I have been reading alot of recent posts, and some of them have included some numbers on MPG, and my MPG's are WAY below what they are posting, and I dont drive my car that hard. I drive it, for the most part, babying it.

I bought the car in January of this year, it had 86,000 on it when i bought it. I bought it knowing that there were a few issuses that needed to be delt with, and i delt with them for the most part. However, i found out that my left side car is clogged and i dont have the money to fix that. That was tripping an SES light, and with my luck, my notice to get the car emission tested came in the mail. Here in Illinois, if you have OBD II, they only hook up a scanner and make sure everything is cool, if not, then they sniff ya. Anyways, I bought O2 sims to clear the code that was being set by the clogged cat. Anyways, could that clogged cat be my reason that im getting horrible gas mileage? Im averaging around 13-14 in city and 18 on the highway. Sorry about the long post, most of it was unnecessary, but i thought i would throw out as much info as i could. Thanks for any input!

 

yea im in the same boat as u 12street-14 highway

 

YES! The cat being clogged will affect the power output of the motor. The motor can't move air effeciently......resistance goes up causing mileage to go down.

Other things that can affect mileage:
Spark Plugs, O2 sensors, spark plug wires, dirty air filter, dirty intake, dirty injectors.

If you were to fix the cat and ensure the previous list either new or is good condition, your mileage should be at least 16 city and 22 highway. If you drive like an old lady, it would be even better. If my wife drives my car, it will get 18 city and 24 highway.

 

I get about 215 per tank with mixed city/highway miles...mostly highway though...i replaced the spark plugs/wires, i dont know if the 02's have ever been relaced in the car, it has 95k on it....would that be a good idea? How do you guys clean the intake? ...some sea foam in the gas tank should clean the injectors right?

 

Saying you get 215 per tank does really mean much. You need to figure out the Miles Per Gallon. How many gallons did the car use when you drove XXX miles. If you took 12 gallons to drive 215 miles, then you would be at an average of 17.9mpg. Hiint: use your trip meter

O2 sensors should be replaced around 100K miles or before if they are bad.

Clean intake using Seafoam. Do a search for Seafoam, tons of info on it.

 

I always use my trip odometer, i get what you are saying though, the term tank is kinda broad. But I get 215 miles with 13 gallons i belive. I have seen tons of info on seafoam, i was just trying to get a quick answer on where you put it to clean the intake. I think it woudl be a good idea for me to replace the O2's. Thanks

 

Yeah I get around 16 MPG on the streets, and like half of that is kinda harsh, u know hammering it way to often or takin it to rediline goin into third gear all the way from the stop, but hey with only a cold air I do get decent gas mileage I guess. I will have to say though before I got the CAI I only got like 14 I couldn't even get 200 Miles to a tank

 

What are my options the clogged cat?? I was quoted by my local mechanic that it would be like 700 dollars for them to put in the left side cat. I DO NOT have that money to spend on something that I want to eventually replace, however much farther down the line. I want to get headers eventually, so are there any y-pipes that come with cats for the 97, that arent ungodly expensive adn are compatible with both the stock manifolds and aftermarket headers?

 

1. Remove and put pipe in its place
2. Use a pipe and bang out the insides of cat
3. Replace with new one
4. Replace with after market free flow cat
5. Put long tube headers on and forget about the damn thing
6. Headers and 2 inch straight pipes: no cats, no muffler, VERY loud.