2000 Corolla Fuel Economy - Toyota Corolla, Chevy Prizm (1998-2008)

ever_green

I have a good condition 2000 Toyota Corolla VE 4spd Auto with only 100,000km on it. I have done all oil changes and other maintainance consistently in the past years. The car is running on 4 all season michelin tires kept at 32psi all times. I just took it to toyota for regular maintainance and nothing special came up and toyota claims my car is in perfect condition. My brother drives the car now that he has his licence. He started complaining about fuel economy as soon has he started driving it and saying he pulled only about 400-450km on a 50L tank. I was surprised because i pull more (~500km) on my V6 Acura TL which has a slightly larger fuel tank. So I decided to take the corolla for a week and see if i will pull any better mileage. After filling it up at the gas station yesterday I record 9.2l/100km or 25mpg fuel consumption. I traveled about 50% highway and 50% city. Im surprised at such low milage. I mean i pull 23mpg on my V6 TL for the same travel which is not that much worst. Is this normal for a '00 corolla?

I have a 2000 corolla and drive mostly city. I have a 5 speed and am always accelerating quite hard and my car seems impossible to get below 30 mpg. On the next fill up, fill it up with some 93 octane fuel and run some injector cleaner/fuel system cleaner. You also may want to change your spark plugs if it has not been done.

ever_green

I have a 2000 corolla and drive mostly city. I have a 5 speed and am always accelerating quite hard and my car seems impossible to get below 30 mpg. On the next fill up, fill it up with some 93 octane fuel and run some injector cleaner/fuel system cleaner. You also may want to change your spark plugs if it has not been done.

thanks for the reply. but I don't know much about cars. what are injector cleaners? I already tried filling it up with 89 octane which made no difference. I'm afraid higher octane will cause knocking engine damage? Also is it necessary yo change the spark plug after only 100km? the car starts like new. but I think s1 once told me it starts loudly.

go to an auto parts store and find the fuel additives. on the bottle it will say fuel injector cleaner. use with a full tank of gas. 93 octane won't cause your engine to knock, but a lower than 87 octane fuel may. check the spark plugs and see how dirty they are- depending on how much carbon build up is on them it may or may not be time to change them.

Actually, the higher octane is "less" volitale than the lower octanes, which makes it a better choice for forced induction apps and cars running very high compression ratios. It resists the tendance to pre-ignite - so less likely to cause pinging or knocking in the right conditions.

Fuel injector additive may help - but also depends on how low the fuel economy has dropped. If you had the car for the past years and noted a sudden drop in fuel economy (more than 10% or so) - possible that one of the O2 sensors is on its way out (dead or dying sensor - may not trip a CEL), or since you have a 2000 model - it also has a MAF sensor in the airbox that can affect overall fuel economy, if it is dirty. Can't hurt to add a bottle of injector cleaner in the tank - just to see if the mileage improves. I'm assuming that you've already verifid that the air filter is not clogged, there are no issues with the PCV, and that the spark plugs are in good shape. If they are the original plugs - might be worthwhile to take them out for an inspection. The OEM plugs are supposed to be good for up to 120K miles (~193K km or so) - but that is under the best conditions. Some have had the original plugs start to degrade significantly at half that distance - the plug will still fire, but not sa well as it should be.

ever_green

im sure its not the plug or toyota would have informed me that it needs replacing. im going to use shells ultra 91 octane gas tomorrow and add the detergent. i heard shell adds some nitrogen thing thats supposed to help clean ur engine...

Don't read in too much into the hype - may help in some cases, but don't expect the car to drive any differently after adding a gas additive + higher octane gasoline. What was the fuel economy like before? Was it much more than 25MPG? We talking 30MPG, 35MPG?

Yep, sorry it is less volatile. my bad.

ever_green

Don't read in too much into the hype - may help in some cases, but don't expect the car to drive any differently after adding a gas additive + higher octane gasoline. What was the fuel economy like before? Was it much more than 25MPG? We talking 30MPG, 35MPG?

I'm not too sure how the gas mileage was. I used to drive this car before the gas prices rose so I didn't really care. it's been in the garage for the pas 3 years. but if I remember correctlly I used to pull around 450-500km on a tank.

450km to 500km a tank - assuming that you fill up when you see the low fuel lamp kick on, which usually means there is a good 8-13 liters of gasoline left - that would work out to be about 27-31mpg (US gallons). Which is not too far from what the normal specs are at. Car might just need a good running to clear it out, especially if it sat for that long of time. I wouldn't be surprised if the plugs are fouled or MAF sensor has grease or grime fouling the sensing wires. They will still look OK, but not be 100% - dealership generally won't worry about it unless something throws a CEL.

450km to 500km a tank - assuming that you fill up when you see the low fuel lamp kick on, which usually means there is a good 8-13 liters of gasoline left - that would work out to be about 27-31mpg (US gallons). Which is not too far from what the normal specs are at. Car might just need a good running to clear it out, especially if it sat for that long of time. I wouldn't be surprised if the plugs are fouled or MAF sensor has grease or grime fouling the sensing wires. They will still look OK, but not be 100% - dealership generally won't worry about it unless something throws a CEL.

Check the oil level too, because some 2000+ VVTi engine corolla burns oil. If your car is running low on oil, it can effect MPG.

ever_green

no there is no oil burning issue fortunatelly. currentlly I'm low on fuel with 420km since last fill up. I used 89 octane. will see how it goes. I'm going to definatelly going to use a cleaner next fill up.

I have a good condition 2000 Toyota Corolla VE 4spd Auto with only 100,000km on it. I have done all oil changes and other maintainance consistently in the past years. The car is running on 4 all season michelin tires kept at 32psi all times. I just took it to toyota for regular maintainance and nothing special came up and toyota claims my car is in perfect condition. My brother drives the car now that he has his licence. He started complaining about fuel economy as soon has he started driving it and saying he pulled only about 400-450km on a 50L tank. I was surprised because i pull more (~500km) on my V6 Acura TL which has a slightly larger fuel tank. So I decided to take the corolla for a week and see if i will pull any better mileage. After filling it up at the gas station yesterday I record 9.2l/100km or 25mpg fuel consumption. I traveled about 50% highway and 50% city. Im surprised at such low milage. I mean i pull 23mpg on my V6 TL for the same travel which is not that much worst. Is this normal for a '00 corolla?

You have a VE which has a 3 speed automatic transmission not 4 speed. 26-30 mpg sounds about right for this transmission.

ever_green

You have a VE which has a 3 speed automatic transmission not 4 speed. 26-30 mpg sounds about right for this transmission.

No its a 4spd auto with overdrive. L1 - L2 - OD - 4th gear. if i disable overdrive it goes up to 3spd only. canadian VE have 4spd. i made sure of that when i bought it. if you don't bellieve its listed as 4spd here:

http://www.auto123.c...arid=1006100501

Ok so i got the results from last fill up and its better.

36L of gas for 443Km which gives me 8.1L/100km or 29MPG on 89 octane fuel. This seems to be an improvement of about 3-4 mpg. im not sure if its the 89 octane or what. anyway today i added the fuel injector cleaner before filling it up with 91 octane shell v-power. will see how much milage my brother gets this time. 29mpg is not good enough for me. 29 is for city and i had lots of highway about 60%. so ill see if i can get near to 32mpg at least. but at least now i know there isnt any significant problems.

ever_green

oh 1 more thing, the car has started smell funny since i started using the higher octane fuel. it smells like i don't know... heated metal and plastic???

I have 2000 CE AT.

Family bought new 2000 Feb. and I've been driving it since 2002.

Has about 125,000

and as long as I can remember, my gas mileage has been very consistent.

when I drive more on Freeway/Highway, I get about 35-38MPG

running mostly on local, I get around 31-34

and those numbers are with lowest octane..in Cali I think it's 87.

even when I drive rough (fast acceleration, many stops and go) I rarely see below 30mpg.

never done any modification or anything similar.

just usual check ups with engine oil change

I do use one of those cheap 'fuel system cleaner' kinda thing once in a while.

I did get my tune-up (mostly for changing plugs) when my car hit 75,000 and 110,000

ever_green

Ok I have been keeping track of my fuel economy since I used half a bottle of injector cleaner with a full tank 91 octane gas. however it seems my fuel economy hasn't improved a bit. my latest result is 8.73L/100km or 27mpg and that's for about 80% city. the 27mpg is on 87 octane gas though which is bout same mileage with 91 octane gas. I'm gonna use the other half of the fuel injector cleaner bottle next week again and report back. so far I don't think my mpg are any good, I mean my dads suv gets 26mpg hwy.

ever_green

ok it's been over a month since I found my corolla to have poor fuel economy. I have used 1 bottle and a half of detergents with my gas so far. I used about a full tank of 91 octane as well once to clean out the engine. just measured fuel mileage again today and it came at an abysmal 9L/100km or 26MPG for 87 octane gasoline. I even drove more highway this time but still 50% city. When I took it to Toyota they said they didn't find any problems and to further investigate they wanted to charge me $80 diagnostics.

Also keep in mind of the winter blend of gas that is being used now. Not uncommon to see anywhere from 10%-25% drop in fuel economy, with all these oxygenates that they add in attempt to clean up emissions. Make sure the tires properly inflated, check oil levels - consider running a synthetic motor oil (I've noticed about a 2-3% gain in MPG, since I switched).

Another possibility, is the O2 sensor is "lazy" - at a point where it is still working, just not working very well. Generally will not throw a CEL, have to backprobe the sensor to see if it reading correctly.