Caravan and gas mileage

From : jim dompier

Q: hello everybody i just bought a new 2006 caravan sxt. this is the 3rd new caravan for me in 9 years. its got the 3.3 liter v-6 engine thats supposed to get 19 mpg city and 26mpg highway. i figure with the 3/4 city and 1/4 highway that i drive it should get at least 20mpg. well its not! ive only ran 3 tanks of fuel through it with only 600 miles on it but i got 13.5mpg the last time and today when i filled up it was 11.3mpg. this is terrible and i know something has to be wrong. is it because the engine isnt broken in yet or is it something else like maybe the engine timing is off or something else. what do you think i sure hope its just because its not broken in yet or something simple like that. help please !! aloha jim .

Replies:

From : bdk

planetparadise@hotmail.com says... hello everybody i just bought a new 2006 caravan sxt. this is the 3rd new caravan for me in 9 years. its got the 3.3 liter v-6 engine thats supposed to get 19 mpg city and 26mpg highway. i figure with the 3/4 city and 1/4 highway that i drive it should get at least 20mpg. well its not! ive only ran 3 tanks of fuel through it with only 600 miles on it but i got 13.5mpg the last time and today when i filled up it was 11.3mpg. this is terrible and i know something has to be wrong. is it because the engine isnt broken in yet or is it something else like maybe the engine timing is off or something else. what do you think i sure hope its just because its not broken in yet or something simple like that. help please !! aloha jim lol i would bet there is something wrong you get almost the exact same milage that my 2003 ram with a hemi and 3.92 gears gets around town! it will get better as time goes by though. is there black soot in the exhaust pipe i had an old camaro that ran fine but suddenly began chugging down gas at an amazing rate. there was black smoke not much and soot in the tailpipe. just about every sensor on it had blown along with the cpu. it was running on the limp home mode full rich. i was really thankful for the 50k emissions warranty it would have been about 8-900 bucks in parts alone. it just cost me 25 bucks for the diagnostic. good luck. bdk .

From : Annonymous

the dealer gave me an 06 caravan as a complimentary loaner when i had some major work done on my truck recently. i drove it 4 days 159 miles total and went through 13 gallons of gas. you do the math. granted coming from a v8-powered ram into this very under-powered-feeling caravan i did have somewhat of a tendancy to stomp on it from time to time. i even asked when i returned it if it was a 4-cyl. nope it was a 6. planetparadise@hotmail.com writes hello everybody i just bought a new 2006 caravan sxt. this is the 3rd new caravan for me in 9 years. its got the 3.3 liter v-6 engine thats supposed to get 19 mpg city and 26mpg highway. i figure with the 3/4 city and 1/4 highway that i drive it should get at least 20mpg. well its not! ive only ran 3 tanks of fuel through it with only 600 miles on it but i got 13.5mpg the last time and today when i filled up it was 11.3mpg. this is terrible and i know something has to be wrong. is it because the engine isnt broken in yet or is it something else like maybe the engine timing is off or something else. what do you think i sure hope its just because its not broken in yet or something simple like that. help please !! aloha jim .

From : gary glaenzer

supposed to get as in epa estimate as in bullshit figures face it the makers have figured out how to run the required epa tests to get the best figures out of em if you want to see pissed off people ask one of the new hybrid owners who will need to drive their vehicles 15 years with gas at 4 bucks a gallon to break even............. hello everybody i just bought a new 2006 caravan sxt. this is the 3rd new caravan for me in 9 years. its got the 3.3 liter v-6 engine thats supposed to get 19 mpg city and 26mpg highway. i figure with the 3/4 city and 1/4 highway that i drive it should get at least 20mpg. well its not! ive only ran 3 tanks of fuel through it with only 600 miles on it but i got 13.5mpg the last time and today when i filled up it was 11.3mpg. this is terrible and i know something has to be wrong. is it because the engine isnt broken in yet or is it something else like maybe the engine timing is off or something else. what do you think i sure hope its just because its not broken in yet or something simple like that. help please !! aloha jim .

From : clay

indeed. mileage should improve somewhat after your engine breaks in but thats ridiculous. i have an 05 town and country with the 3.3v6. it has about 50k miles. i get very close to the epa figures about 16-18mpg in town and 25-27mpg on the highway. before that i had an 02 grand caravan with the same engine but got about 2mpg less than that on the highway. agreed on the inflated epa hybrid numbers. for example i have heard several places that 45mpg overall is a real-world figure for the prius. i got 13.5mpg the last time and today when i filled up it was 11.3mpg. this is terrible .

From : jim dompier

thanks for all your posts... yea i agree it should be better and no its not running rich. it seems to be running just fine. ill ask the dealer on saturday and see what they say but in all the cars ive had in the past 15 years they get pretty much the exact mileage they state maybe a slightly worse but very close. thanks again id appreciate more if there is more and ill be sure to post the results back here when i find out whats up. maybe someones stealing my gas aloha jim planetparadise@hotmail.com says... hello everybody i just bought a new 2006 caravan sxt. this is the 3rd new caravan for me in 9 years. its got the 3.3 liter v-6 engine thats supposed to get 19 mpg city and 26mpg highway. i figure with the 3/4 city and 1/4 highway that i drive it should get at least 20mpg. well its not! ive only ran 3 tanks of fuel through it with only 600 miles on it but i got 13.5mpg the last time and today when i filled up it was 11.3mpg. this is terrible and i know something has to be wrong. is it because the engine isnt broken in yet or is it something else like maybe the engine timing is off or something else. what do you think i sure hope its just because its not broken in yet or something simple like that. help please !! aloha jim lol i would bet there is something wrong you get almost the exact same milage that my 2003 ram with a hemi and 3.92 gears gets around town! it will get better as time goes by though. is there black soot in the exhaust pipe i had an old camaro that ran fine but suddenly began chugging down gas at an amazing rate. there was black smoke not much and soot in the tailpipe. just about every sensor on it had blown along with the cpu. it was running on the limp home mode full rich. i was really thankful for the 50k emissions warranty it would have been about 8-900 bucks in parts alone. it just cost me 25 bucks for the diagnostic. good luck. bdk .