On the way into work the other morning, I caught a General Motors ad on the radio. It started out talking about how bad gas prices were and how properly inflated tires could increase gas milage up to 1-3%. Ok, fine.
The ad then goes on to say (and I’m paraphrasing a bit) ‘thats why all GM vehicles come with a tire pressure monitoring system as standard equipment’.
Bullshit.
All new vehicles, not just GM vehicles, but all new vehicles come with a tire pressure monitoring system. Its been a Federal (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) regulation since late 2003. It comes from the TREAD act which was a result of the Firestone/Ford Explorer rollover problems.
Of course the ad fails to mention that a large majority of these monitoring systems only report a problem when the tire pressure is reduced enough to cause a safety issue. Proper manual monitoring is still required in order to keep a constant tire pressure that will have any positive effect on gas milage.
Nice try GM.
July 12, 2008 at 7:05 am
Yea, if the ad was worded the way you say, it is misleading a bit. If GM wanted to brag about something fuel economy related, they could mention that most of their vehicles have an “instant fuel economy” gauge in the driver information center, giving the driver a real-time readout of fuel being used, and allowing one to tweak their driving habits in order to conserve fuel.