I am looking to purchase a new car. When buying a car online, there are a lot of things to consider. For me, one of the most important is the fuel consumption level. Buying a fuel-efficient car saves you money. In my current budget situation, I am all for saving money. But I also need to get to work every day to make money. I do not want to spend my entire paycheck at the gas pumps. With the Internet, I can search for new and used cars all over the U.S., but how do I compare their fuel efficiency ratings? What sites can I actually trust to give me accurate ratings?
Fueleconomy.gov
After a quick Internet search, I came to Fueleconomy.gov. It is a government site, so I should be able to trust all of the information on it, right? The site at first glance appears to be an excellent resource for finding the perfect car to meet my budget. I can search the site’s directory by class, model, year, and the size of car. I can also search by the combined miles per gallon the vehicle has. The site even has a comparison tool to help me compare my top selections against one another. The only issue comes when I am looking for exact fuel economy measurements. The EPA only tests 10 to 15 percent of the vehicles that are produced, according to the website. The manufacturers determine the rest of the ratings on their own. The manufacturers are also only testing pre-production prototypes, so if I am buying a new car maybe the actual fuel economy rating I am getting is not as precise as I would like. I decided this was an excellent resource, but I wanted to be sure that the information I was getting on fuel efficiency was precise and not manipulated by the manufacturer. My search continued.
Fuelly
I decided to turn to Fuelly. Fuelly is a helpful website that offers a little more transparency than most other online tools. The information on the site is from people who are actually driving the vehicles. Currently, there are over 166,000 vehicles on the site for review. There are also motorcycles and heavy vehicles on the site. I just selected the make and model of the car I was interested in and then a full list of cars appeared. Included on the list was the average miles per gallon according to the year the car was manufactured. I was then able to narrow the search down to engine size, body style, and submodel to get more exact information about the vehicle. The search can even be made to show the distance the vehicle is from my location. However, I am not worried about the location of the vehicle because I am going to rely on Aaall States Auto Transport, Inc., to get my car to me. Still Fuelly’s directory was not as complete as I would have hoped. It needs a little more time to grow. I decided to continue my search further.
Consumer Reports
Next, I turned to ConsumerReports.org to get an even more detailed picture of fuel efficiency ratings online. Consumer Reports allowed me to check all kinds of data on thousands of vehicles. From road test reports and consumer opinions to safety and reliability ratings. If you are looking for fuel efficiency ratings, this is probably the best place to go. The website is a wealth of information about all types of vehicles available to you in one central location. I chose this site as my final stop because it offered a monthly membership for only $6.95. The small investment was worth it because finding a fuel economy rating that I could trust saved me a lot of cash down the road. So, if you are in the market for purchasing a new or used car, and you are concerned about fuel efficiency rating, make sure you are looking in the right place.
