Ford Cuts Mileage Ratings for Second Time in a Year

The affected vehicles are model year 2014 Ford Fiesta; model years 2013 and 2014 C-Max hybrid, Fusion hybrid, and Lincoln MKZ hybrid; and model years 2013 and 2014 C-Max Energi plug-in hybrids and Fusion Energi plug-in hybrids. U.S. owners will receive payments from Ford ranging from $200 for the one-liter Fiesta to $1,050 for the Lincoln MKZ.

This is the second drop to the mileage rating on the C-Max hybrid. The car’s mileage rating was cut from a combined city/highway rating of 47 to 43 last August and cut again from 43 to 40. Ford paid owners of those cars $550 and lessees received $325 for the error.

This incident is a significant blow to Ford, which had been pounding the drum that eight of its 2013 models achieved combined mileage ratings of 40 or better. That claim can now be made for just five of the company’s cars because the Lincoln MKZ fell from 45 to 38 and the C-Max Energi and Fusion Energi both dropped from 43 to 38. The all-electric versions of those cars had their ranges dropped from 21 to 19 miles as well.

Ford said new labels will be available in about six days for cars still on dealer lots and that dealers may continue selling the cars until the new labels are received. Owners and lessees will receive a payment for “the estimated average fuel cost of the difference between the two fuel economy labels.” The company said that its representatives would contact U.S. fleet owners and other owners outside the United States.

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Ford attributes the error to the difference between testing based on a computer model and testing actual cars. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permits carmakers to use the computer modeling, and Ford said that when it ran real tests on actual cars that it discovered an error in how the company correlated real-world tests with the computer model. The error was the result of a “recent process change which the company has since corrected.”

Ford shares closed down 2.25% on Thursday, and were up 0.6% in premarket trading Friday, at $16.62 in a 52-week range of $14.30 to $18.02.

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