Please help me figure out why i am getting bad gas mileage!

[PoR2GeEzCamry]

I have a 1989 toyota camry 5 speed that my dad bought brand new, then passed down to me about 1 year ago for my first car when he baught himself another car. I installed a performance intake filter and welded a muffler to my stock exhaust pipes. ( i wanted to get a nice deep tone when i accelerated and revved ) Lately i notice that it seems as though i am getting pretty bad gas mileage compared to what i used to get. Im getting like around 300-330 on a full tank of gas. I dont know if this is normal or not but it seems that after i installed the new intake filter ive been getting worse gas mileage. Note that the muffler and intake have only been on there for like 6 months. Are there any suggestions on how to improve the gas mileage or is this normal for a 3s-fe? thanks guys

[89SV21]

I've got an 89 camry with the 3SFE as well though its auto. The gas mileage that you're getting is pretty normal. I usually get 300-330 miles on a tank with mostly freeway driving though here in SD they should be called traffic-ways. You should check out your plugs and wires to see if they need to be replaced as well as your fuel filter which if clogged could cause poorer gas mileage and throttle response. If all that checks out then perhaps your gas mileage is just being affected by your driving style.

[Durrby]

Shit man, don't complain about getting 300-330 miles to a tank. I wish I could get that much. Granted I rarely highway drive it and i'm all stop-n-go, but I usually get either just under or over 200 miles to a tank in my '95 I4 auto. Gotta get me a tune up or get my 60K mile service done cause i'm at about 60,2XX miles as of right now.

[98CamryLE]

Durrby:

how many gallons is your tank?

I have a 1998 4 cyl and I can usually get 400 on a tank- 450/475 if its on a long highway trip. Even with all city driving I get high 300s.

My tank is 18.5 gallons, did they make it bigger with the gen. 4 models?

[Durrby]

98CamryLE:

I'm not sure how many gallons my tank is. I always forget to see how many gals I pump. I think it's 15.4 gals cause I remember once when I was almost on E it pumped around 13.5 gals.

I think my gas mileage would increase a lot if the majority of my driving was highway, but my driving consists of about a 3 mile drive to work, 3 miles home for lunch, 3 miles back after lunch and 3 miles coming home from work. It's all stop-n-go for me and I can be known to have a lead foot. I usually drive anywhere from 45-60mph in 35 mph zones!!! Don't really do much driving outside of work. Thats why I have only put on about 4-5000 miles since buying it at a dealership in Jun '02.

*edit* I think I read somewhere that the there are 15.4 gal capacity and 18.5 gal capacity tanks. But not sure what mine is.

[98CamryLE]

Try finding out your exact gas mileage:

Next time you fill your tank-

fill it all the way up
reset trip odometer to zero
drive and let the tank get pretty low (1/4)
then fill back up (completely).
record miles on trip odometer

Take the miles you drove, and divide it by the amount of gas you pumped the second time.

Example: 400 miles / 15.245 gallons=26.2 miles/gal

That is the best way to keep a tab on gas mileage/engine efficiency

[Durrby]

^^ok before my last fillup I think I was at 179 miles so...

179 miles / 15.4 gallons=11.6 miles/gal
or
179 miles / 18.5 gallons=9.6 miles/gal

......either way absolutly mindblowing

[89SV21]

Hey Durrby, just wanted to let you know that toyota is pretty bad about having accurate gas gauges. The gauge on my 89 Gen2 is highly inaccurate sometimes I have 4 gallons left when its on E other time I only have 1. As for tank size, my 89 has a 15.9 gallon tank and I think that they prolly upsized it for the Gen3 though i'm not sure.

[Durrby]

^^^You know what, thats exactly what I though it coube be too. Maybe my gauge was broken or the needle was moving to quickly. But that can't be the case if it's a 15.4 gal capacity cause like I said at my last fillup I had 179 miles and 13.5 gals.

[woshiagni]

I agree with 89sv1. I'm not sure about the inconsistent part... but the "low gas" light on Toyotas seem to be pretty conservative. On my '99 5sfe w/ a 18.5 tank, I have about 3 gallons left when the light first starts to fade in and out.

See how far you can go by getting gas when the light comes on and run the tank until the light comes on again.

[98CamryLE]

Yeah, I let my car get low enough to set off the light once, and it turns out that when I filled the tank- if filled 16 gallons- 2.5 to spare.

Oh well, better safe than sorry I guess

[woshiagni]

Definitely better safe than sorry. A friend of mine found out (the hard way) that his Maxima only has 1 gallon left in the tank when the low gas light comes on.