Great Grandma Needs Help Low MPG

[Samahi72]

Great Grandma has a 95, 4 cylinder with automatic. Only 80K on car. New timing belt, synthetic oil (5W-30), new filters and timing belt. She said she is only getting 16 mpg. Most of her driving is town (church, hair dresser, Safeway) with occasional highway.

Is that MPG normal? Seems awfull low for a 4 cylinder. She lives at sea-level (Washington State)

Anything she can do to get it higher?

[fenixus]

Originally Posted by Samahi72

Great Grandma has a 95, 4 cylinder with automatic. Only 80K on car. New timing belt, synthetic oil (5W-30), new filters and timing belt. She said she is only getting 16 mpg. Most of her driving is town (church, hair dresser, Safeway) with occasional highway.

Is that MPG normal? Seems awfull low for a 4 cylinder. She lives at sea-level (Washington State)

Anything she can do to get it higher?

short distance city driving will make the MPG such low, especially now in colder weather.

the highest it gets in city driving on fully warmed up engine and with gentle gas pedal is 19 MPG per fueleconomy.gov (updated EPA).

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm

[LittleWhiteBubble]

You should get the car on the highway and really open it up once in a while, get all that carbon buildup blown out. That might help it a little.

[hairball]

Never actually checked my gas mileage on this current car, but my 1990 DX with 2.0L 4-cylinder and A/T with OD gets WORSE mileage than my previous car, a 98 Dodge Stratus with 24v V-6 and A/T with OD that got 26 mpg on the highway, and my car before that which got an amazing 30+ mpg on the highway. It was a 1991 Ford Taurus wagon with V-6 and A/T with OD. I about fainted when I first checked my mileage on a long trip and discovered it was 33mpg! But I'm even MORE amazed that my Camry gets worse mileage than BOTH my previous V-6 cars did!

Now you have me wanting to check my mpg! The biggest reason I haven't done it yet is because my speedometer has been so far off that I knew the miles were incorrect. Now that I have a different speedo from an 89 LE, it is dead-on accurate! Also, just picked up a GPS. So now I can finally figure out my gas mileage.

I'll let you know. But personally, I do believe 16 mpg seems a bit low for the car you mentioned.

As FINEXUS mentioned above, this is from fueleconomy.gov (for the 95 Camry with 4-cyl and A/T) where drivers submit their own mpg and it is compared to epa estimates:

User MPG
Average Range
24.9 18 – 33

EPA MPG
Comb City Hwy
21 19 26

[LittleWhiteBubble]

yea my average without ac, combined with mostly in town is 28.5. With ac and same driving routes its around 22-25 depending how much I use it.

[fenixus]

the thing is the distance you tend to drive on average. the longer the better. The worst MPG killer is short distance driving, add to that city traffic lights, stop-n-go, running defrosters in mornings, etc. and voilla

my 00 5s-fe gets 19MPG combined (mostly city and short distance not so much), while my 02 V6 gets recently 14-15MPG city only and short distance (below 2 miles) only

here are some proofs (I keep record of MPG since some time), the higher bars you see means there was more highway driving involved, the shorter ones usually mean short distance city driving mostly, but sometimes indicate a mechanical/electrical problems too

click them to see the complete fuel logs.

[Samahi72]

I just don't understand how this little fuel injected 4 cylinder can get such poor mileage. I think I will start a new thread to see what everybody is getting.

[Samahi72]

Looking to compare apples to apples.

Great Grandma has a 95, 4 cylinder, with automatic. See said around town (sea- level) she is only getting around 16 mpg. Seems awful low for a 4 cyl fuel injected small car.

What do you get.

[njwrestler07]

I have a 99 I4 camry and I average about 24 mpg, I get about 400 miles on a tank but thats not dead empty, only when the light comes on.

[iovaykind]

^ there already is a thread on that.. search for it

[iovaykind]

96 camry i4 automatic.. i'm not a crazy driver i'll tell you that. mpg in sig.

[uuuuu]

I get about 17-18 city. BUT, I drive 3 miles each way to work, so the engine barely warms up. If I had a normal commute, it would be much better.

[LynchburgCSI]

Originally Posted by Samahi72

I just don't understand how this little fuel injected 4 cylinder can get such poor mileage. I think I will start a new thread to see what everybody is getting.

It's a 95 model.... that's how! Cars are MUCH more efficient now.

[4Cyl'erThriller]

I get around 23-25mpg depending on how I drive.

[LynchburgCSI]

I'm gonna merge this with your existing MPG thread. Left a redirect on the main page. Please try to cut down the number of new threads. Always better to post an a existing one! to TN!