jeancrt

Hi:

I bought an ES300 '99, excellent conditions mechanical, interior and exterior.The only problem is that is cosuming 7 MPG, i had a '97 camry and it gave me 20-24 MPG ( all city). I changed spark plugs, it had NGK standard installed and i changed for Iridium; The air filer was cheap aftermarket, i changed for K&N; tire air pressure checked ( a little bit more than recommended), transmision, engine lubricants changed; Coolant changed; Did the Sea Foam complete steps;replaced all 3 catalytics, because they were clogged;switched from premium gas to regular; tried several stations; took the car to the lexus dealer and they compared the car readings with the fabricant and they were stock. I tried driving in different modes ( as described on the forum), i dont carry anything heavy.

When i did all this, it went from 7mpg to 9 mpg. The only things i have left to do is change the thermostat and fix the fuel float , because when i fill the tank complete, it only show on the dash that is half filled.

Im thinking it may be a dash problem in the MPH , or the travel reader.....Dont know what else to think. IM going CRAZY.

Any advice *PLEASE IM DESPERATE*

Thanks in advance for your help.

Audacity

How many miles are you getting out of a full tank? Is your odometer correct? I'm guessing the problem is in the math somewhere-not your car (unless the odometer is wrong).

JTS06Z06

Well to me it sounds like your NOT consuming 7mpg but probably getting normal fuel economy and either your math is wrong or like you said the odometer is wrong. There is simply no way that a smooth running, well maintained ES300 is going to get 7mpg non city driving. What I would do first is go to the gas station and fill the tank full so you know its full regardless of what the fuel gauge says. Reset the trip then drive the car a few days then refill the tank. If you think your odometer or speedo is wrong try using a handheld GPS device for a couple days to accurately track your mileage. After getting an accurate mileage reading go back and fill the car up. Take that mileage driven and divide it by how much fuel you put back in the tank.
I just wanted to make sure your doing the math correctly. When calculating fuel economy always start with a full tank, then when you fill back up take the total mileage driven and divide by the amount of fuel put back in the tank. For example if you drove 211 miles, and put 8.3 gallons back in your getting 25.42mpg.
Hope this helps.

James

jeancrt

Im doing exactly that . Right now im getting 140-160 miles for a tank.
When i fill the tank ( it usually fills wth 14 something gallons), but the gauge only goes to half tank.

MikeLex

Don't panic. If the car readings are OK and you've tried several gas nozzles unsuccessfully, you might have an intermittent venting problem so the tank will not fill up.

285exp

It's not a venting issue, he said above that the tank is taking @14 gal at fill up.

To the OP, to check your odometer, the easiest thing to do is go to the interstate and zero out the trip odometer at one of the mile markers and check the reading at the next mile marker. If it doesn't read 1 you've got a problem.

mooseboy84

A car with 7mpg is almost impossible. I knew a guy who had a 62 chevelle with a old nasty 2 barrel clogged carburetor that burned rich, and it got 7-8mpg and weighed 5000 lbs, so I find it hard to believe you can only get 9mpg.

If youre getting 9mpg, you need someone to check the fuel injectors/fuel rails. Check the pressure and make sure theyre working correctly. If anything, a bad injector will cause your engine to detonate and ping. I reallllly find it hard to imagine only 8mpg for a fuel injected car. The math has to be off.

Check your fuel rail line pressure and the ejectors. If your mpg is that low, thats where the problem will lie.

WAES300

I have a ES300 with 205K miles... It's down to a quarter tank, and traveled 130 miles. It's 25-30MPG I believe, just off the top of my head.

jeancrt

Thank you all for your help...
I tried confirming the odometer with the GPS on my blackberry device. In 4 trips i made;3, 1.9, 5.3 and 8.8 i had 0.156, 0.125, 0.531 and 0.75 miles difference between the odometer (the odometer beign slowest ) and the blackberry GPS. Also i accelerated to 122kph and it said in the GPS that the top speed 117kph.
I dont know how accurate these reading are, but i think that the odometer is the problem.

Thanks.

MikeLex

That doesn't explain such an extremely low gas mileage. Let us know when you resolve the problem.

Coulter

Is your check engine light on?

If your car was burning through that much gas, you would really be able to smell it. It would smell like raw gasoline when the car was running. I doubt the car when even be able to run that rich unless multiple sensors were malfunctioning.

I think there's either an issue with the calculations, like the gas pump you go to may be REALLY off. The only other thing is you may have a leaky gas line under your car.

I really doubt the car would be able to run that rich, but whatever the case, you need to have it figured out ASAP. If it's running that rich, you can ruin your engine (the fuel washes the oil away from the pistons) your catalytic converters can also fry. You can mess your car up in a hurry. If it's leaking fuel, it's also extremely dangerous to you and others.

Take it in to a reputable shop immediately, don't drive around trying to figure it out. It will cost around $75 to get some answers, that's money well spent.

buci

Maybe you have a gas leak somewhere.

jeancrt

NO gas smell at all< i think there may be a problem with the odometer< because the car runs great, no check engine light.

Coulter

I don't think your odometer would malfunction in that way, but it could be.

With a digital odometer, my guess is if it malfunctions, it just stops adding miles. Also, I would think your speedometer and tachometer would probably also be malfuntioning.

I thought in your earlier post you checked it against your GPS and it was only a few tenths off? If your odometer is at fault, it would be off BIG TIME, by a factor of nearly 3, not by a few tenths.

As in, you actually drive 1 mile and your odometer says you drove 3 miles.

Check it against another car, make identical trips and compare, but i think it would be incredibly obvious if it's off by that much.

Also, if my car went from 20-25 mpg to 7-9mpg, it would be incredibly obvious by monitoring my gas gauge. With my commute to work, I have to fill up about once a week. If I started having to fill up every two days, it would be clear that I wasn't having an odometer issue.

Audacity

It's got to be the odometer. Who knows how it works? Does it run off sensors at the wheels?