gas mileage??

[Missay]

correct me if i'm wrong, but a 99v6 sle auto is suppose to get 20mpg city (28hgwy??), right? wouldn't that mean that if there's an 18.5 gallon fuel capacity that in an ideal driving situation you should get a max of around 370miles each time you fill the tank??

i'm wondering if it's just my car or if it's the same for everyone else. i'll put in like 20bucks worth which gets me about 14-15gallons (about 1.29-1.35per gallon). shouldn't this mean that if i'm not doing any hgwy that i should get about 300 miles each fill?? true that i don't go ALL the way to empty...but my light is usually on by the time i fill up again. so i'm gonna guess that i leave at least 10miles in the tank before i fill. so should this still be 290ish miles? even if you take out for ac/heat...i don't have it on that much lately and i haven't battled traffic for a long time.

i'm only geting like 200miles though for every 20bucks that i put in. i average about 200-230miles before i need to fill again. no way is that 20mpg city!!

am i just not taking something into account?? i'm curious to see if everyone gets the same mileage that i do.

[Jay]

Gas mileage depends on the driver as well.


I get about 19-20 city and 28-29 highway...

[ericatdallas]

yeah, I get pretty much what the owner's manual says. My 2000 manual says I should be getting 19.5 mpg, and I do a little better than that actually.

Other than driving conditions, there are other things that might affect it such as regular oil and filter changes .

[ultramookie]

I live like three miles away from work and a lot of the times when I'm in town and only going between work and home I get terrible mileage...like 12 or 13 miles per gallon. But when I do a lot of highway driving mixed in with the work driving then I average around 19 miles per gallon. Never had it go above 20 mpg though...

[droomyster]

i drive 20 miles to work, and 20 miles back... and then everything i do after work when i got out adds up to about 400-500/miles a week. i usually have to fill up when my mileage hits about 350. my light didn't turn on today actually and i was around 355, usually it is around 320. i get about 22 mpg and when i'm doing trips, it isn't unusual for me to get 30mpg. i've abused my car inregards to miles, 30k in a year, and it is running really well. i change my oil every 5-6k miles. i don't know if the better gas mileage has to do with the cooler air, or the fact it has been 3.5k miles since my last oil change. i seem to get better gas mileage around 4-6k miles between changes.

[Flipside909]

I average 22-24 mpg in mostly City driving which equates to about 350-400 miles and 27-29 on long distance driving (80mph on cruise w/ac on) with a range from 450-520 miles on a tank. I drive with the A/C on most of the time in all these situations. And about 25% of this driving is with hard acceleration. It all depends on the driver and style of driving. With my car, I shift at 2-3k rpm at each shift for normal driving.

[NaptownSolara]

I'm with Flip. I got 405 on the last tank. I probably could have driven another 10 miles or so before I ran out of gas. Most of my driving is highway, as I have a 30-35 minute commute to work.

[ToyGuy]

Instead of "guesstimating" based on $$ and the low fuel light why not record the actual miles driven and divide it by gallons needed to fill up? A real number will give you something to work with. Calculate several tanks to get a good average and then decide.

toyguy (old guy who likes real numbers)

[droomyster]

Instead of "guesstimating" based on $$ and the low fuel light why not record the actual miles driven and divide it by gallons needed to fill up? A real number will give you something to work with. Calculate several tanks to get a good average and then decide.

toyguy (old guy who likes real numbers)

yes... i do that... i'm assuming we are guesstimating how much is left when the light is on. i don't want to be the one to run it dry and see how much is actually in it.

p.s. plus the ranges are based on changing weather, driving conditions, traffic, shorter trips, etc

[NaptownSolara]

I'm as accurate as possible. I reset one of the trip odometers every time I fill up, and the other every time I change my oil/filter. Like droo said, there's some flex room in there for guessing how much gas is left in the tank at fill-up time.

Instead of "guesstimating" based on $$ and the low fuel light why not record the actual miles driven and divide it by gallons needed to fill up? A real number will give you something to work with. Calculate several tanks to get a good average and then decide.

toyguy (old guy who likes real numbers)

[NaptownSolara]

I'm as accurate as possible. I reset one of the trip odometers every time I fill up, and the other every time I change my oil/filter. Like droo said, there's some flex room in there for guessing how much gas is left in the tank at fill-up time.

Instead of "guesstimating" based on $$ and the low fuel light why not record the actual miles driven and divide it by gallons needed to fill up? A real number will give you something to work with. Calculate several tanks to get a good average and then decide.

toyguy (old guy who likes real numbers)

[ToyGuy]

No need for estimations. Fill the tank up the WHOLE way. click the nozzle a couple of times to make sure. Reset Odo. Drive. Fill it up again the whole way, click it like before. Write down how many gallons. Look at how many miles driven. This is how much gas was used and how many miles driven. Miles/Gallon...has nothing to do with guessing how much is left in the tank if you know how much it takes to fill it back up!

[ericatdallas]

You shouldn't drive your car until the light turns on. In fact, I'm extra cautious but I fill up after I use 10-12 gallons and that's around 200miles for me.

Letting your fuel go that low is bad for your engine (or at least it used to be, unless newer technology changed that?)

[droomyster]

that is what the light is for =P i just make sure i'm within 20 miles of a gas station when the light goes on. like i said, it ranges from 320-350 before the light comes on. i've hit about 480 on trips before having to fill up.

toyguy, of course, we were just saying how much we can get out of a full tank as well as mileage.

[ericatdallas]

that is what the light is for =P i just make sure i'm within 20 miles of a gas station when the light goes on. like i said, it ranges from 320-350 before the light comes on. i've hit about 480 on trips before having to fill up.

but you shouldn't be doing that because your engine will start sucking up fuel with a higher concentration of particles that's built up in your engine...

keeping a full gas tank dilutes it and will also let the gunk sink to the bottom.