Mileage Challenge 3.4: Fuel Economy Value

The fuel economy results of our mileage drive are in, and by now you’ve already read which cars we tested, the mileage they achieved and our impressions of each compact car. It’s using those real-world results that we’ve calculated which of these frugal commuters offers the best fuel economy value, based on each car’s as-tested price compared to the mileage it returned.

The calculation was simple: To pinpoint a value based on fuel economy, we merely divided the MSRP by how many miles per gallon the car returned during our testing. Now, let us mention that you can always get a bare-bones, stripped version of car, improving its fuel economy value, but the following results are a reflection of the specific trim levels we tested, which mostly included niceties that made the drive easier.

Mileage Challenge 3.3: Driving Impressions

This week, we reported the results of our latest mileage challenge, a 300-mile highway trip in four high-mileage commuter cars. Our convoy averaged a respectable 33.8 mpg. The Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic achieved the highest numbers, with the Pontiac G5 and Ford Focus coming in a few ticks worse. Three editors and an editor in chief logged considerable time in each, and we cobbled together some impressions and off-the-cuff rankings for the group.

Read on for our thoughts.

Cars.com Mileage Challenge 3.2: The Results

Yesterday, we introduced the four high-mileage commuter cars for our latest mileage challenge, which comprised about 300 miles of highways southwest of Chicago. Three of the four — the Pontiac G5, Toyota Corolla and Ford Focus — had trip computers with mpg readouts; the fourth, a Honda Civic, did not. We started the drive with full tanks of gas, logged mileage on the trip computers and calculated it again by filling up at the end of the day.

The numbers are in, and the Corolla came in first at 36.4 mpg, outperforming its 27/35 mpg city/highway ratings — and it was the only car to do so. The other three posted more modest results: The Civic (25/36 mpg city/highway) achieved 34.6 mpg, the G5 (25/37) achieved 33.1 mpg and the Focus (24/35 mpg) achieved just 31.0 mpg.

Full results below.

Cars.com Mileage Challenge 3.1

Gas prices are dropping — precious good news in otherwise dismal economic times — but automakers clearly think we’re still in for a long-haul increase. To wit: The MPG war remains afoot, and the higher the gas mileage numbers you can put up, the better. General Motors markets XFE trims, for Extra Fuel Economy, of certain cars and trucks that have been tweaked to get better mileage. Ford has the makings of a similar lineup in its SFE, or Superior Fuel Economy, badging. Even Hyundai and Kia tout drivetrain revisions that yield incremental upticks in several of their ’09 models.

The ratings are sometimes impressive, especially among commuter cars, so for this fall’s mileage challenge we put four of them to the test. GM’s Chevy Cobalt and Pontiac G5 twins now get an estimated 25/37 mpg city/highway in high-efficiency XFE trim, which only comes with a manual transmission. The redesigned Toyota Corolla gets a close 27/35 mpg city/highway rating with an automatic; that’s a slight increase over the prior-gen automatic. A number of other contenders post impressive highway figures, too.

Balk all you want about how your kid brother’s ’87 Tercel got 35 mpg going uphill, but we’ll remind you that today’s commuters can reach 60 mph in less than 10 seconds – with side curtain airbags and habitable backseats to boot.