poor gas mileage 94 taurus

Thanks for that URL. Even the brightest amongst us must wonder why life has to be so darn complicated with all that old standard-British weights and measures....and most of all, shake their head in disbelief and ask, why do we continue to use it..?? Even the guys who created it, the British stopped using it Years ago.

Ok, maybe I'm slow. What is your point.

Fuel gauges are a little inaccurate. I always drive my car to a gas station, record the milage in a log book. Refuel my car then calculate the average MPG on your vehicle. Once you calculate the MPG doing it that way, the MPG would turn out to be normal.

I have a 94 ford Taurus 3.8 and I find a similar thing. You don't get very good gas mileage. The one thing to keep in mind if you don't already know. When you put the window defroster on it uses more gas, particularly in city driving. This is because of Fords brilliant Idea to connect the defroster to the air conditioner. While I know that this is in part to run the A/C in the off seasons so that it gets lubricated and does not leak Refrigerant. It consumes lots of gas in stop and go traffic. I purposely run it once a week for about 5 minutes which is all you need if I have not run A/C that week. But if you leave it on it will chew up gas.

Did anybody say the oil industry and car manufactures are in bed together ??

The a/c coming on in defrost has a purpose. It dehumidifies the interior to help keep side windows clear. If it's cold enough the compressor will not come on, like below 20 F . The real brilliant idea is the outside/recirc. air control in common in a lot of cars. Most people ride around with it in recirc. so no fresh air enters the cabin. How many frozen / fogged up side windows do you see in cars with this feature? I see a lot in the northeast blowing down the interstate at 70 with the side windows completely fogged / iced up in the winter. The average driver has no clue and is a menace riding around with the side windows fogged up all winter. The a/c on in defrost is idiot proofing plain & simple.