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Yes, every new car I ever owned had a fluctuating gas gauge. If I would go up or down a hill they would fluctuate and if I would start or stop quickly they would fluctuate.
Good luck with your car and I hope you continue to like it as much as I like mine.
Tell me what options you got if any.
You are easily pleased! (Why did you get rid of it, by the way?)
Funny -- never had that problem with my last two Corollas -- wonder what the deal is...
Enjoy your car...
As far as the MPG's., suppose the dealer topped off the tank like most people do and not just stopped filling when auto. stopped the pump? That means he could have gotten around another gallon in there more then you did. Now you used 5.32 Gal. and went 132 miles, now your gas mileage is 24.8 MPG. Just wondering !!!!
I check my MPG. every tank full the same way, except I don't use that automatic shut off technique, I always top it off then you know your always dealing with a correctly filled tank. All shut offs are different but if you top it off it is always the same fill. But always divide you miles by the actual gallons used like you did.
Dennis, your correct those stickers are generated by the government and that was my point exactly. You can use them for comparison from car to car because they are uniform standards and not created by each individual auto manufacturer.
Two reasons: #1, you're not supposed to, because the tank won't vent properly; #2, it costs the dealer more money, so why bother.
Britton, Instead of estimating again, why don't you just fill your tank up when the light comes on(if you want to wait that long)and calculate again filling the tank like you did the first time with the automatic shutoff technique.
Then I would suggest from that point on when you want to check your gas mileage I would fill it completely each time to get a more accurate reading.
Really though, 25mpg is fine for me. 30mpg will be great of course. I wonder if the EPA estimate is with the AC blazing as well ?
The Echo probably has the best mpg in all of Toyota's lineup, but at least in the highway my corolla mpg is aint that far behind it.
There is an easier solution. Fill up your tank. Remember what you did. For example, did you use the autoshutoff, or did you top it off. Reset the trip odometer to zero. Drive the car. When it gets to a point..say a quarter of a tank left go back to the gas station and fill up the car the same way that you did before. Then, look at the gas pump which will tell you exactly how many gallons you used in the period of driving and write it down, say it reads that you put in 7.8943 gallons. Then, look at your trip odometer and record the amount of mileage that you drove, say 304. Now you have the exact amount of gas that you used to drive a certain amount of miles. Divide the two. 304m/7.894g = 38.51 mpg
There is your exact gas mileage. If you are really fanatical (as I am)..you will record this in a book (all three numbers) and at any time you can obtain your overall gas mileage over a long run. By the way, that is straight out of my book. I think that this is what tercel was saying..but wasn't positive..if so..sorry for the redundancy.
Good to hear that someone else is doing this. At least now I can say I'm not the only doing it when the guys tapping impatiently for the car to start rolling. :P
Read your owner's manual -- they'll tell you the szme thing. The gas tank vent will not work properly if you top it off, and there's no point in doing that anyway -- you will get just as accurate a reading by consistently letting the pump shut itself off.
As for tracking gas economy, I calculate my mileage every single time I fill up -- it's been a habit for over thirty years. Just follow the prcedure I told you about and which you followed this time, and you'll be fine.
As for letting the low fuel light come on before refilling, there's no point to that either, although doing so will give you an infinitessimally more accurate reading because of the larger sample data. Just drive normally, fill the car up somewhere between a quarter and half a tank, and do your math regularly. (Hell, you can do it in your head -- 240 miles with an 8 gallon fillup means you're getting 30 mpg on the nose, right?)
"Miles per gallon" means exactly that -- how many gallons did it take to carry you the number of miles indicated on your trip meter. The number of gallons it takes to fill your tank is the number of gallons you used to go that far. Simple.
Pat
Host
Sedans and Women's Auto Center Message Boards
It's a great way to tell if your car's running right or not (which is why he did it -- I remember he was really cranked about the fact that our '56 Pontiac was only getting 10 mpg!).
And the fact that your 2001 owner's manual doesn't mean that the laws of physics no longer apply. Your fuel filler has a vent in it that allows small amounts of fuel vapor to escape -- because as liquids heat, they expand. This is why really clean cars -- the SULEVs of the industry -- are actually cleaner when they're runing than most cars are at rest.
There is no good reason to top off your tank -- you get maybe an extra pint of fuel, and for what?
BTW -- I notice that you have a '95 Tercel. I had an '86, with the TRD suspension, 16" Primaxes, Toysport intake and exhaust and full tint, and I absolutely loved it. Great car, with wonderful styling. Write me at dennis_wade@toyota.com, and I'll send you a picture of it. I'd still have it if it wasn't for my daughter wrecking her Corolla (I took the one I had on order for her after that, and sold my Tercel).
I was refering to yur post of #571 when you told britton to read her manual and it will tell her not to top off the tank. I found no such info. like that in my 2001 Corolla manual. I was wondering where in your manual you saw that?
In any case, whether the manual mentions it or not, topping off is not a good idea, and any service tech should tell you so.
Since we have moved to our new platform, we no longer have the requirement to stop and restart discussions after the numbers of posts exceed a certain limit. Since this discussion can continue as long as anyone has anything to say about Corollas, there is no longer a need for the "2" that has been included in the discussion name. Down the road, that could confuse our newer members so I have removed it.
I've altered the name slightly of the original Corolla discussion in the Archives to differentiate it from this active one.
Please continue...
Pat
Host
Sedans and Women's Auto Center Message Boards
There's a strongly held body of opinion that says you should break in your car the way you intend to drive it -- i.e., if you want it to be fast, break it in fast. This is true, in the sense that if you're an enthusiastic driver you should drive it as such AFTER the first 1000 miles. We did this with my wife's new Celica, and it made a real difference in the throttle response. This is especially true of cars with variable valve timing (Toyota's version being called VVTi); the engine computer ("engine control unit" or ECU will adjust itself over time to your driving style.
And the throttle response depends on other factors, not how you break in your car
"if I break in my car and do not drive more that 40 mph I wouldn't be able to drive faster that limit in the future????"
No -- what did I say that made you think that? I said that SOME people think that you should break a car in the way you intend to drive it. This opinion is shared by the team manager for Corvette, by the way.
"I thought that the goal of breaking in is to get rid of an extensive friction between moving parts of the engine and tranny and provide proper lubing them."
Not exactly English -- but yes.
"And the throttle response depends on other factors, not how you break in your car."
It depends. In the case of cars with VVTi (Variable Valve Timing with Intelligence), how you drive the car determines in part how the ECU (Engine Control Unit) programs shifting patterns and throttle response. It has fuzzy logic, meaning it adapts to the driving style of the owner over time. So, in one sense you're right -- driving my wife's car at 90-100 mph and hitting the throttle hard up mountain grades may not have improved throttle response because of the way I was breaking it in (though some would say it did); but it definitely programmed the ECU to open the throttle wider under accleration from rest and to make the transmission shift down more quickly than it would have otherwise.
Isn't technology great?!!
Also I noticed that the Cars Direct price for our car has increased almost $700 over what we paid Cars Direct in California. (No rebate and less of a discount)
Maybe Corolla's are selling better with the higher California gasoline prices. Also I was told that NUMMI production of the 2001 will end soon.
My old WV Golf never wandered and I got 60,000 miles from my set of Michelin Tires. Just curious.
You might want to check out the postings in the conference "Toyota Corolla trouble" #238 to #250
Overall I would give very good marks to Cars Direct. They beat my best Dealer price by nearly $100. My only complaint was when Cars Direct initially contacted me they told me we have your car except that it does not have side air bags or the sunroof! I said then you don't have my car.
We ended up ordering from the Factory. The people at the Factory were the greatest!!! If you get a chance you should contact them and sign up for a tour.
I have only drived the car a few miles..just picked it up friday night...did put gas in it..and I too noticed that the gas guage took a while to move up to the full postion. It does move up and down a little with car movement.
I have a 4 speed automatic and did notice a slight hesitation (jerk) in shifting from gears to gears. It is not real smooth. Is this normal?? Again..I just bought the car and have driven it less than 50 miles. It whas 36,000 miles on it...and is a LE.