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geoff.king
By geoff.king | AA Member | 4 Posts | 21 April 2013 at 6:22pm

Hi,

I recently purchased a new Holden Captiva 7 Diesel. I was keen to get something reasonably efficient so I checked the fuel consumption against the other options I was looking at (Kia & Hyundai). The Holden Captiva 7 Diesel was advertised with 6.8l/100km extra urban (8.1 l/100km combined cycle), so as it was similar to the Kia & Hyundai thought it would be ok.

However, I am finding it uses considerably more. On a flat straight road, with no wind, in economy mode and cruise control turned on the best it gets to 9 ltr/100km at 100km/h which drops to 10ltr/100km at 80km/h. The ‘Distance Left’ on the dash display says a full tank will do 630km, but from measuring with mixed open road & around town driving (we live in the country so gets around 50% open road driving) it will only do 500km on a tank.

I have raised this with Holden and their response has been that the advertised ADR 81/02 fuel economy is a theoretical lab based test only and that cars are not supposed to match this (even though it is vehicle advertised fuel efficiency). Also “…it is a heavy car, so I should expect it to use more fuel …”.

I can understand that there would be a little differences, but 3 litres per 100km seems huge, especially on flat straight road, with no wind, in economy mode and cruise control turned. Isn’t this misrepresentation? Is there anything that I can do?

Regards

Geoff

ABayliss
By ABayliss | AA Expert | 2169 Posts | 22 April 2013 at 12:32pm

While this seems at face value to be misrepresentation, it is the norm - not just with the Captiva, but with every vehicle out there.
As the Holden dealer says, these tests are carried out to a standard, and from testing we've done ourselves, we know that under the optimum conditions, with a particularly frugal driving style and on the right roads, these figures are attainable - albeit, only just in some cases.
With regard to the distance to empty reading, we suspect that the vehicle would do 630km on a full tank, as there's usually around 100km after the light comes on (not that we'd advise running it empty though!)
While it's no consolation, we're sure you would find exactly the same would apply to the Santa Fe and Sorento too.