10 mpg in the city

I am getting 10mpg in the city is that unssually bad. I think so but truck seems to run fine. My gas gauge is not working and going to change the fuel pump soon just not good enough weather. My 2wd light went out too can that be it. Well I hope everyone had a Happy New Years and many more to come. I recently changed two o2 sensors and did a complete tune-up. It is a 1997 blazer 4.3l 2dr.

well man i have a 97 2 door blazer 2, i only get 13 mpg but i have mud rovers on it and it has 190,000 on it

Mileage depends greatly on MANY factors, only one of which is the O2 sensors. Things like driver habits, tire inflation, blah blah have a great effect on the mileage. I stated pretty close to everything that affects the mileage in another thread awhile back.

So, if you tend to drive like you stole it, you'll get crappy mileage (not saying that is the case here). I haven't been kind to my Bravada the last few times I've driven it and I've dropped down to around 15mpg from 18-20mpg when I was doing more highway driving at constant speed.

Also, don't overlook the possibility of a bad tank of gas. If you start to get poor mileage and haven't changed your driving habits, try switching to a different gas station for a few tanks and see what your mileage is there. But you have to try not to make a consious effort to drive more efficiently (just drive like you normally drive).

Before I moved, I ran 4 tank fulls of gas through my Bonneville from EVERY gas station on my commute and found that the one closest to home produced the best mileage in the summer time. Winter came and my mileage went down, so I did the same thing again and found a different station had a better winter mix.

Gas quality ranges GREATLY from station to station as well as within a franchise. So even getting gas from say Sunoco in Batavia will be different from Sunoco in say Seneca Falls. This is due to different supply depots as well as the maintenance of the stations tanks.

I dont get it. Both our S15 Jimmy 95/ 4.3 and our s10 Blazer 86/ 2.8, get about the same mileage, the 2.8 has a granny gear like a 4cyl. Both are 4 speed autos and they both gt 22-24 miles per gallon. Whats really strange is that my 2.5 in my s10 truck with a 5 speed stick hold a couple of miles per gallon better. Now I do have to admit that we mix our city and open driving but there is little freeway, when open roads.

Heck i used to think my 350/383 in the one ton van was bad. It used to get 12-14 pretty steady. Its now in a Camaro and does 16 pretty consistent with the four speed. Had th350 before that.

What is it that can lead to such bad mileage from these cars? I just read a different post in this forum with the same problem.

Well, the number of stops you have in your commute GREATLY changes the mileage. I went from driving 50% on highway at 65mph and ~30% country roads (w/ one stop) and the balance in the city at not really stop-n-go but afew lights to a steady drive over country roads with 4 lights and a stop sign between me and my workplace. My mileage is alittle worse with my new commute even though I probably had more lights in my previous commute, but because most all of the lights were in a 30mph zone, it didn't impact my mileage much. Now ALL of my lights are in 55mph zones and I have more hills (another factor to throw in).

22-24 mpg out of a 4.3L is phenomenal! My high with my Bravada was fully loaded on the NYS Thruway at 70mph for 120miles. I got ~21mpg. But my Chevelle never got more than 13mpg after I built the engine. Before I built it up, it could get 18mpg when tuned conservative.

Once in a while I like to see how much power I am driving but other than that I drive my blazer easy. I live in a very thick city and drive it everyday in it but I still think 10 mpg is too bad.

Well, stop and go is definitely harsh on the mileage. When I was driving into Rochester everyday, I could see my mileage drop off a bit everyday in the city, only to pick back up once out of the thick of things (on the Bonneville). With my Bonneville, I tried several different acceleration schemes and the medium to heavy acceleration to speed was better in terms of mileage than the light acceleration. Can't say as I've tried it on the Bravada though because it is a pretty much winter vehicle.

I assume all-terrain tires affect your gas mileage in a bad way?

Wow, talk about digging up the dead...

quote:

ORIGINAL: andrewjs18

I assume all-terrain tires affect your gas mileage in a bad way?

 
Depends... if you get the factory size, it's not gonna change a whole lot, unless it has a very aggressive tread, or is significantly heavier than the stock tire.
 
 
I didn't get much of a mileage hit when I went to my 30" tires... If I baby it I can still squeak by 16MPG in the city.
 
Driving between babying it and beating it gets me about 12MPG

Yup, nothing like refreshing a 2 year old thread!!  LOL 

To answer the question on tires, it all comes down to the rolling resistance.  Higher rolling resistance == less MPG.

You can´t think in a worse stop and go conditions as those  which are present in Santiago de Chile commercial areas. I live close to my work (is a 1/4 hour walk, 1.3 km) but in the middle there are 5 lights, in two of them you need to wait two lights cicles, in the other you arrive when red is on, some streets are plenty of pedestrians here and there, etc. The engine reaches the correct temp at the arrival. Nothing worse is imaginable for fuel purposes. My 4WD gets exactly 5.2 kpl under that conditions and I measured the consumption several times obteining the same value. 5.2 kpl is 12.23 mpg. The gas price here is aprox. US$1.3 per liter or $5 the gallon so the people usually do not want to run the big US cars. But they do.
My mileage should be better under more permanent driving conditions as was described here.

Well, not to hijack the thread, but, this got me thinking about a article I read some time ago. About how Ford in 1933 (notice the year) had a V-8 engine place in a test car that would seat 11 people, go 120 miles per hour and get this..Drum roll...30 Miles per gallon.
 
Now that was in 1933...and look at the pitfull gas mileage we are getting now regardless of size of engine..
 
We have been had again by the big motor companys.