frann88

So I have a 2003 mustang and I was just wanting to know if any of you have done some things to efficiently save gas. I'd love to see myself only going to the gas station once every two weeks because I happen to live in California where our gas prices are a little bit more ridiculous.

So far the things I've been doing is avoiding going on the high way, speeding and using the air conditioner. Is there anything else I can do that will save some gas and keep it lasting longer?

TomKat

is your 03 a v6 or v8? actually highway is where u will get the best gas milage rule of thumb is every mph you go over 60 you really start having poor fuel economy. and be grateful everyone in america is ignorant we actually HAVE the LOWEST prices is the world consider ourselves lucky!! most countries also don't pay by the gallon they pay by liter and twice as much as us if not more. you want something good on gas get a hybrid or 4 cyl

disposablehero27

Agree the highway is the mpg route. Stay around 60/65. Stay out of the stoplight district as often as possible.may look into some weight reduction. If you have a spare tire. A tool box. 18in sub two dead bodies in the back.....may shed some of it. Seen alot of pack rat cars witg 500lbs of crap in the back seat. I read cold air intakes help fuel mileage. Maybe a marketing scheme. May be legit. Obviously if you smashin the pedal...makes a big difference in how you drive. The a/c thing wont make a huge difference unless you ru. It the entire time your coming to.visit me in virginia. You may lose a few miles in the 2k we are apart.

Shampue

Very true.

On new car stickers the estimated hwy mpg is typically calculated based on 55mph.

Case in point, my 1.6L (or is it 1.8L?) Kia Soul 5 speed gets about 34mpg at 55mph and 28mpg at 75mph

its all in the rpms (and the stop & goes)

uberstang1

Get a 12speed huffy and work our calfs and hamstrings.

UberDuper

I go through about 10 gallons a month give or take a couple.

My secret? Work from home.

barqsdrinker

Log your fill-ups. Compute the MPG and see what you get. You might actually doing better than you think.

Don't avoid the highway, use it - unless it is worse than the surface streets. The more you stay in the higher gears with lower RPMs will help.

fastbackford351

I get dick for mileage in my '02 GT and most of it is highway at 70ish mph. I'm talking seriously crappy mileage...14-16mpg. Once in a blue moon I'll get some really kick *** mileage out of a tank, ie. 20-22mpg with the same driving habits and routes.

I haven't been able to noodle that one out yet.

dwtjr3

I get between 10-12 depending on how i drive my car, ever since the cams mile gas mileage went way down

cliffyk

Then there is something seriously wrong, prior to my retirement I got 21.5 mpg as regular as clockwork driving 80 miles a day. Six miles each way was rural, 30 on I-95 at 75 to 85 mph¹, and 4 in-town (Jacksonville). This is with 93 octane fuel and a highly tweaked tune delivering 262/305 rwHP/torque with only basic bolt-ons.

Check your fuel trims, if they are running consistently higher than +10 to 15% then I would suspect your front O2 sensors are shot. Also if you have the pink 21 lb/h injectors you would benefit from a custom tune. They run pig rich at higher loads and WOT, dipping into the high 10:1 AFRs.

If the fuel usage seems to change based on ambient temperatures check the IAT and ECT sensors...


OP, as touched on above one way you can improve fuel economy would be to get a tuner/tune and replace the stock tune. The stock tune is very conservative, to the point of "sucks", with far less than optimal ignition timing and running quite rich in open loop mode.

An "87 octane" tune with the timing bumped 2°-3° (in the Spark Borderline table at loads of 70%+), and the target AFRs (in the Stabilised Open Loop Fuel table) leaned out by 0.5 to 0.6 "AFR", will improve overall fuel consumption by 1.5 to 2.0 mpg.

If you optimise the tune for 93 octane the economy improvement will generally compensate for the added fuel cost, 10% better fuel economy for the 10% increase to the fuel cost--drive like a granny and you may even save money.

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¹ - And as those who have followed me here know there is a run of 100 to 120+ mph at least twice a week.