[AaronMartinSole]

I'm sure it's just a mistake but I can't ever recall ever incorrectly setting my trip meter or messing up the gallon count. But if it's impossible then I must've been wrong.

I guess I may or may not have gotten a 39 mpg count on this 2001 Corolla. This car had been sitting in a garage for months and did not start. Added water to the battery and jump-started it. This is the first time I have ever driven this car and I knew nothing about it. The only thing I did was put some fuel injector cleaner in the gas tank, put about 50-100 miles on it for the car to gather data for a smog test, got the gas tank almost down to a tenth, and then filled it back up. The tires were almost flat, I mean 20 psi. Filled it up full. I kept the tires under-inflated, probably to just cheat myself into a more satisfying mpg increase, slanderous and pathetic, I know- I reset the trip counter, then ran a hundred or so miles and swear I recorded a 39 mpg reading. No modifications other than adding fuel injector cleaner in the gas tank. Mostly highway miles on this run. I refilled at Chevron instead of the other cheaper place I usually go to, out of convenience. Maybe there was a mistake with the gas pump?

Both times I drove with the front driver and passenger windows all the way down, every second of driving, even on the highway. Now I know that seems like sacrilege, but I value fresh air and my health more than a few points of mpg, though I have been known to drive with only the sunroof cracked on the highway, with the A/C off, sweating my brains out, in order to increase mileage. But it's just too hot now. Now people say they believe in fresh air, but I really believe in fresh air- like open windows day and night, summer and winter, no a/c or heat ever sort of believe in fresh air. There are stories of indoor air quality and mold and freon and so on. You wouldn't believe the health benefits and the chronic sicknesses people have that would just disappear if they but just cracked open a few windows and let some purifying sunlight into the house. But nevertheless,

Then I replaced the spark plugs with Iridium ones. I drained out the old oil which I believe was 10W-something Castrol judging by the sticker. I put in an engine flush and put in AMSOIL 0W-20 Synthetic Signature Series. I also put the P.I. fuel cleaner from AMSOIL as well. Drained out the old coolant and put in a coolant flush with distilled water and ran around with that for a couple days. I pumped up the tires. Ran a hundred miles or so and got 26 mpg.

Now one thing to note - that supposed 39 mpg run was mostly highway. This 26 mpg run was mostly city. But still, shouldn't be that large a discrepancy right? Maybe I just got that first reading wrong but I'm 80% sure I didn't. Now I did idle on both runs for a maximum of 25 minutes for the coolant flushing and filling. So I figured it would sort of even out. A lot of weird variables I know, let's just see how this next tank goes.

I'm not really familiar with all this so I suppose I'm wondering if- and that's an if- if the first run really was 39 mpg and my second run after maintenance really was 26 mpg, what could the possible reasons be for such a decrease in mileage? If anything, it should've increased, right? Am I crazy???