Fuel Economy

[Ex0r]

Okay, some questions.

I have a 1997 expedition, eddie bauer edition. It has a 5.4 v8 in it. The odometer thing says it's getting anywhere from 11-12 mpg, does this seem right? It seems kind of low, even for that big of a car. A full size hummer nearly gets better than that.

Also, over the last week or so, i've noticed that as not being accurate. Before, my odometer and my 'miles to empty' reading were about the same. Now, it's going crazy. I will put $60 in, it'll tell me 1xx miles, and about 2 miles down the road, it'll jump down to 30 miles to empty, etc. It was very accurate before, and it feels now like we are putting more gas in it than we really should be or have. $60 used to last a week if not longer, now every other day we are having to put $60 in it or it's dinging empty fuel.

What do you suggest checking to fix the problem? There is no check engine light, or no rough idle or anything, the truck appears to be driving fine, but I know that there is no way suddenly (driving the same mileage every day), it started sucking down that much gas.

 

[smo0othride]

Fill up your tank until the pump clicks off and record how many miles you have or reset the mileage counter. The next time you go to fill up, fill it up again until the pump clicks off, notice how many galllons you put in the tank then divide the amount of miles you drove since your last fill up by the number of gallons it took to fill up, and that will be your real mpg. Do this 3-5 times to get an average mpg number. 12mpg is pretty average especially for city driving, to help mpg make sure your tires are aired up and replace your fuel filter every 30,000 miles.