Well I mostly let it warm up to get the windows to defrost and the inside to warm up, cause I hate driving in a cold car. Plus I pick up my neighbor and I know its nice to get into a warm car instead of a cold one. The seat covers also get really cold too and they dont warm up like leather does. I cant park it inside where I live. No garage.

 

yeah i notice my car doesn't go all the way into overdrive until about 160 degrees... and i live 3.5 miles from school so its either going to burn some gas warming up or drive it cold. i usually opt to drive it easy to school and back, but according to the instant readout on thecomputer it gets like 24 mpg on flat ground until it hits overdrive... then it gets like 30-35. i pulled it back into third one time.. it's not staying in third gear. 55 on my car is 2400 rpm's or so... it runs around 2100-2200 until it hits overdrive, then it gets around 1800 rpm

 

My 3.5 gets 20 mpg city and around 27ish highway.

 

I don't know why but i get 30mph hwy and 27 intown, 3800 n/a ,never drive the speed limit on hwy always around 75/80.

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I don't just start the car and run it dead cold. I usually give it a few moments to warm-up and come-down off of high idle. Somebody told me long ago, I can't remember who ... that, that is what you should do with an engine that has Aluminum Heads. Warm-up ... instead of just putting the load right on them.

Around town, I have been driving in third, keeping the car from cycling into overdrive a lot. Supposed to be good for the transmission, I'm told. Plus, I do like walking it through the gear ratios every now and then. I don't lean on it because the shut-off (rev limiter) kicks-in at about 4,000 rpm's. Seems like a low figaure for rev limiting, but I bet that is good for the engine; too. No worries about spinning a bearing or chafing a rear main seal at low rpm's, I guess.

It's still a fun car to drive. I haven't really figured-out what the mileage is because I haven't been anywhere but around town with it lately. Toward the end of the month we are hitting the road; and we'll do the arithmetic to see what she's really getting. I'm guessing its going to be low 20's for the way I've been driving it.

 

I think its 17 city 26 hwy.

 

WOW! 17 mpg from factory? Good luck, I hope you can squeeze more out of it!

 

The first thing I'd be looking at is my Air Filter. You cannot be breathing right if your number are that low. That's below what the Default Fuel-Injection Duty Cycle goes to when there's a component malfunction and it doesn't get a parameter signal from one of the major sending sources.