hey guys... im new to your neon forum but im always banging around in the 2gen ram forum...

my wife drives an 02 neon auto we picked up for pretty cheep...bought it almost a 1 and 1/2 ago.. its a plan jane neon with no bells or wistles... nothing is power .. has a/c and a cd player.. a few

at 55,000 miles i had to get a new transmision put in b/c the tranny cooler in the radiator broke and mixed both fluids into both components.... tranny pretty much blew up.. its his a common problem? doesnt really matter since ive already replaced it

well the truck (my ram) is up on jacks for a bit... doin a ton of stuff to it.. and ive been driving the wifes car aroudn...i noticed shes been getting some CRAPY gas mileage... the manual says it has a 12.5 gallon tank and we are getting around 200 to 220 miles to the tank.. compare that to the search i did im way low on the mpg side

since i really dont enjoy working on anything less the 8 cylenders and weighes more then a tank..im not sure how to go about upper her mpg.. ill pretty much do anything except a performance exhaust mainly b.c the sound doesnt apeal to me... any suggestions would be awesome

also.. the engine has a bad vibration to it... feel it throught the stearing wheel...espeically when its cold... doesnt nock or make any strange noises... just vibrates bad... is this common? anything i can do to help that? kinda anoying

another thing i noticed is that when we go over some good bumps it sounds like im bottoming out and hitting the bump stops.. kinda like a metal hitting metal sound .. mainly sounds like its coming from the front left strut... any ideas?

the car is bone stock and nothing added to it..

well any suggestions would be great...

 

im getting about the same mileage in my car too... its most likely something normal..

 

no one else has any suggestions?

 

Run some cleaner through the motor and clean it out, do an oil change and use 5W30 Instead of 10W30. Buy a cheapo CAI with a K&N filter to help. Check your air pressure in the tires, the usual.

As far as the vibration in the steering wheel I dont think thats anything too uncomon. You banging when you "bottom out" is probably your shocks goin to *** on you, hope this helps.