You're not getting bad gas mileage, you're just driving a lot, and that's why you have to put gas in it twice a week. My suggestion would be to put $30 in and only make one trip to the gas station per week.
Hi, if your only putting in $15. at a time then your NOT filling it up... and they gessing on how much gas in left in the tank and how full it is.. the gas gage is a float the depending on the angle of the car would effect the level on the gage..
If you want to know how many MPG's your getting then fill it up, write down the miles, drive it till it needs more then fill it again, write down the miles. write down the gallons purchased, subtract the first miles from the last miles, divide the miles traviled by the amount of gallons of gas purchased and that well tell you your MPG's
good luck
tim
You are correct, it is a 16 gallon tank, the fuel economy is probably your driving habits.
But a fuel filter is not going to make it sluggish from start, that will have an effect during acceleration on the highway
I believe that you have a restricted Catalytic Converter.
NOTE:
The downstream O2 is for Converter monitoring Only on this application.
Only way to know for certain: Fill up at a specific pump at a specific station for testing. When the nozzle shuts off, you are done. Do not top off. Drive car at least to half tank. Fill up again at same pump, same method. Difference between initial odometer reading and reading after next fillup is miles traveled. Divide that by number of gallons used to fill up, that is MPG. There is no other correct way to measure that we have access to.
Get some good tires. If not than keep your tires in good pressure.
Do a tune up, sparks,cables,gas filter the whole works.
I always buy the gumout bottle at autozone to clean the injectors on my ride and i do notice i get some decent mileage so i do it once a month.
I have a 1997 Chevy Lumina, and I think I get bad mileage because I'm always filling up.
I think it's a 16 gallon tank, it has about 150k miles on it.
I replaced the air filter and downstream O2 sensor, as well as passed emissions testing. I think I need to replace the fuel filter, because it seems sluggish when going uphill. (Does that affect it?)
I tend to take off a little fast when I'm at a light/stop sign, but I'm not gunning it. Still, gotta show off to these Slowbaru owners. (No offense)
So I put in an average of $15 every time I fuel, which his about 4 gallons where I live, and it gets me to school and back about 4 times (32 miles round trip) And to my plasma donating center once, which is about 6 miles from my school. After all that, I have to fill up again, like every 3-4 days. Is that good or bad? Seeing as I only put in $15 worth. I was told it got around 34 MPG, and the EST says 30 highway. I drive all highway, 45 mph all the way.
PS: I fill the tank to half, and it is on a quarter when I fill again. Should be 4 gallons because it's a 16 gallon tank. (It's broken up into 4 lines, the gas gauge that is.)
Now just to be clear, it is an older Chevy, and when I break/turn corners, the gauge goes down, but up again when I start moving. So I don't actually know how much gas I have in the first place.
Please help, any tips/advice would be awesome.
