Trying to hypermile the Denny's Dectector (2008 panther platform)

[H-Man]

My dad's car has had both front wheels fall off, the rears are in the process of making a break for freedom, at least one cylinder has so much blow-by (30 PSI of compression due to bad rings) that the car has had flames coming out of the engine bay at least once, and it is getting below 20 MPG.

We did an analysis of viable replacement vehicles and a 2008 Mercury Grand Marquis with low miles for a low price ended up being the best option.

Current state of car: Stock except for the 16" alloys the car came with (eww, windmills, I'd rather have steelies and moondisks) an OBDII dongle, a nexus one, and the torque app.

The car does around 30 MPG at night at 60 MPH according to torque. I suspect it has some DFCO because the engine RPMs will briefly drop below idle during part of the deceleration phase and then recover the same way my prizm will after being in DFCO. The MGM will downshift at something around 90% load and it seems I can hold top gear at 1000 RPM.

Current plan: Velcro nexus one to dash and dig up a car charger for it.