My car is a gas hog!!!

[jsh22]

Hey everyone. I've got a '93 SC2. It's been eating a lot of gas lately. When I first got the car about a year ago, it was getting 300+ miles to a tank of gas. Now, it barely gets 200 miles. We've checked the purge canister as well as the purge canister solenoid, since that's what the scanner brought up. We also checked the EGR system and that checks out fine. Gonna replace the air filter this weekend. Any other suggestions on what to check?


Josh

[bigfoot2471]

how many miles on the car if your getting up there. the whole car is about to fall apart not much you can do. mileage is death to a saturn.

[jsh22]

i've only got 94k on the car

[bomexsaturn]

i'm in

[bomexsaturn]

thanks

[jsh22]

just had a fuel system thing done at jiffy lube...guess they put some Redline cleaner in and burn out the gunk. gas mileage improved and is about 26miles per gallon, which is about right according to the epa guide. but i thought that saturns got better gas mileage, maybe i'm wrong?

[gt50]

You can try checking your o2 sensor to make sure it it performing ok. My 98 sc2 with 104k miles is averaging 33mpg. It was getting 27 when I bought it 4 months ago with 97k miles.

I would run some more cleaner through it. Give it a nice high reving freeway run. That should clear out a lot of the carbon buildup. The first time I took my sc2 past 4.5k it blew a cloud of black smoke I figure it had never been there before.

[sierrap615]

ECTS is a common problem too, also check the age of the spark plugs and wires. do drive mostly city or highway?

[jsh22]

The spark plugs were replaced last summer(Bosch Platinum 4 i think)Didn't replace the wires, which i know i should have. It's mostly city miles. But now I'm having a problem with it burning oil, so I think it's just falling apart.

[sierrap615]

for a twin cam city driving 26 is about right, i get about 24 city, maybe 34 highway. but about 90% of the people here, no, even more then that, have oil problems. it the 1.9s nature. do a search on the forum for some ideas to fix it. i recommend the MMO soak.

[jsh22]

thanks so much for the info sierra....i will do that mmo soak thing this weekend. i've never even heard of that, but i will definately do that. i should also check the pcv to see if it's clogged too....even though i shouldn't have to , it was replaced about 2 months ago

[sierrap615]

oops, don't look here for the MMO soak, check over at saturnfans.com. i think its in the how-to section, look for a member named Wolfman, he posted it. for the PVC valve, so easy to check you should just do it anyway. first where did you get it? if you didn't get it from saturn, its trash, i have never heard of a non-OEM PVC valve that works right. but if it is the OEM part, just shake it, if it rattles, its good. and while your there anyway, make sure the lines aren't clogged

[Joelb251]

there does seem to be a problem with non-OEM PCV's for some reason it seem that if its aftermarket, it often causes oil consumption for some reason. Also, I agree with the above post, check the Coolant temp sensor. Its a 2 wire connector on the side of the block near the trans. If it cracks, and corrodes the connector, it can throw off the reading to the PCM, causing it to run rich, and hard cold starting issues.

[banjo215]

another thing too. DOHC's REALLY don't like platinum plugs. They work fine for a month or too but something about the design of the motor (?) causes them to foul up rather quickly. They work fine in the SOHC cars though. I'd recomend switching them out w/NGK V-sparks. about a buck or two a plug for under $10 it should help out.


Bill

[sierrap615]

platinum plugs just plain don't like oil, which all saturn burn