mpg off the sales floor
 

Did anyone here buy their 2nd gen 3.0 brand new? I'm curious about it's original fuel economy.

I know that now that the 13 mpg that I get is average, but I can't help but wonder what it was in it's peak condition. Was it always this bad? Aside from cleaning the TB and changing the Fuel Filter is there anything else I can do to help improve my fuel economy?

Thanks,
Keith

Re: mpg off the sales floor
 

i remember when my dad bought his '90 new, he swore that he was getting 25mpg. i never believed it. this christmas, i went home to visit my folks and since i flew in, i needed a car. i drove it on a few 100 mile trips and was barely getting 16mpg at 75mph on the highway. it just felt really crappy compared to my truck. so i cleaned out the throttle body and put some injector cleaner in the tank (i know some people don't believe that this does anything, i haven't convinced myself either way yet). and on the next trip i got 26mpg at a sustained 75mph on the highway. so i now believe my dad that he got 25 when it was new. i'm shocked at that kinda milage, but i finally saw it for myself. as for me, i get about 22 on mine.

hey mike, any specific injector cleaner that you used?

I bought my 93 SR5 3.0 V6 ext-cab new with 50 miles on the odometer and kept very good records. The gas mileage for the first 332 miles was 14.09 mpg. Over the first 3000 miles the best was 16.17 mpg. From 3000 to 6000 miles the best was 18.92 mpg highway driving at high elevation (Grand Junction to Glenwood Springs, Co.) the worst was 11.15 mpg city driving.

The city average was about 12-13 range for the first 3000-6000 miles.

The highway average was about 16 mpg for the first 3000-6000 miles.

These records were all with the truck stock except a cap was over the bed. It came stock with 31 inch tires, 4.88 gears and an auto transmission.

I used to get well over 300 miles per tank, probably close to 330 miles. I took it in for a smog check one day at the dealer and ever since then the mileage went downhill. Now I'm getting maybe 270 miles per tank on the freeway and maybe 230 combined city/highway.

How many gal/tank and did you run it to nearly empty?

I have no idea, all numbers are approximate. :D

whump

throw some BG44K in there every oil change or 10,000 miles and you'll be golded

i'm not sure, it was just whatever was on sale at walmart. they're all pretty much the same chemically: some isomer of propanol (usually iso) and sometimes some acetone. pretty much all it does is just dissolve whatever crap is on the injector. as a chemist i understand what it's supposed to do, but practically, i don't know how it actually does anything when it's so diluted in the gas and is in a fine mist by the time it gets to the injector. i'd really like to have a controlled environment where i could actually test if it does anything.