Well I knew these things were guzzlers, but this has got to be a joke! A week ago, I purchased a 1999 4Dr 4X4 Blazer w/ 71k miles on it. The truck runs great and the body's in awesome condition. I even took it to my mechanic to have him look it over, and he gave it good marks. Well today, after driving around for a week and with the trip-meter reading 185 miles on it, I had to fill-up the tank. I live in Chicago, and got the truck primarily to drive back and forth to the train-station and to use as a daily-driver, while my bimmer hibernates for the Winter. With the exception of the crappy gas-mileage, the truck runs great. Any ideas on what might be wrong with the truck or how I can improve the fuel economy??? Tomorrow, I'm going back to the dealer to raise some hell!!! Maybe that's what I get for buying a used vehicle.

 

put some injecter cleaner in it...cold air intake will help a lil bit.... not to sound like a dick but do you drive like an *******? lol if you do, dont be ashamed i do too lol

 

On my 91 S-10 4WD Blazer, the gas tank is not really near empty when the gas gauge says it is. My owners manual says it holds 20 gallons. When my trip odometer is somewhere between 200 and 250, the gauge is usually reading quite low and I go ahead and fill up. But I have only used between 13 and 14 gallons. My mileage for mostly around town with just the local freeways has been roughly between 16.5 and 17.5 mpg. Not like the Japanese cars and trucks I'm used to, but not a guzzler by some standards I've heard of. I still don't know what it would get on a road trip. My Blazer is a little smaller than yours, being a 2dr.

I imagine you probably took note of the number of gallons used when you filled up, so maybe this is irrelevant. But I just thought I'd mention it, and that a lot of people seem to have erratic or inaccurate gas gauges in their Blazers. There have been recent threads on this forum about that and about mileage in general.

 

How much gas are you putting into it when you fill up? It could simply be that your gauge is not working properly...

 

Dude, you live in Chicago, no way your going to get good gas mileage when you drive in stop and go traffic all day long. I used to live up there, your lucky if you get through the light by the 3 time in rush hour traffic. Gas mileage would imply you are actually going someplace.

I have spent my fair share of 3 hour commutes on 290 in a light snow storm. Yep, took 3 hours to go 25 miles. They don't call it a parking lot for nothing.


If your actually driving around and not getting hung up at every light. Get your O2 sensors tested. IF they are faulty the pcm will go into a preset mode. The engine will run great, however your gas mileage will suck big time.

 

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the replies and info. First off, No I don't drive like an *******!!! Secondly, although I live in Chicago, despite driving the car to and from the trainstation (6 miles round trip X 5 days/wk = 30mi), most of the driving I did was highway driving. That to me says there's something wrong. According to the dealer, they are unaware of any problems the Blazer may or may not have (Bastards!!!). Anyways, when I filled-up on Sunday, I put 14 gallons in the tank to fill her up. So am I to assume that there was still 5 more gallons in my tank even though the gauge read almost empty and the fuel-low lamp was on??? I'll let you all know where my gas-mileage stands when the time comes to fill-up again. Thanks again.

 

It's possible that there are problems with some sensors that just haven't caused any SES lights yet. A dealership will not actually dig deep enough to know if a sensor is on its way out or not. They only know it's bad or may be bad if there is a SES light that points at it...

First steps I would take would be to clean the EGR valve (buy a new gasket before you pull it off just incase). Clean it out with some sensor safe carb cleaner. If you haven't done so already, a full tune up wouldn't be out of the question. If it is running correctly, then it is possible that you just need to pull a plug or two and check them. The fuel filter could also be causing some issues and is cheap to replace. PCV valve is also another source of an artificial lean condition that would result in more fuel being dumped in kind of unnecessarily and is very cheap to replace. It is also possible that you have some water in your gas, which would be easily be remedied by dumping in some IsoHeat (~$2 a bottle).

Also, make sure that your tires are at the proper pressure as specified by the sticker on the door. If your maximum tire pressure for the tires on your vehicle is higher than the sticker on the door (which it should be), you could try to increase your tire pressure. Increasing the tire pressure decreases the contact patch, decreasing the rolling resistance of the tire at the expense of a less compliant (more harsh) ride over bumps.

It could also mean that the gas at your regular station isn't working very well in your Blazer. I had this exact case with a couple local stations with my Bonneville. Some gas formulations just didn't agree as well as others in it and I could tell from the mileage and fuel economy records that I keep. You really need to make sure that it just wasn't a bad tank of gas before you move on to more expensive things.

I'm just throwing out ideas that are cheap, easy fixes that should be done before moving on to other more expensive and extensive repairs and/or routine maintenance.

 

Ditto on the post above and was going to be my next list of suggestions. Wanted to make sure it wasn't just the driving first. Anyway. My gas tank only holds 18 gallons, and until I changed the fuel pump unit I had 3 gallons in the tank when it showed empty, this is way past the low fule light. My gauge was on E, and I still had 3 gallons left. The new unit is different, when the low fuel light comes on, I have 3 gallons left. I fear I will be out of gas before the neddle hits E.

Make sure it has a good tune up, check the tire pressure, and try some 89 octane with 10% ethanol. run a couple of tanks and watch your mileage.

I just filled up tonight and had barely 225 miles on the odo, then again with the cold spell we have been having I let it idle for about 5 minutes before I go anywhere. I expect my mileage to be down.

 

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the great suggestions! I printed all of this out and will show this to my mechanic this weekend. Hopefully this helps with the poor gas-mileage on my truck. Thanks again.


Donny

 

well i have a 2001 and i only get about 185 miles out of a tank and when i fill it up its usually just at or a little below 1/4 tank...but then again im a highschooler driving to school everyday with a heavy foot...lets just say i could do better [sm=innoc.gif]