A&Q about 350Z
Q:
Hi
This car was purchaced a few months ago. It's a 98 Malibu 3.1L V6, with 109000 Km. The engine makes the clicking noise when it's cold and the noise fades when warm. I've heard that this is a common problem and is due to excessive bore clearance. Apparantly it's not a big deal, but who knows. So keep that in mind for the real issue. I've been keeping track of the gas mileage for the car and it does about 400 Km per tank (45 liters), we'll say 9 Km/L or 22 MPG. That's awefull. My old 95 Eagle Vision 3.3L V6 (heavier car) had better gas mileage than that and it had 500000 Km on it. Now I'm not sure if this car has had a tune up in its life time (spark plugs and wires), but I've changed the oil recently and checked all fluid levels. What do you think is the main culprit here? Needs a tune up? Bad gas mileage is normal for this car?
A:
22mpg sounds pretty normal. But try measuring more accurate next time to get your real MPG's.
Fill up a full tank(until the pump clicks), reset the trip odometer, drive until it's 1/4 to empty, fill up a full tank again (at the same gas station). Divide the number of miles by the number of gallons pumped. That'll get you the most accurate mpg.
A:
First of all you can't compare apples to oranges. Comparing cars with different gearing, aerodynamics, compression, tires, engines, transmissions, and a million other factors means you can't guess on which one will get better mileage. 22 is very normal for that car though.
A:
Really? I heard that the malibu should do 24 to 35 MPG. My dad's impala 3.8L does better mileage than this car. The impala is a higher class (full sized, the malibu is mid sized). Also, the engine is much larger and produced more horse power. Do you see what I'm getting at? The point is, what would contribute to bad gas mileage?
A:
Everything that curtis mentioned would contribute.