so today i was out, and was curious to see what kind of mileage i got on flat level ground. this is about as good as i could get with my foot actually on the pedal not coasting lol

is this average, good or bad for a huge *** car like mine lol

i am saving up for coils and plugs because my car has the occasional rare missfire at idle. its usually only one or 2 misses and it only happens once every blue moon.

I have been driving my 98 Park for about 90,000 miles and i have never seen my DIC read less than 23 mpg average. I can get as much as 28 mpg average on a trip with mostly level highway. When I coast down a long stretch of high way my DIC will read 90 mpg instant. Something is wrong with your car. Keep looking , it is likely something fairly simple.

i always thought it was better than average lol. guess i was wrong. it does better than the epa estimate.

epa estimate is 19 city (most of my driving) and 28 hwy, and im pretty sure they test that at 55. im gonna replace the plugs and see what happens though. ive got $50 to spend after i put $45 in my tank haha.

ok so i replaced the stock spark plugs today, with autolite ultras. 2 of the stock ones were way overgapped. the only thing is when i started the car, i saw smoke that smelled like rubber or a soldering iron. i called autozone and he said that the most likley cause was i used too much anti seize or i hit the headers with it on the install and it needs to burn off. wires or boots were not touching the headers. is this the most likley cause of this smoke? im going to let the car cool overnight (it was running a whole minute) and im going to see if theres any compound i can wipe off. of course it has to be coming from the back too. its always the hardest place to see lol.

If that is the case, it should burn off within a few minutes. I never use anti seize on my spark plugs though, but on the other hand, corrosion isn't exactly my worst enemy either.

Dang, I was also going to suggest seafoaming the car before changing the spark plugs. I have come across far to many in my day that need a good cleaning out.

lol i dont know if you could pay me to do that again. it reminded me of working on my 96 neon lol. you can only get the wrench on in a certain position and it'll only ratchet one click etc lol. although one problem with this car that i never had on the neon was that i needed a stepstool to reach the back of the motor lol. im relieved to hear more than one person say they think its the anti-seize lol. as soon as i smelled that it was like crappppp what did i break now lol.

as far as the corrosion, im pretty sure they are stock plugs, or the dealer replaced them, and not one of them was stuck on. i was using a 3/8 ratchet, and they all came off like i put them on yesterday, and the car wasn't started in 48 hours. the only reason i used it is because my dad said i should lol.

one other thing, im just curious- why no crush rings? i made sure to tighten and loosen a half turn then tighten again anyway but i thought it was odd that they had just a tapered edge instead of a crush ring

well, i made this video. new mpg average is 20.7 mpg after about 20 gallons. im not sure what else to do other than rip off my cat converter lol. you have to realize though, my commute per se is half 35 mph, half 45 mph and the 35 mph has 3 lights and the 45 mph has 2 lights, and the commute itself is only 3.2 miles.

here is a video of my mileage on a fairly open stretch of road. i know you cant really see my foot but you can pretty much judge where my foot is by the rpms.

thanks again for all your help!

here is the 4 minute video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bC5zR4NsVA

If your doing stop and go driving for short distances then 21 is about right. To get a good idea of what you have you need to drive a long distance. Like a hour steady. Get on the interstate and set the cruise and just go.