Today, I updated the car comparison for Mazda2 vs Ford Fiesta. They’re so similar in size, fuel consumption, and emissions, which only leaves style, comfort and price to decide with.
However, when making a car comparison I have heard buyers talk about insignificant differences in fuel consumption as being an advantage. It’s worth remembering DVLA figures are lab’ tests and not what you’ll likely achieve on the road. They’re for the purpose of comparison.
An important point the DVLA make is it’s not advisable to rank a number of cars with very similar figures. They don’t say what they mean by similar. But people do this.
For example a Ford Fiesta 1.2 does 38 mpg around town, a Mazda2 1.3 achieves 40.9 mpg. The combined figures are 51.4 and 54.3 mpg. Would you call the difference significant and likely to be achieved on the road?
The Mazda2 is a bit quicker but that depends on who’s driving. The fastest cars on the road appear to be Kangoo diesel vans.
The good news when cars are so similar you can decide on the basis of style, comfort and price.
The caution is be careful about making decisions based on mpg when figures are similar. What’s important is once you’ve decided on a car you’re stuck with the fuel costs and there’s nothing you can do to significantly change your mpg.
Similar cars have similar mpg figures. You have to check though. In other words it’s the size and type that make the difference – small to large, hatch, estate, 4×4, MPV, petrol or diesel, manual or automatic.
When I say you’ll have to check, you’d be surprised at the mpg some large, automatic, estate and MPV cars achieve nowadays. It’s worth making comparisons.
Regards
Ralph
