Mitsubishi Mirage

Non-repair car talk
Bob
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Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:36 am

Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by Bob »

Apparently the old school cheap efficient econobox is back. I thought this concept, at least in the USA, had died along with the Geo Metro over 10 years ago.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/109 ... owners-say
kevm14
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by kevm14 »

Wow, sounds like a real shitbox.

I checked fuelly. 2014 Cruze diesels, across 50 cars, and 331k miles of driving, have averaged 39.1 mpg.

Sadly it's not possible to get an average Cruze Eco mileage but you can look here and scroll down looking at all the "Eco" models.

http://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/cruze/2012

Now here's a question. Does fuelly rate the miles driven @ whatever MPG in the overall car model averages? Like if 5 cars are averaging 40mpg over 10,000 miles of driving each, and one guy is getting 50 mpg but only over the first 500 miles, is that considered 41.7 mpg average (40*5 + 50 divided by 6 cars) or 40.1 mpg (add up all gallons used and all miles driven, and divide)? Not that there's a big difference in my example but it's a legitimate quesiton.
Adam
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:50 pm

Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by Adam »

Judging from the 1994 Fleetwoods on Fuelly, it looks like they average the MPG over the number of cars. I have driven substantially further than the other 94 but the average for that year looks like they averaged mine and his MPG rather than totaled the miles.

http://www.fuelly.com/car/cadillac/fleetwood
kevm14
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by kevm14 »

Right. The actual average is 16.4 not 15.1.
Bob
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Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:36 am

Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by Bob »

Interesting. You would think a site as data rich as fuelly would be able to do a weighted average.
kevm14
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by kevm14 »

There are pros and cons to each method.

The way they currently do it just averages all the vehicles together. For that to be accurate it would imply that the mileage people get on their cars in greater, or smaller amounts of driving, will tend to be pretty consistent. That means a car that's new to someone gets weighted the same as someone who's put 35k miles on it while tracking on Fuelly. It could be assumed that the new car guy will get fairly consistent mileage (but then why track it with fuelly?). And for two cases where one guy drives 5k a year in a car versus someone who drives 25k a year, well, those are just two data points for that car. If I drive more miles per year, I MAY get better mileage since more of those miles would probably be highway. That gain would be reflected in my vehicle average, of course, but only as a single unweighted data point for multi-car averages. Whereas if it weighted it, and if a couple people drive 40k a year, and a few people drive 1k a year, it almost won't matter what the 1k people get in terms of affecting the reported car model average. Do I care what those 1k/year people get in their cars equally as much as the 40k/year people (aside from the city/highway discussion)?

But really I think it should be weighted by mileage. If I drive the CTS-V 300 miles and get 25mpg, then park it for 6 months, my vehicle average will be 25mpg, which is legit. But, it will also count as a "CTS-V that gets 25 mpg" in the multi-model averaging, which has much less utility than if I managed to coax 25 mpg out of the CTS-V over 10k miles, even though on their current system, they'd both just be an unweighted 25 mpg.

Of course, what we REALLY want out of fuelly is to look up cars and have it answer the question of "what would this car get with me driving it, in the location(s) that I need to drive it?" At least that's what regular people care about.

Other scenarios include "what would I get in all city? all highway? mixed? flat road versus lots of elevation changes? beating on it? going easy or even hypermiling?"
Bob
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Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by Bob »

I am fully in favor of the weighted average because it helps to minimize the impact of outliers.
kevm14
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Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by kevm14 »

It also means people who drive more miles per year are more heavily weighted in the car-model average. Is someone who drives 5k miles a year an outlier or otherwise statistically irrelevant if the mean is 15k? I guess it means if most people drive 15k miles per year, then statistically, you're more likely to also drive about that much. So there's that. Except that if someone drives 80k miles a year they're weighted even heavier, not lighter (even though that's an outlier data point).
Bob
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Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:36 am

Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by Bob »

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/201 ... est-review

Another review. This one is slightly less kind than the first one I posted :)
Bob
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Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:36 am

Re: Mitsubishi Mirage

Post by Bob »

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/109 ... l-shopping

I never thought you could rationalize purchasing a Mirage over the competition, but the above article attempts to do that.
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