41mpg is a bit poor, our 52 reg xtrail does mid 40's. It can fit 5 adults in comfort and has a big boot.
Comparing MPG figures without any information on where the car is driven, how it is driven, how the MPG figures are reached and what sample base the figures are taken from is pretty pointless.
Our Smart spends 80% of it's life in and around our capital city, the other 20% is the odd slog up or down the motorway.
The figures are calculated from 3 years of logging every drop of fuel that has been added and every mile the car has been driven.
A good source of "real world" MPG averages is fuelly.com
I've found that any sample base below 100 fill up's can be misleading, the X-trail does not get into the 40's on average
http://www.fuelly.com/car/nissan/x-trail
The largest database is the 2005 model with 452 fill up's to draw data from, with these 452 data points spread over 15 cars they only average 28.8MPG
http://www.fuelly.com/car/nissan/x-trail/2005
Not 1 car in that sample selection gets anywhere near 45MPG
The best is 38MPG from a Nissan X-Trail 2.2dCi SVE 2005
http://www.fuelly.com/car/nissan/x-trail/2005
If on the other hand you look at the Smart for2 database you can see that the absolute worst MPG average is the 2013 model at 45.1MPG, with many knocking on the door of 50MPG+
So as i say your not comparing apples with apples.
I stand corrected. I really didn't think it would be a four star rating.
I don't believe mileage is any indication of car safety tho, unless we're talking about the chance of an accident.
I agree but my point was that if these cars were such a "death trap" it would be unlikely that my Wife and i would have survived these 3 years.
Car crashes are a messy business, there are that many variables it's impossible for any car to be totally safe in any situation, even if your driving a tank if you come to a stop within a few cm at any speed over 30mph your going to be lucky not to be eating hospital food that night.
It's worth thinking about human Physcology and how we as people asses risks and how we react to them.
As an example imagine the next time your driving you have a sword sticking out the dash pointing towards you, your mind will asses the risk is higher and take the necessary precautions without you knowing.
Anyone that's older than 40 will remember cars that were more often than not rear wheel drive, had not traction control and no ABS, amazingly many of us lived through these times, we did this because would knew we were 100% responsible for bringing our car to a stop so we left enough gap to do that safely.
Many modern drivers not only trust in modern electronic safety system they rely on them 100%
When you get your van rebuilt and on the road, you will drive it differently than if you jumped in say a new Volvo.
I drive all my cars differently as they all serve a certain purpose and they all have varying levels of risk attached if i fluff up controlling them.
