谁说美车费油？我第一手资料

Here I am not starting a debate. What you are seeing is a fact-sheet on an American car I experienced over a stretch of two weeks. Hold on your applauses or bricks before reading through…

Due to the nature of my work I rent cars regularly from Hertz on weekly or monthly basis, of course I don’t pay for from my own pocketsJ. Typically I rented a midsize car for $162/week including tax but they always gave me something like Sonata, Toyota Camry, Rev4, Subaru Outback etc, as a bonus to my loyalty for years I guess. The gas mileages for those cars are around 20 – 24 mpg.

On Friday of 7/27, when I got there, a Mercury Grand Marquis GS was ready for me – a week earlier I told the lady at front desk that I would drive to San Francisco on the following weekend. She asked me what kind of car I would prefer, I half joke half real told her the bigger the better like Grand Marquis or Lacrosse. When I arrived, hoho, they did get me one (still $162/week).

This is the car I am talking about today, huge size with rich features. In the week of 7/30, I drove it to work back and forth. On Friday 8/3, I drove up to Bay Area and headed back on Sunday. This week I drove it for work again. I just filled up the gas and returned the car. So total two weeks.

I kept the receipts for later reimbursement so here is the list of mileage and gas:

Original mileage on the car: 3191, gas is full
8/1 - filled up at Irvine, 15.4g
8/3 – filled up at Losthills, 14.7g
8/5 – filled up at Berkeley, 14.2g
8/5 – filled up at Losthills on way back, 9.6g
8/7 – filled up at San Diego, 15.2g
Today – filled up at San Diego, 9.5g, the mileage was 4949 on the clock.

(4949 –3191) / (15.4 + 14.7 + 14.2 + 9.6 + 15.2 + 9.5) = 22.3 mpg

I’d say this number is impressive. With a 4.6L V8 engine, heavy and big size, you can’t say this is bad. Look at other similar premium cars like Lincoln Towncar, Cadillac DeVille, MB 420/500/560 SEL and Lexus LS 400/430, they are getting 16-18 mpg. If somebody says American cars use too much gas, hold on, check this out.

Some observations:
1) Spacious - This is a real huge car – same size with MB 300SDL/420SEL/460SEL. Because its gear stick is on steering column, front seats are actually a full bench, so it can easily hold 3 persons at first row.
2) Nice ride – For its long wheel-base and super soft suspensions, riding this car is a real joy. Consider this – riding a Camry like sitting on a sampan, riding this like sitting on a 10k-ton boat.
3) Low RPM – When I drove at 70mph, the rpm was 1500; when 90, rpm was 2000. Engine was always at ease. Most smaller cars are using high rpm to get up speed/output needed horse power, roughly in 3000 to 3500 rpm range for a 90mpg drive. Inferring, if smaller car engine’s life is 200kmi, this engine will last for 300kmi without considering other factors.
4) Automatically releasing hand brake – Whenever you move your gear to D, the hand brake will be automatically released. You will never have a chance to drive your car miles before you realize your car is still on brake.
5) Rear view mirror auto dim – the rear view mirror has a sensor to detect the coming light from behind. After dark, it’ll auto dim to make your eyes comfortable.
6) I did notice a few drawbacks, or room for improvement – (a) door buttons and front panel look unimpressive – lack of fine elegancy; (b) balancing bar seems not effective as MB 300SDL’s.

Nevertheless, all in all this is a great car. If some day Ford wants to sell this brand or Victoria Crown (the same car), I’d strongly recommend Chinese auto makers to grab it before it’s gone, not the Land Rover. It’s easy to change a few small things like buttons or CD player, making this a flagship competing with MB and Lexus.

Below is the actual car: