Does anyone know how to increase a Corollas MPG back up to near its orignal?. On Edmunds it said 396 for the full tank, and lately i have been noticing that i only get around mid 200's at 3/4 of a tank. I heard taking out excess weight, changing the sparkplugs and filters work. Are there any more tips on this problem. I watched a video online about turning off your car if you know you are going to idle formore than 30 secs help and also adding acetone to your fuel helps ALOT. So i was just wondering if there are more tips i need to know about saving gas. thanks.
I've found the fuel system cleaner fuel additives to help immensly in restoring performance and mileage on older cars. I don't know if there's really much difference between brands, but I usually use the gumout brand 'max fuel system cleaner' in the clear bottle with yellow/gold liquid
use a bottle of that and fill up with premium to help clean everything out better.
Keep your car in top shape, and watch your driving habits. If you want me to bore you with some of my the tips I use just let me know. Has anyone kept track of the brand of fuel and the milage they get? I have noticed a differance in the brands, can't explain it, but I swear it.
don't use the fuel guage to judge fuel mileage, it's far too inaccurate for that. My old sentra would say empty when it still had a third of a tank left!
the only way to know how much fuel you've used is to fill up all the way each time you visit the pump. whatever you pump in is exactly the amount you used since the last fill up (with very slight variances depending on the pump's autoshutoff). Divide the miles driven (use the nifty digital trip meter, not the odometer) by the gallons of gas, and you have MPG.
Now, like Crowbar911 said, general maintanence will go a very long way in keeping fuel mileage up. Make sure the tires are properly inflated and don't carry around more than you have to. I wouldn't strip out the spare tire and emergency kit to save gas though, not worth it.
Using synthetic oils might help, but I've never really tested it. I use Mobil 1 5w30 in the engine and Redlin MTL in the tranny...no substantial gains if any...
I've seen the best mileage with Amoco/BP. I heard shell is even better, but it's pricier (so is it worth it?) and I've never used it because the only shell station is like 5 miles away. screw that.
As for driving, don't even bother driving differently if you have an auto. You're going to end up driving like a 95 year old to see even a slight improvement (negligable if measurable at all).
but if you have a manual, you can see a pretty good improvement by just keeping the RPMs below the powerband (around 3000 RPM). You can mash the throttle all you want and have fun with the low end, our engines have the flattest torque curve I have ever seen! viva la VVT-i! but keep it below 3k and you'll see a 1-3 MPG increase.
You could turn your engine off if you know you're going to idle for more than 10 seconds (according to the candian trasportation board), but NEVER in traffic! it's far too unsafe! I turn mine off at train tracks and whenever I'm idling in a driveway/parking lot/etc.
I know some people 'hypermile' and drive like OCD psychos, but It's not worth it to me. Driving should be fun, not burdensome!
If you're wondering, I get 32 city (1 better than EPA estimates)...I don't know about highway because i never go above 45mph. i mean "CITY" when i say it! lol
Calculating mileage from daily driving is useless, because your conditions will vary from day to day, depending on the route, weather, traffic.
it gives you a weekly/biweekly average, which is very useful if you remember the mileage from previous weeks. You can see trends that would escape other tracking methods. Like "oh, i hauled 4 people around all week and my MPG went down 1mpg"
plus, in all honesty, know one cars about average MPG because you need to know if its going to cost more to drive in the winter etc. You need a shorter term average.
Travel- I must agree and disagree. Air pressure in the tires is prime suspect in the fight against wasteful mpg as is weight (sorry hun, can't take you to the store with me, you weigh too much and that would cost too much fuel. Maybe next time) But driving habits do have an impact on milage, even with an automatic.
How much pricier is the "SHELL" than any others, in my area the gas stations are within 1 cent of each other 99% of the time (except Speedway when they jack it up 25 cents for 1 day then rejoins the rest of the group in the price structure).
I admit that in the grand scheme of things a few more mpg on average don't mean squat, but it does seem to be a "man thing" along with cubic inches of the first cars we owned, horsepower (useless measurement) and estimated time of arrival to the destination (yup, got to Florida in 16 1/2 hours. Didn't stop, we refueled in transit and the kids just pee'd out the window). It does give me the delusion that I am sticking it to the MAN when I get 30 mpg one week instead of 28 the next.
"I went crazy once. It was a short trip and one day I intend to go back"
actually it wont even give you an average, its too variable...
The fact that whatever I put in the tank gets consumed is just about enough for me. No use counting pennies, if its that bad, buy a bicycle or walk.
it is by definition an average mileage for that particular tankful. If you average the mileage from 12 weeks in a row, you get the average mileage for 3 months...now that's sample is pretty reliable.
I understand where you're coming from, I'm just saying you can turn the weekly averages into monthly averages, and so on to get a very reliable measurement. But the short term averages are very helpful in highlighting certain conditions and driving habits that reduce mileage, so you can avoid them.
corollafx88: It's Tavel . Shell's gasoline is about 10 cents more per gallon around here, it'd have to be really good to justify that kind of premium...and i frankly don't think it is.
And you're absolutely right, mileage is another way to brag hairy chested manliness to the world. I love the guys who brag about completing trips quickly, they don't seem to realize no one cares how fast they get there...they're all asking what kind of fuel economy they achieved! lol!
However, 32mpg is 8mpg higher than my old car ('92 nissans sentra SE-R), and as such will save me around $160 a year on gas alone (assuming gas stays at $3.29 a gallon...lol!)
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. Shell's gasoline is about 10 cents more per gallon around here, it'd have to be really good to justify that kind of premium...and i frankly don't think it is. 
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