Gas Mileage
 

Ok, I have a 1990 Four cylinder and had to rebuild the engine. It has about 7,000 miles on the rebuilt motor and I understand about breaking in an engine before gas mileage to return to normal and all but this is rediculous. I just filled my tank (with 97% of it being town driving) with 14.06 gallons at 166.9 miles on the trip odometer!!! That rounds UP to 12 miles to the gallon on a four cylinder with an automatic! I know its not my driving because I try not to drive the gutless wonder hard to get better gas mileage. I have replaced about half a dozen parts and the engine/drive train is mechanically sound. Any ideas of what is going on?? :confused:

Well, around town driving and an automatic transmission both contribute to lower gas mileage, but 12 mpg is pretty low. Do you have a trunk full of things? What's been done to the engine? Any mods? What's your fuel pressure? How do your spark plugs look? How has it been running? Are there any trouble codes? What was your mileage before the rebuild?

Help us help you.

Take care,
-Chris

My car is pretty much empty. The engine has had nothing done to it, no mods, just a basic rebuild. I pretty sure it has new spark plugs, I'm not quite sure about fuel pressure though and at the mechanic shop it didnt read out any bad codes (when we were chasing another problem that turned out to be the plug wires). It sometimes (not often) dies when I just turn it on and put it into drive and same when coming home it rarely dies when coming to a stop. I never driven it without the rebuild so I do not know the original mpg.

You might want to check for a gas leak.

My computer quit working altogether in my little 2.3L once upon a time. It resulted in some of the problems you are decribing. It took a couple wacks from the handle of a screwdriver to fix it, lol.

I never got good mileage with the 4cyl, but 12 tells me it's either leaking fuel, or in limp mode/open loop all the time.

Don't feel bad I also have a 4 cylinder mustang auto with 119,000 miles that gets around 15 miles to the gallon and gets about 170 on the odo. Mine also idles at 2200 rpm's. Dont know why but the only mod i have on it is exhaust.