Bad Mileage + Damaged Rear View Mirror
 

After a few weeks of driving and calculating. A full tank Plus 7 gallons got me an average of 14.5 MPG :shock: Anyhow I have a Denso o2 sensor and New Beldin plug wires ready to go in there. So just in case, besides Spark plugs, What else can cause me to get crappy mileage?

Also after the winter storm last night, a tree branch decided to break my drivers side rear view mirror. How do I replace it?

Thanks guys.

Do what you have for the mileage and let us know. Keep in mind that winter fuel blends and cold weather will not be great for mileage either. Expect about 5-10% lower depending on your climate.

You'll want a replacement mirror with the blue glass and heater (all blue are heated, all heated are blue) for 92-99. Either SSE or SSEi. The glass, backing plate, and heater pop out with a little encouragement from your fingers. There are sockets (ball/socket) in there.

That's interesting. My mileage has gone down to about 17.3 from 18.4. Makes sense.

MPG
 

I'm doing around 15 mpg around town in the cold New England weather and the winter gas mix. Happens every winter.
Just installed a hotter set of plugs to see if it improves. Delcos are out because of an irregular idle.

Alcohol (the typical "oxygenated gasoline" additive) has less "latent heat of combustion" than gasoline, so mileage suffers.

Here is another thing to think about as far as mileage goes, I know that you most likely already know that your driving style affects your mileage.. duh right?

Well, I decided to do a test and see just how much it will affect my own mileage about three weeks ago...

With the way I normally drive, I only get about 280 miles out of a tank of gas. I have a 13 mile trip to work, with one stop sign, the rest is 60 MPH crusin. probably 80% of my driving is highway...

I decided to fill my tank up and drive nice and easy, not use any boost and keep the RPMs below 3000 if I could help it. I did pass one car ( floored it ) and had to pull out in traffic quickly once or twice. I ended up getting just under 400 miles on that tank of gas!!!! All I did was change my driving style for about two weeks.

I burn roughly a full tank of gas in one week driving my "normal" way of driving, with that tank, I was good for almost two weeks :shock:


My "normal" driving includes flooring it from just about every stop sign, stop light, or turn. The engine revs up to 5000 RPM at least two or three times a day, but then when I get up to speed, I hit the cruise at 60 MPH and leave it there. My tires are also only at about 10% tread left on them with only 20,000 miles If that. They are a 60K or 80K mile tire :twisted:

You can definately tell that there is a HUGE difference in mileage just depending on how you accelerate. I, of course, like everyone here already knew that, I just wanted to see for myself just how much of a difference it would make 8)

I'm mostly a city driver. The only highway is once-three times a week to my mothers house.

When I fill up after it hits E I measure what I used. then divide by EDIT: I mean't by how much I used, typo . My results have been 14.5 15.4 13.9 14.6 and this past sunday it was 14.2, And this is like 90% City and 10% highway.

Moderate acceleration ;)

Well, the recommended practice of calculating mpgs is to fill it up and stop when the pump clicks off and take the mileage you drove (assuming you reset it after the last fillup) and divide by HOW many gallons you pumped in. MUCH more accurate.

Secondly, like Ryan (crash) mentioned, driving style plays a factor as well winter blend gas like several mentioned. Also, are you ensuring your tire pressures are up to par? You'll be amazed at how many mpgs you can recover from just airing it up to the proper pressure.

Oh wait, My mistake I don't divide by 18, I divided by how much I used. my bad :oops: