10mpg and driving like a pussy cat

[vaderj]

So i have had my ranger for about two months now; I have replaced: IAC blower, MAF, upper plenum gasket, trans fluid (m5od - put amsoil in there; side note is the tranny was a little stiff shifting and that amsoil really actually helped a lot).
SO anyway; I am getting absolutely horrendous mileage. off of a full take (about 16gallons or so) Im not even getting to 200 miles before the light pops on. the engine is now purring like a kitten, and granted I live in north dakota where a warm day as of this winter is when we make it to 0 degrees but this is still ridiculous; I got far better mileage in my old 95 5.0 mustang! I really do drive it very nicely, never going past about 33% of WOT.
Btw, I doubt I have it in my sig, but my (st)ranger is a 99 4.0 xlt 4x4 w/ m5od, plugs and wires have less than 10k on them and there are zero CEL codes, obdii reader claims there are no real problems with o2's. any ideas? i am really hoping that its not a clogged cat as i am a fulltime student therefore very poor!

any ideas?
thnx!

josh

 

[wvcat]

I am getting around 16 with my 2000 with a live front axle.

 

[Beanmachine7000]

My 4.0 5-speed with 167k gets 14-15mpg...

 

[JohnnyO]

10 mpg could be about right if the weather is uber-cold. If it has a lot of miles it could be the cat.

 

[Nhaz]

im getting according to my calculator. aprox 10-11 mpg. thats with the 4x4 axles locked but without the transfer case engaged. and 260k on the engine.

since tomorrow its going to have a new set of wires and plugs it should go up somewhat.

 

[wahlstrom1]

I was averaging 11 mpg, getting about 300km's to 75 liters of fuel. I gutted my cats (I know, BIG NO-NO) until I get the whole exhaust replaced and instantly gained 5 mpg, back to 16 mpg. I just got 411 km's on the last tank with a couple hr's of wheelin as well so I wouldn't rule cat's out.

-andrew

 

[vaderj]

how did you go about gutting the cat converter(s)? (i think there is two of them huh?)
i guess i am wondering, did you just remove them and substitute pipe in or did you actually open them up and and such?

thanks!

 

[Beanmachine7000]

It's very, very illegal to do that...

 

[wahlstrom1]

pm'd.....

 

[jmcarthy]

I get about 18 mpg city/suburban driving, '97 4.0 M5OD. The worst I got was 16.8 and that was driving with the hubs locked in most of the time. I had a post similar to this under the general forums. Seems like some trucks get good mpg and some get mFpg. I could have sworn that I read somewhere on this board someone was suspecting injectors.

 

[darkspork]

Josh,

Its still winter. 10mpg may be a little low but it should improve in the summer. Do you let your truck warm up in the mornings like I do? That brings your gas mileage down. Driving around Fargo you won't get the same gas mileage as you would driving in rural ND, I doubt you go fast because the speed limit through Fargo is something like 55, so that's not even a factor, however if you're going 75 on 94 outside of Fargo that will bring it down. Around Minot I've been averaging 12-14.8. I just went to Minneapolis this weekend, got 20.2mpg (14.2 gallons to 286 miles) on the first fill up, other fill ups were less due to some traffic, more aggressive acceleration to merge in the cities, etc. My truck is also the m50d.

Also, I'm not sure how you are calculating your gas mileage but 16 gallons to 200 miles is 12.5mpg, roughly what I'm getting around town on cold days. Easiest way to figure out gas mileage is fill your tank all the way, reset your trip odometer. At the next fill up, refill your tank all the way, divide the number on your trip odometer by the gallons of fuel you put in, that's roughly what your gas mileage is. Remember the winter blend of fuel will also make your vehicle run less efficiently. Most Cenex stations seem to be putting Ethanol in their fuel, Tesoro however only puts in the 89 grade fuel, so get the 87 grade or 91 grade otherwise your gasoline may be up to 10% ethanol. I'm not sure if this helps.

 

[vaderj]

just got back from a road trip and averaged 18-19 mpg on the HW; this is after a can of BG and amsoil change of trans/transfer case. before I did this I had gotten around 14mpg on the HW.
darkspork: I will subdue the sarcastic part of me and just tell you that most stations vary in the types of gas they have, but fortunately it is atleast state law, possible fed law that each pump must have a sticker saying the amount of alcohol they dilute ("enrich") their gas with.
Next up is to start experimenting with just pulling a degree of timing globally with the tweecer; I refuse to be happy with milage that is worse than my 5.0 mustang