars: the Fiat 500X, Jaguar XE and Volkswagen Up, to determine their efficiency when put under the strain of Christmas travel.

With a 75kg driver onboard, the true MPG team demonstrated that all three vehicles could not match their officially quoted fuel economy figures. The Volkswagen Up achieved just 44.1mpg combined (official 61.4mpg), the Jaguar XE did marginally better with 47.3mpg (official 67.3mpg), and the Fiat 500X got closest with 51.5mpg (official 68.9mpg).

Adding three 75kg passengers to each car and a 50kg boot full of luggage worsened fuel economy even more for all three vehicles. The Volkswagen Up returned 40.9mpg, the Jaguar XE 45.0mpg and the Fiat 500X 49.0mpg.

These reductions in fuel economy equated to a dip of nearly 5% from the Fiat and the Jaguar, and more than 7% from the Volkswagen.

What Car? editorial director Jim Holder said: “A large number of new cars do not achieve their official Government fuel economy figure, so Britain’s motorists are already starting to feeling the pinch. The last thing they need is for their holiday road trip to cost them much more than they’d bargained for.

“We conduct our True MPG tests under real world conditions, so consumers can be crystal clear about the actual economy they can expect from new cars. We consistently find that removing any surplus weight, from a roof box to a set of golf clubs from the boot, will always reduce your fuel consumption.”