Hello from Chicago, IL! :)

[MikeCentury]

Hey everyone,

Came acrost this awesome site when going crazy trying to determine ways to improve fuel economy on my 2000 Buick Century. I've read the 65+ Effeciency Mods and Hypermiling tips, so much great information in there. I recieved this car when my grandfather passed away, I recieved it with 13,000 miles now it has 20,000. Since the car sat for some time while my grandfather owned it I replaced the fuel filter, replaced all the tires with new ones since they were 12 years old. Had to replace a few brake lines that rusted out as well. Other than that I did a few modifications to slightly help the engine breathe better. Got an OEM size magnaflow muffler, its not loud at all thankfully, and installed a short ram intake with a K&N air filter as opposed to the original cabin airbox. Also purchased Scan Gauge2 just waiting for it to arrive today.

Since its winter time as the weather drops so does our mpg unfortunately, I'm going to start recording my mpg with ScanGauge2, I normally accel very slowly, and minimize braking when able. The one nice thing with ScanGauge2 is I'll finally be able to see my engine RPM's, where I couldn't before. Will be useful for highway and city driving. I love this car, its very spacious, rides great, and I'll be working to improve fuel economy.

Thanks for the read, I hope to talk with you fellow ecomodders, and if you have any questions regarding my car i'd be happy to help out.

[Daox]

Welcome to the site. What kind of mileage are you currently getting with the car?

[MikeCentury]

Thank you for the welcome. With the current weather a tank usually lasts me around 380 miles I drive mostly city unfortunately with some highway short trips mixed in. I really considered selling my car, but with 20,000 miles on it, it may seem silly as I would not get anywhere near what the car would be worth. I've been eyeing the older civics.

[Daox]

Do you have any idea what kind of MPG that is? Miles per tank is a horribly inaccurate way to measure mileage.

[MikeCentury]

Its currently about 22-23 if going by the 17.5 gallon tank using a calculator but yes I agree thats why I invested in the SC2, I will know for sure within the next two fillups just waiting for my ScanGauge2 to be delivered today.

[Daox]

A lot of us use the SGII for measuring a lot of different things. However, we still manually calculate fuel usage for every tank (miles traveled divided by gallons used) to make sure we're accurate. The SGII can be calibrated to be pretty accurate if you have a consitent commute, but it will still always be off by at least some amount.

[MikeCentury]

Cool, thank you for the info. Yeah it will be nice to finally see the engine rpms and have an average mpg on hand to learn to drive better, i'm sure its not 100% accurate, but by seeing the rpms and having the mpg readout I can try improve my driving skills so that will be nice. I was looking into ways of blocking the front grill without it looking really bad, im going to read the forums and see ways others have gone about it. I checked into the moon cap hubcaps, but jeez they are expensive! The factory hubcaps are pretty nice, so i may leave those on or experiment with the pizza pan option.

I've already learned quite a bit just from browsing this site, before I used to let my car idle until the temperature gauge was at operating temp, now I just drive softly until it reaches operating temperature. I'm sure that will help a bit as well. I'm going to give this car a few months to see if I can improve the fuel economy a decent ammount, if not I probably will sell it off and get an older honda or toyota of sorts.

[MikeCentury]

Welcome to the forum ggi

I've stumbled across a very clean 93 Geo Metro for sale, 70,000 original miles.. I'm really considering getting it for mostly of my commuting and using the Buick if needed to bring others along on a trip somewhere. The asking price is 1500 which seems fair for the miles, and condition of the car its clean without rust, I'm going to have a look at it today, the way I see it is if I can double my fuel economy with it - it will pay for itself in the long run.