Great MPG, hard to believe

Paladin1001 · Jan 26, 2020

So my daughter and I just took a little road trip in her 98 GT, I'm still the driver cause shes a few months out from driving but shes been wanting to take it somewhere so we took a long weekend trip together. I used the experience to teach her how to navigate without GPS assistance too. Nothing like only using a Rand-McNally atlas to get where you are going.

We were mostly on two lane blacktops in New Mexico and Arizona and I have to say after a 900 mile round trip these are really decent road cars. We got a consistent 29 to 30 MPG with a trip low of 25.6 and a stunning trip high of 38.7!

Granted I was driving it easy and we weren't racing to get anywhere but lots of mountainous roads and some passing of slower traffic did happen. We had a great weekend together and I can recommend the movie "The Good Liar" and not recommend "The Turning" unless you like to be frustrated with your horror movies. I can also recommend Gallup, New Mexico as a cool little Route 66 town, with a lot of very interesting Indian heritage things to see and great restaurants.

I kept the tank topped up since we were in some back country areas and in New Mexico they have 86 octane regular gas so I ran mid-grade which is 88, but my mileage was the worst with that mid-grade. Much better with the 87 where I could get it.

All in all, I have to say, yes my Foxes are faster, but these are really great cars, especially for the money they sell for these days. Probably the best bargain out there in the Pony car world.

PinkieT · Jan 26, 2020

Great mileage, and even better that you and your daughter had such a great trip together.

Burninriverdiver · Jan 26, 2020

Sounds like you guys had a fun time! That’s a good plan to put the car to the test before she starts driving it.

I’m impressed at how well these 4.6l cars do on fuel economy too, when mine was stock it got about the same as my wife’s civic si and didn’t require premium.

Do you guys have any future plans for the car?

evilcw311 · Jan 27, 2020

When my 95 was stock I’d average about 27-28 on the hwy. after all the changes it still averaged about 24-25. 5spd with granny gears made for great mileage. [emoji38]

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Paladin1001 · Jan 27, 2020

Burninriverdiver said:
Sounds like you guys had a fun time! That’s a good plan to put the car to the test before she starts driving it.

I’m impressed at how well these 4.6l cars do on fuel economy too, when mine was stock it got about the same as my wife’s civic si and didn’t require premium.

Do you guys have any future plans for the car?

Well body work is the biggest thing it needs, it has a cheapo aftermarket fender on the driver's side. I hit a deer with it last week, so now it has a broken blinker and dented fender on the passenger's side but I have a whole parts car so that's not as bad as it could be. The paint isn't good so we'll put new headlights and blinkers, she likes the Cobra look so we'll be doing those. I already have the Cobra rims so besides the round fog lights it will be a Cobra clone in appearance when we're done.

The cowl vent plastic is shot too so we have to replace that but I have one on the parts car. We are going to have to paint the whole thing so I may try my hand at base coat clear coat on it, I've been wanting to learn to paint anyway and on this one the paint can't look too much worse. Engine and drivetrain wise it's good except I get the infamous P0174 code from time to time but when I clear it it stays gone for weeks at a time. I think it's the harness for the O2 sensor, it seems to go off on rough roads and I know the harness is in bad shape, it was against the exhaust when I bought the car. I fixed it and tied it up but it's not perfect.