Alright guys, im kind of a newbie. I own a 91 auto, totally stock until I get some money.

Anyway, what are my options to try and improve fuel economy?

Also, this may seem like a stupid question, but will a cold air intake help or hurt the mileage?

Thanks

 

What is your current gas mileage? (Gallons added to your tank divided by miles driven)

 

Have not calculated it yet, only bought the car a few weeks ago and have yet to keep track. I just seem to run out more quickly than I should be. Any advice on what to do that would help it at all?

I will refill tomorrow and reset the trip odometer to keep track.

 

Not trying to be an ***, but if you don't know what your fuel economy is and you are new to the car, how do you know if you are running out to quickly? I would advise you to find out your actual mileage first before you start making repairs. It might not be as bad as you think.

 

yeah what he said , after all , this is a V6 not one of them blender motors.

 

i dont wanna sound like an a$$ either but... dont listen to those guys, if you think its got bad mileage, you prolly do... any intake, like CAI, or exhaust mods will help your mileage... clean out your TB for starters, jus get a can of TB cleaner from autozone or walmart

 

I thought my GXE got bad mileage until I did the figures. 23mpg is not bad in my opinion though. My mom's car (1999 Cavalier) only gets 20mpg. You may have a problem, but I personally wouldn't start trying to fix it until you know for sure what the actual mileage is.

 

23 mpg??? thats awesome... my mpg before my mods was like 17 or 18... i dont know what it is now, ill have to figure it out

 

I was pretty shocked at the actual mileage...but I've done the calculating the past 6 times and it comes out to 22 or 23 mpg every time. Of course I don't do a lot of hard driving...mostly in town and on the highway. I've also kept the a/t setting in the middle b/c I didn't know what it was until a few days ago.

 

oh well that is awesome cuz the expected stock mileage is like 19-20... so you got a good car there... your car is also an AT, mine is a MT... so my mpg are gonna be slightly bad

 

as far as gas mileage is concerned, how much does tire size and how low the car is affect it? I was thinking of getting new tires and rims, and someone suggested maybe lowering it an inch or so...would that have great effects on the mileage? or no?

 

it wouldnt do anything to your mileage... if you wanna lower it get sprints or intrax, its about a 1.8" drop... eibach is like 1.5" drop

 

actually having a manual should improve your gas mileage. the TC among other things in an auto tranny makes it worse off. i get around 21/28 city/highway without a new 02 sensor.

eibachs are 1.2" drop

 

driving habits also affect the gas mileage, like if you drive the car hard and always flooring it, its gonna burn up more gas... i wasnt sure on the drop for eibach's

 

with my max I had awful gas mileage, and it turned out I had a cracked gas return line. dunno about your situation though.how long is it inbetween fill ups?

 

I think Nissan was ahead of it's time for developing a 3.0 liter V6 engine that gets close to 30 miles per gallon. It is kind of strange how some people on this board seem to get mid 200's to low 300's on one tank while others (including myself) get over 400 on a tank. My personal best was 500 and I think there are a few who have done better then that.

Your expectations have to be real though, you aren't going to magically get 40mpg, that is unless you start pushing your car everywhere. Getting low 20's to mid 20's is pretty good if you are mixed city and highway. If you are getting below 20's then you might have something causing the low mileage. I think it's already been said but the O2 sensor seems to be the biggest culprit for poor running / bad mileage.

 

That is truly amazing!!!! 500 miles on a tank of gas, must have pushed the care the last 40 to 50 miles.... hahahaa
I average 370 to 390 per tank or 16 or so gallons. I have a lead foot, for the first 2 gears (it sees the redline). I live in Tampa, FL, therefore I run the A/C all the time. I have a 94 GXE. The best tank I ever got was on the highway (average speed was 77 to 78 MPH) at 440 miles. I pushed it to the end though... Good heavens, give me some input for 500 miles....

 

I drove from my home town Chico California to San Jose and back which was about 450 miles round trip. Then yeah, I figured I was so close to 500 I should go for it so I drove around my hometown till I got to 500. I literally coasted into a gas station when the odometer rolled over to 500.

 

I think our cars are normally supposed to get 21/29 city/highway. 30 mpg is great!

 

Okay, that does it... I am carrying a gas can around and am rolling the windows down and setting the cruise on 55 mph next time I take a long trip (yeah right).... I am too scared to push for the 500 mark. Maybe I get ballsy one day and go for it...

 

That 500 was done with the AC on some of the time as well as cruising at 75-80MPH. It's too bad our cars don't have those trip computers that tell you fuel consumption and stuff because I would really like to see that type of information, it might make me drive a little more conservatively. Does anyone make a retro fit system?

I would think all you need is a flow meter sensor and some sort of plugin to the speedo... By chance does our ECU already measure this stuff and hacking the ECU could provide the information? I'm sure it is just a pipe dream.

 

Crap, for all that, I may as well go buy a new one.... hahaha

 

Biggest part of gas mileage is driving and emissions system condition.

When I drive around town (HARD!!), I only get 13-15mpg. Whenever I get out on the highway and let the car stretch it's legs, I get 32-33mpg.

on average driving, I get around 20-22mpg.. that's about 350 miles per tank plur or minus a few.
most I've ever gotten on a tank is about 485 miles and I put 15 back in it, which was before it was completely empty. I could have gotten another 30-40 miles out of it before the tank was gone, but I'm not a fan of pushing the car to a gas station and possibly ruining my fuel pump.

 

my 1994 gxe gets about 26/30 mpg driving normal. no lie just make sure your tires are all aligned and have a good amount of psi

 

Yikes... you all put my car to shame. I'm going right over to that post and buying a new O2 sensor.

I really don't know my mileage offhand... i always fill up right at 1/4 tank left. However, my Max lives in Germany and cruises regularly with the needle barried to about 130mph (no tix after 125). I'm going to guess I get around 13 going 125mph, maybe 22 if i'm lucky cruising at 93. I really don't drive local to much, and if I'm on the autoban, i rarely go below 93 (highest cruise control will peak at).

Btw... are we running a 15 or 18.5 gallon tank in a GXE? I've never figured it out.

 

It's an 18.5 gallan tank, which makes me wonder how the heck they ever stuffed that thing in there. Most cars have a 13-15 gallon tank I believe.

So if your on the Autobahn at 130 I take it you are redlined at 6k rpm or is it a limiter that is holding you there? I sort of wish they would raise the speed limit on I5 here in California to around 100 but it won't happen anytime soon.

 

I can get up to about 135 (roughly cause the gage stops at 125) in my GXE. Its gotta be a limiter of sometype though, I only peak rpm around 4200. 125 easy real easy for me to hit... the next 10mph take a minute or two. After that, the engine just won't work any harder and peaks out. I know it wants to... BUT IT JUST WON'T

 

My recently purchased 91 GXE Auto gets around 19-21 in the city with some lead footing. It got around 23 on the highway on a trip recently. That was with the cruise set around 76 pretty much the whole way and no headwind or anything.
Part of my problem is that my fuel gauge seems to be messed up. It says full for about 10 miles after I fill it up. Then it drops pretty quickly till it hits the 1/4 tank line...usually around 110 miles or little more...then it stays there up to about 200 miles then starts dropping again. very strange.

 

oh yes you can...check my homepage

 

My fuel gauge has always been a little quirky too. It stays full for a long while, then drops quickly to just over half.. I then get over half the mileage from my tank while it sits a little over half, dropping slowly.. then once it gets to about 40%, it starts dropping more quickly again (but not as far as between full and half)..

I usually only get about 250, sometimes 300 miles from my tank, but I tend to refill at the quarter mark.. don't have the patience to see how low it really goes. One time I went down right to E.. but my low fuel dash indicator never came on.

 

Ok.. this post inspired me to drive slow on the autoban for the last couple trips. I did 104 miles on slightly less than 16 liters. It came out to 25mpg at 80mph. I used the conversion of 3.79 liters to 1 gallon... I think that's right. Stupid europe.

 

This might be my problem. I sstarted keeping track of my mileage a couple of days ago and my car started swallowing fuel again. My gauge dropped to 3/4 in like 30 min of driving. It continued its freefall until about halfway, now it has been sitting at/around the halfway point for quite some time.

 

oh, wait. I took my car and filled it up last sunday and got an average of 34 mpg! SWEET!!!!

 

gxe auto @ 181k gave me about 320 to the tank mixed drivng mostly city, and some highway on week ends, that was filling up at 15 gal. = 21mpg


my ve 5spd 93 with 117k granny driven and some wot redlining action due to other org members at the met and a lil privet lessons and also 1 1/2 sit in traffic got me 370 to the 15 gal = 24 miles to the gal.
i know i can get better than that, hrrm i think about maybe 400+ mixed driving, and my be i can get 450 + highway in 5th gear. lets see, just got to get a caravan or meet going for a far far location and see what i can get

 

Last time I took a highway trip on my '90 Max I got exactly 30mpg. This is on a car that still has the factory 02 sensor on it and never had the throttle body or tps cleaned. I guess I am just one of the lucky ones.

 

Yeah, I can't figure it out, either... I got 23-26 MPG hard driving (redlining at almost every shift and cruising between 80-100 MPH) and all highway (roadtrip!) I get 33MPG @ 85 MPH, and about 36MPG @ 70MPH... And this was with just a cone filter with 150k miles.

 

20MPG sounds about right. Mines a VE automagic. I get usually 20MPG with pretty much all city driving with the A/c on all the time (South Florida). The worst I got was 16 once though and of course this was in mid March when the prices were around $2.00 per gallon. Bad gas perhaps.
When my parents had the car they would take on long trips and get about 25MPG. I'm sure my Max would still be able to do that. Time for a roadtrip!

 

I've got a 94 auto VE and I use to get 280 miles to every tank (or 18.6mpg), I ran one of those BKG44 though my tank and now I getting about 330 miles to every tank (or 22mpg). But I think I need to get a new o2 sensor.