New member 99 ford taurus.

[william1]

Hey guys, new member here I've got a 99 ford taurus I picked up almost 2 years ago for 700 bucks with 74k on the clock . It was wiped out down the drivers side. I've been using it as my winter car to keep from driving my 91 ford festiva in the salt.
I've been averagin 25 to 26 just driving normal.
I've recently been trying to driver it really easy to see what the old girl can get for mpg I've only been able to hit 27 .
Any advice guys?
Oh and it's gunna need tires soon it's got 205/65r15 on now. Any suggestions for going narrower?
I do about 80% highway back and forth to work 33 miles one way.

[Frank Lee]

Make sure none of the brakes are dragging especially if it has rear discs. A bad one will knock several mpg off.

By recently replacing my 22 year old OEM battery my Ford picked up several mpg. The alternator was always working harder to keep that old one topped off.

Check out the efficiency mods and hypermiling tips at the top of the page.

[william1]

Thanks for the tips I did put it on the lift to check wheel bearings and for dragging brakes all was well.
I can get 50+ in my festiva with 1.6 mercury capri / mazda miata engine swap . But I don't want it to be eaten this winter with salt so I'm trying to improve the mpg of this taurus. I hear it's very areo dynamic as is but this 3.0 duratec must be very inefficient.
Any advice on costing? The converter stays locked and it seems to cost for ever but it doesn't seem to help much on mpg. I've tried shifting to nutral but the rpm jump up to the 3.5 to 4 k mark and hang there and slowly drop with my speed.

[william1]

Oh and I've got an obd2 adapter and torque pro but haven't been able to test it out yet . I blew a break line and still haven't gotten it fixed . I don't have a garage and it sucks working in the rocks. So it's going to a shop tomorrow and should be fixed early next week.
I'll then start a thread and hopefully try our some areo mods.

[william1]

Well I've got the car back on the road and have been testing my torque pro with mpg add on.
I started testing with only half a tank because that's where it was .
I pushed the tank further than ever, before the Gas light came on but my fuel caculation still showed 25 mpg.
I now have a full tank and will drive the whole tank out monitoring mu torque app wich is showing a 32 mpg average on my last few commutes to work.
After this tank well see how accurate this torque app is.
Also when filling up I fill till I can see the fuel I'm the filler neck I try to use the same pump at same station each time . Is this better then just filling till it clickes off?
How should I be filling up?

[william1]

Well I got 29.9 on my last fill up so 5 more mpg!
Just by adjusting the nut behind the wheel.
I did do a upper grill block unsure how much that helped.
Now that I can post pictures here's what it looked like when I got it Hi, I've shared 1 photo via Photobucket. Please click the link to view photos: Photobucket
Hammered it around and taped the mirror back on till I could get some parts
Hi, I've shared 1 photo via Photobucket. Please click the link to view photos: Photobucket
Here's how it looks now and a shot of the shrink rap grill block.
Hi, I've shared 1 photo via Photobucket. Please click the link to view photos: Photobucket