Ford has announced it’s lowering the MPG ratings for six vehicles of the 2013-2014 model years of hybrids and plug-ins as well as the high-selling Fiesta. The company says they’ve identified an error with fuel economy ratings and has notified the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which certifies the MPG results from manufacturers. In turn, the EPA has worked with Ford to re-test the vehicles for new MPG numbers.
“Ford is absolutely committed to delivering top fuel economy and accurate information,” said Alan Mulally, Ford president and CEO. “We apologize to our customers and will provide goodwill payments to affected owners. We also are taking steps to improve our processes and prevent issues like this from happening again.”
Ford reviewed its entire line up to determine the vehicles that required further testing and revised the fuel economy ratings for the affected vehicles. No other label adjustments are planned.
The changes affect the 2014 Fiesta in both its 1.0L and 1.6L variations. This results in an overall fuel economy of -1 MPG to the combined rating for all but the 1.6L M/T model, leaving a 36 mpg combined for the 1.0L GTDI in manual transmission, 31 for the 1.6L automatic, and 32 for the 1.6L SFE.
The 2013 and 2014 C-MAX hybrid also sees a change from 43 mpg combined to 40 mpg combined with both its city and highway ratings dropping 3 points each. The Ford Fusion hybrid, similarly, sees a drop to 42 mpg combined with a three point loss on both city and highway. The Lincoln MKZ hybrid for those models years has the most significant drop, with its combined rating dropping to 38 mpg from 45 and its city/highway ratings to 38/37 versus the 45 they were given before.
A compensation schedule has been set up for customers affected by these changes. You can find out more about that here.
