Questioning gas mileage on 2002 Grand Am

Hello everyone:
I am new to this site and ask your advice on what I should be "realistically" getting for gas mileage. I have the V6 automatic Grand Am and drive it at the 100 km (60 MPH) on the highway.

I am spending 20 bucks on gas every two days and think there is something wrong, but my car appears to be running fine. I change the oil, oil filters and air filters every 10,000 km (6,000 miles). I have around 95,000 km (57,000 miles) on it and have not had it tuned up yet.

Any advice or comments?

First of all, how many miles are you driving a day?
How many gallons of gas are you putting in when you fill up and how much are you paying a gallon?
Have you calculated your average fuel mileage?

GMMerlin:
I have not done an actual audit of my mileage. This is the third Grand Am in a row I have owned - same job, which includes a lot of highway driving, but I have a sense that this latest Grand Am is requiring fuel more often.

I wanted to see if others were experincing the same "perceived" problem I am.

well what you need to do is next time you get gas look at where the needle is at on the fuel gauge (make a mental note of it) then fill your tank (keep the recite or write down the amount of gas you put in the car) then set your trip to 0000 (or make a mental note of what your milage is) then when you get to the mark on the fuel gauge agian then figure out the milage it took you to get there and do the math, you will come up with your mpg or since you seem to live in canada your KM per liter (dont know if thats how you messure fuel there) then you can look in your owners manul or come back here and youll find out the average mpg. i personal have been getting 19mpg in the city (but i drive the car kinda hard and the check engine light is on)

GMMerlin:
I have not done an actual audit of my mileage. This is the third Grand Am in a row I have owned - same job, which includes a lot of highway driving, but I have a sense that this latest Grand Am is requiring fuel more often.

I wanted to see if others were experincing the same "perceived" problem I am.


Dude, I'm not trying to be a hard ass, I have had a lot of customers complaining of "poor fuel economy" ever since the price of gas has done nothing but rise over the last month...
Before you percieve you have a problem, check your mileage.
The gas tank in your car holds 14.3 gallons..gas price today when I filled up was $1.49.9 a gallon..so we will round it to $1.50...so it would take 20.00 to put about 13.0 gallons of gas in your tank..how far are you getting on a tank of gas?
According to the fuel economy standards I could find, a 3.4 V6 G/A shoud get in the nieghborhood of 26 city and 37 highway (mind you these are estimates)..so if we split the difference and say you get 31mpg, you should get better than 490 miles between fill ups.

Lets make this simple. Next time you gas up write down your milage at that time or reset your trip odometer to zero or both. Then the next time you gas up determine the number of miles you drove and devide miles by the number of gal it took to fill up. If the results give you less than specs on your car call for you probably need as a minimum regaped spark plugs-better yet replace the with new plugs. Plugs arn't that expensive.

I have an easier solution to this problem.........how 'bout I let you drive my '01 K2500HD with the 8.1 for a week.

You'll be so glad to get your GA back, gas mileage will never cross your mind again. LOL :biggrin:

-slacker