2002 Ford Taurus gets 18 MPG??? THAT seems insane to me.

A simple Google search with "2002 Ford Taurus se mpg" gave as the first item in the list:

This lists the new/revised fuel economy ratings. The 2002 Taurus Se is listed as: 18mpg city, 25mpg highway, combined 21mpg on gas. If you are using E85 the mpg goes down to 13mpg, 18mpg, and 15mpg respectively.

Isn't internet searching easy and informative?

I have a 2000 Sable with the Duratec. My average over the 7 years I've owned it is 19.32MPG. That is mostly suburban driving. Not much in the way of expressway driving, but mostly moderate traffic and lights.

On Tue, 1 Jul 2008 12:49:53 -0700, I. Care sayd the following:

18mpg? This car sucks ass then. I wish people would be some good mpg cars, fully gasoline powered ones. I think in 2008 we should be able to easily get 50 mpg out of a big V-8 Engine. Such technology was probably bought and buried by the American Oil Companies.

Just like light bulbs. It's already been proven you can make a regular encadescant light bulb which can last up to 100 years even flipping it on/off throughout that 100 years. But guess who bought and buried the patents? You guessed it, OIL companies

The reason we don't have nuclear power in larger numbers is because Big COAL companies have paid out $Billions to force congress to oppose the building of nuclear power plants. Coal companies also pay off scientists to fund studies trying to make nuclear power sound more dangerous than a gun or stick of explosives.

Like I said, 18 mpg even for 2002 sucks asses.

Thanks for the link by the way.

Uh, I think encadescant starts with the letter "I", along with a few other letters off. No matter.

Actually, you CAN make an incandescent bulb last a long time. Just make it rated for a higher voltage and it will burn cooler and last longer. Of course, the watts used per candlepower will be a lot higher and your electricity per lumen output will be a lot higher. You'd think the oil companies would be PUSHING a bulb like that. But hey, the bulb would last 100 years. BTW, patents can be accessed by public views, even if the oil companies did buy them up and after so many years, the patents expire. You would think that all the "gas saving" patents of the 70s could be used by now. Try not to be so paranoid.

Robert Blass wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@xxx.org:

18 MPG is bad mileage for a Taurus. have a 2002 which averages 24 MPG around town and on road with about 50-50 split between the two. I have a good friend who has two and my brother in-law had two and all got good mileage. how many people are with you and do you drive like many, seeing how fast you can go from one stop signal to the other. Sounds like you need to get it checked. I have the Vulcan 12 valve 155 HP engine. I believe you have the 200 HP version which won't get as good in town but does about as well on the road.

If you want to get better MPG then learn to drive better MPG, you can start here:

Note:

"...Helen and John Taylor drove around the coast of Australia in an un-modified Peugeot 308 HDi 110 (a non-hybrid, diesel car) for 25 days. Over the 9,062 miles (14,584 kilometers) that they and their luggage traveled, they averaged 75.6 miles per US gallon..."

Now, I will hasten to say that these incredible world records in hypermiling are only achieved by the illegal practice of "drafting" (ie: tailgating) large trucks. That's the part that they don't talk about.

But, even using the legal hypermiling driving techniques, a 5MPG improvement is easy to get.

We can. We have known how to do it for years. What you do is tune the intake runners and the exhaust headers to the peak powerband of the engine, then you run the engine at a constant RPM.

The issue is transmitting constant rpm power to the rear wheels. That's the difficult part.

You can walk into your local home improvement store and buy extended length light bulbs. They are called "garage door opener" bulbs. They have extra thick filaments and more filament supports to prevent the vibration of the opener from killing them. However the extra thick filament causes them to last far far longer if used in a standard fixture (not a garage door opener)

How do you run a car on nuclear energy?

Ted

On Wed, 2 Jul 2008 01:47:58 -0700, "Ted Mittelstaedt" sayd the following:

The same way Nuclear fuel rods are used in modern nuclear power plants to generate heat translated into electricity. You'd need a fuel rod smaller than a pencil to have 100+ years of power use.

Of course the 'bargain' cars would run $100Million and up.

But after a while the price would come down PLUS you could recycle those fuel rods for a newer car to use. It would be crazy time efficient after 10 years.

Also the grade of uranium used in power plants would not be needed for a stupid car. You could use 10% power grade uranium which could be designed quicker and be cheaper because you wouldn't need to worry about the quality of the fuel rods.

It will never happen because of fearful Liberals who would label the idea as "Chernobyl on wheels"

600 Million automobiles off the highway RIGHT NOW! Imagine the environmental benefits that would be overnight?

Also no need to make all that diesel and gasoline anymore in such crazy qualities.

I really don't see any downside to this idea but I'm sure someone will say some Chernobyl-type scenario.

Also, who would give a flying damn what a barrel of oil costs then?

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:45:51 GMT, tango sayd the following:

No, I have the 155 HP engine in mine. It's got less than 76K original miles and I usually have 1 or 2 people in the car at times.

I've never paid much attention to how fast I drive either. Then again it's not like I am on the Highways/Interstates that much...it's mainly

99% inside the city where I *might* go 50-55 mph at times.

I likely have a super duper serious problem which would likely end up costing me a seriously great deal of money that I don't have right now.

This sucks so much.

On Wed, 2 Jul 2008 01:47:58 -0700, "Ted Mittelstaedt" sayd the following:

That was a cute little page. I never knew about this 'keep moving' aspect before.

thanks man

Try avoiding any fuel with ethanol in it. Ethanol reduces MPG and performance. For a test switch to a higher octane like 89 and see if there's a difference.

Eric

Robert Blass wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@xxx.org:

If it's 99% city driving in stop and go 18 MPG is about right for a mid size car. The Taurus is not a gas hog but when you drive in the city with stop and go driving that's not unrealistic. What kind of car and mileage did you get before you got the Taurus.