16mpg 4banger

[dutchdettweiler]

I bought this 92 camry with 166,000 miles 3 months ago. i noticed the gas mileage was bad, so i started keeping a record. I am getting 16mpg!! or 14.03L/100km. the car starts runs and drives good. theres no check engine lights on. exhaust dosent smoke. its always driven in overdrive. the wife has a bit of a heavy foot but i dont think that equates to 16mpg, i mean she isnt racing it around town. our jetta dosent get bad mileage and theyre rated a 2mpg difference in specs. when i looked up the factory specs. the 92 2.2 auto is rated at 18mpg city 25mph highway and 21 combined. my 16mpg is combined driving. I have driven 722miles on 43.1 gallons since i started recording. I read thru the history here and i am gonna double check the psi, install the plugs,cap,rotor, and do the seafoam, is this seafoaming the top end and putting the other half of the bottle in the fuel tank? we normally do 80mph on the highway, gonna cut that back to 60mph too. anyone have similar experience?

['88 All-Trac]

How does it perform at high engine speeds? I got bad mileage with my Gen 2 for the longest time... Issue was traced to a plugged up catalytic converter. Since where I live the car is smog-exempt, I rodded it out. I can now pull ~2x the mileage I got beforehand.

You might inspect your cat to see if it's any good.

[fenixus]

occasional (e.g. 2-3 times a day) short distance driving (car mostly in warm up phase) in Winter and in city does that to MPG. it gets even worse if you have lots of hills and traffic ... I'm used to terrible city MPG around here, nothing really surprises me with 16 MPG.

on my V6 I am getting now 15 MPG or in other words I do 220 terrible miles on 1 tank o regular 87 fuel.
on highways (mostly, avg 80mph) it does 28 MPG however

[bdy0003]

Temp of engine not warming up? Gas leaks? Vacuum leak? All the ones you mentioned are a good start.

[Hajoca]

Do not waste seafoam in oil (crank case) or gasoline.

Is engine warming up normally?

I am averaging 9.5 L/ 100 km or 24.75 MPG

[fullofzen]

Originally Posted by dutchdettweiler

I bought this 92 camry with 166,000 miles 3 months ago. i noticed the gas mileage was bad, so i started keeping a record. I am getting 16mpg!! or 14.03L/100km. the car starts runs and drives good. theres no check engine lights on. exhaust dosent smoke. its always driven in overdrive. the wife has a bit of a heavy foot but i dont think that equates to 16mpg, i mean she isnt racing it around town. our jetta dosent get bad mileage and theyre rated a 2mpg difference in specs. when i looked up the factory specs. the 92 2.2 auto is rated at 18mpg city 25mph highway and 21 combined. my 16mpg is combined driving. I have driven 722miles on 43.1 gallons since i started recording. I read thru the history here and i am gonna double check the psi, install the plugs,cap,rotor, and do the seafoam, is this seafoaming the top end and putting the other half of the bottle in the fuel tank? we normally do 80mph on the highway, gonna cut that back to 60mph too. anyone have similar experience?

Wow -- this is highly atypical. We drove our Camry on an all-highway 100 mile trip from San Diego to Riverside the weekend-before-last and got 30mpg. True, all highway -- but I know that city/highway my wife averages about 24.

I agree on swapping the plugs, cap, and rotor change although I'm not sure that's the only cause. You might also want to consider swapping the air filter, although there has to be something going on.

In my opinion, diagnosing the problem is the thing to pay for. The work itself is easy to do. I would take it to a local Japan-friendly shop and offer them $50 to do a good exam of the car. Alternatively, you could take it to a Toyota dealer and ask for an oil change and a "full circle inspection." For the price of the $30 oil change, they found and documented every oil leak and broken motor mount on the engine.

[Steve3]

I own '96 Camry V-6 that has 107000 miles that I bought new
in 1995.It starts and runs well but gets 20 MPG around town.
Am curious as to what others are getting as I thought it was better
than that before.[Didn't keep any records ]
If this below average,what should I check ?
Thank you

[projektvertx]

Originally Posted by fenixus

occasional (e.g. 2-3 times a day) short distance driving (car mostly in warm up phase) in Winter and in city does that to MPG. it gets even worse if you have lots of hills and traffic ... I'm used to terrible city MPG around here, nothing really surprises me with 16 MPG.

on my V6 I am getting now 15 MPG or in other words I do 220 terrible miles on 1 tank o regular 87 fuel.
on highways (mostly, avg 80mph) it does 28 MPG however

How do you pull that off?

What about the maintenance history on the car? Timing belts, spark plugs, wires? How about any exhaust leaks, even minor ones?

[fenixus]

what is highly atypical for San Diego, California, could be fairly normal for Oshawa, Ontario Canada

Probably a difference in driving patterns, but mostly it's about the time of warm up phase while driving.

not saying that car has no problems, no. stuff like ECT sensor or thermostat could be checked to see if car can maintain proper coolant temperature, see if car is in tune (spark plugs, filters, maybe new wireset).
possibly brakes could be dragging. in past dragging brakes limited winter city MPG on my V6 to 12 MPG (last year)

Thing is that I've been through all this with both cars, and 16-18MPG either on V6 or on 5s-fe is not surprising me during certain scenario (city driven "grocery getter") - short distance (<2 miles each time) driving from cold start only in Winter, city driving, lots of stop signs & traffic lights, sometimes traffic jams and hills.

still my both cars get over 28MPG on highways and do much better numbers in city driving in Summer and in flat lands with less traffic.

just saying.

[fenixus]

maintenance is top notch, not a single slightest problem except for old plug wireset (nothing like misfire, scheduled for replacement after Winter) and TPS a little fluttering in low range (now replaced 2 days ago).

all other stuff was checked and taken care of. car runs actually great, car is pretty much after full major tune up

now, the best and only original fenixus'es recipe for your possibly worst MPG ever is below

1. just drive your car from dead cold (in Winter), in rush hour, during warm up through hilly city with gazillions of stops signs & traffic lights, and then park it on the street just when it reaches the operating temperature.

2. leave it for 8-12 hours.

3. come back to it and again repeat the same worst possible driving scenario in rush hour and in middle of Winter in opposite direction.

4. do not drive the car around mentioned above scenarios and do above scenario 1-3 from Monday to Friday and do not drive your car on weekends at all.

5.when you start running out of fuel, check your MPG at the gas pump, you will be surprised

above allows me to get a whopping 18 MPG on '00 2.2L 5s-fe and around '02 15-16MPG on a 3.0L 1mz-fe when following the guidelines precisely
-==> works every time with all cars I had so far !! <==-
the winner of that contest was '92 Buick 3.8L getting 10 MPG (with no dragging brakes!)

extra free TIP for even worse MPG!
if brakes are dragging, you will loose another 2-3 MPG, thus reaching an amazing 12 MPG on a V6 rated 17/20/25 according to www.fueleconomy.gov!

Originally Posted by projektvertx

How do you pull that off?

What about the maintenance history on the car? Timing belts, spark plugs, wires? How about any exhaust leaks, even minor ones?

[Aetebet]

Originally Posted by fenixus

maintenance is top notch, not a single slightest problem except for old plug wireset (nothing like misfire, scheduled for replacement after Winter) and TPS a little fluttering in low range (now replaced 2 days ago).

all other stuff was checked and taken care of. car runs actually great, car is pretty much after full major tune up

now, the best and only original fenixus'es recipe for your possibly worst MPG ever is below

1. just drive your car from dead cold (in Winter), in rush hour, during warm up through hilly city with gazillions of stops signs & traffic lights, and then park it on the street just when it reaches the operating temperature.

2. leave it for 8-12 hours.

3. come back to it and again repeat the same worst possible driving scenario in rush hour and in middle of Winter in opposite direction.

4. do not drive the car around mentioned above scenarios and do above scenario 1-3 from Monday to Friday and do not drive your car on weekends at all.

5.when you start running out of fuel, check your MPG at the gas pump, you will be surprised

above allows me to get a whopping 18 MPG on '00 2.2L 5s-fe and around '02 15-16MPG on a 3.0L 1mz-fe when following the guidelines precisely
-==> works every time with all cars I had so far !! <==-
the winner of that contest was '92 Buick 3.8L getting 10 MPG (with no dragging brakes!)

extra free TIP for even worse MPG!
if brakes are dragging, you will loose another 2-3 MPG, thus reaching an amazing 12 MPG on a V6 rated 17/20/25 according to www.fueleconomy.gov!

Hey this is my exact driving style and I get terrible mileage! The winter isn't particularly cold here but it sits out at 30F overnight then I drive about 4 miles to work each morning and it's all stop and go, many stop signs, many stop lights, loads of hills. Leave it parked for 8 hours, repeat!

I got about 18.5mpg on my last fill-up. That was an all time high for my 2001 4cyl, before I changed the plugs, tires, and brakes I was getting 12-14mpg

[fenixus]

^ now I know my theory checks out in practice also for others

[projektvertx]

Thanks for making my 26 MPG average look good! And I do 60% highway, and my city would be light by your standards!

[fenixus]

you are very welcome

Originally Posted by projektvertx

Thanks for making my 26 MPG average look good! And I do 60% highway, and my city would be light by your standards!

[BamZipPow]

I finally got to calculating the data on my wife's 2001 Camry 4 cylinder, auto trans. You've got her beat by a long shot. With 80% highway driving...12.41MPG!

Just replaced her plugs/wires tonight. There were some Bosch Platinum Plus plugs and they looked pretty worn. I ended up putting some NGK Laser Platinum, BKR6EKPB-11 plugs and some NGK blue wires. Hopefully that will improve her mileage some...but most of it is from her driving habits. I'm sure the TPS is all worn out from her constant cycling of the gas pedal while driving...