Class action against Mazda’s SkyActiv engines dismissed by Quebec’s Superior Court

Twelve years after a Quebec class-action lawsuit against Mazda Canada concerning the fuel consumption of its SkyActiv engines was introduced, a Quebec Superior Court Judge dismissed the case. The lawsuit alleged Mazda’s SkyActiv engine consumed (much) more fuel than advertised.

Judge Catherine Martel was blunt in her assessment of the plaintiff’s complaint, citing insufficient evidence, methodological flaws, a lack of legal rigor, and, perhaps most satisfying for Mazda Canada, inconclusive results. “It was up to the plaintiff’s lawyers to prove their claims with whatever evidence they deemed appropriate,” she wrote. “They failed to do so.”

At stake for owners (or leasers) of 2012 or 2013 Mazda3 Skyactiv was about $450 in compensation. For Mazda Canada, it would have meant paying out as much as $15 million in compensation. Instead, Mazda was vindicated. The only thing Judge Martel said, that both the plaintiff and Mazda agreed on, is that SkyActiv engines do actually deliver better fuel economy than equivalent conventional engines. Possibly not quite as much as Mazda claimed, but improvements nonetheless.

Mazda’s SkyActiv powertrain makes headlines

In 2012, Mazda made headlines with its new SkyActiv powertrain. This in-house developed technology aimed to comply with the tightening global standards against vehicle emissions.

While rivals such as Toyota and Ford invested heavily in hybrid (gasoline-electric) powertrains, Mazda focused on improving its internal combustion engine, its Japanese engineers developing a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder engine with one of the highest compression ratios for a gasoline engine. At 13.0:1, it was almost diesel-like in how much it squeezed the incoming air/fuel charge.

We’ll spare you the other technical details, and get straight to the point: Mazda boasted a roughly 15-20% fuel consumption reduction for its “SkyActiv” vehicles compared to a similar conventional engine. And that was achieved without hybridization, downsizing, or turbocharging.

Advertised fuel figures for the Mazda3 SkyActiv

This is not what Katia Grand-Maison experienced, said her class-action suit. In March 2013, when she opted for a new Mazda3, her top priority, she told the court, was the fuel economy promised by the manufacturer. At the time, Mazda was advertising fuel consumption figures as low as 4.9 L/100 km on the highway and 7.1 L/100 km in the city.

The suit’s legal documents claim that it was these enticing ratings that motivated Grand-Maison to pay more for the SkyActiv version of the Mazda3 SkyActiv than for the base version of the car, equipped with a conventional engine. She testified in court that she was persuaded by her dealership to pay an additional $3,700 premium so that her new 2012 Mazda3 could benefit from fuel economy promised by the (then) new technology.

But, despite using her vehicle “in an ordinary and customary manner, driving at normal and regulated speeds,” and “mainly on freeways,” the plaintiff maintains that she never achieved fuel consumption of less than 9.5 L/100 km. Believing that Mazda Canada’s claims “misled her in her choice of vehicle” and led her “to pay an unjustified higher price,” Ms. Grand-Maison sought compensation not only for herself, but also other Quebecers in her situation.

Were these expectations realistic?

The problem was the class-action lawsuit was based on – and only on — Grand-Maison’s personal experience. The court noted that her experience was far from representative of the average Quebec motorist.

Indeed, Grand-Maison only travels seven kilometres to work and back each day. Anyone who knows anything about cars and fuel economy knows that such short distances and travel times put the fuel consumption of all vehicles at a disadvantage, especially during the harsh winters that are so common in Quebec.

As Ryan Harrington, an engineer at Exponent, who testified in Mazda’s defense, explained in court: “In such a short trip, the engine doesn’t have time to warm up and reach the temperature at which fuel consumption is optimal,” Harrington also pointed out that using a cold engine can increase fuel consumption by as much as 60%. And that phenomenon is even more pronounced for engines with high compression ratios, such as diesel engines and, more recently, Mazda’s SkyActiv engines.

Plaintiff’s experts acknowledged SkyActiv was more efficient

The expert hired by Mazda Canada also demolished the evidence submitted by plaintiff ProLad’s engineers. The judge enumerated these conclusions in a 47-page verdict, which we’ll summarize below:

• While ProLad’s engineers, hired by the claimant, are experts “in analyzing the causes of collisions and mechanical defects, they had no specific training or significant experience in evaluating fuel consumption or obtaining regulatory certification,” wrote the judge.
• The judge emphasized there was too much variability in ProLad’s testing. Different tests took between 37 and 56 minutes to cover the 23-km route established by the ProLad engineers, resulting in differing fuel consumption for the same Mazda3 on the same routes. As noted by the judge: “ProLad engineers could have used two drivers to carry out simultaneous tests and subject them to the same environmental conditions.”
• Despite these anomalies, ProLad’s tests actually did find that the SkyActiv engine consumed less fuel than the conventional engine. Indeed, though they didn’t match Mazda’s claimed saving (18.4%), their tests did see a fuel consumption reduction of 8.8%.

That last point was perhaps the death knell for the lawsuit, the judge concluding that the only thing that both the plaintiff’s tests and the evidence presented by Mazda Canada agreed on, is that SkyActiv engines do actually deliver better fuel economy than equivalent conventional engines. Indeed, unlike so many technologies that promise real-world fuel economy improvements, Mazda’s ultra-high compression ratio engines delivered on their promise, even if real-world testing couldn’t match the laboratory tests that the Canadian government uses to set official fuel consumption ratings.

Are you really concerned with reducing your fuel consumption?

By the way, the judge did an excellent job of demystifying fuel consumption ratings, from how they are calculated based on laboratory tests, to how motorists should use the ratings (i.e. as a comparison tool when shopping for the most fuel-efficient models rather than a guarantee of real-life fuel economy).

Citing the Fuel Consumption Guide published annually by Natural Resources Canada, she said that “the ratings represent the consumption that a person ‘can achieve’ if they maintain their vehicle properly and adopt fuel-efficient driving.” Of course, no test — laboratory or road — can simulate every driving condition to which drivers are exposed. As we all know, a vehicle’s fuel consumption differs from the official ratings depending on where, when and, most importantly, how it is driven.

Our tips: If you want an even more precise idea of how frugal — or not — a given vehicle is in real-world conditions, check out Fuelly. This North American website tracks real-world fuel consumption based on over a million vehicles, some 25 billion kilometres driven and reported by more than half-a-million motorists after more than 60,000 fuel-ups. And since we are living in the Great Frozen North, target the vehicles that are logged with a Canadian flag because that’s far more accurate than any information Natural Resources Canada generates.