Hello, my name is Joe.

I just recently purchased a 2003 neon SXT(paid $8,000) with 12K on it. I had been checking the forums here because I feel like my gas milage isn't what it should be.

The car is fun to drive except I have a dash rattle that drives me insane when driving on rough roads and I am currently getting 180(driving hard)-220(if I'm lucky). To me this seems a bit low. With my 1993 Nissan Altima I was getting great gas milage. Both are sticks, but I ditched the Altima because it had 300,000 miles on it.

Could it be the coil, wires, ect.?, It's not terrible but I miss the power and gas milage I was getting with the Altima. To bad it had electrical trouble or I just would have kept it. I will say that even the stock neons handle great and I want to mod the hell out of this car but not till I can figure out why my numbers are low. Blame my driving but I could stretch the Altima past 320 on a fill up.

I hate to see others having this issue, but at least I'm not the only one.

Thanks,
Joe B.

P.S. If you have a 2003 or 2004 neon get it on a lift from time to time to check the lower A-arm bushing. I had one fail at 14,000 miles and a 2004 SE was at the dealer for the same thing. Made them replace both sides.

 

concerning the bushings, I noticed when i was doing a brake paint job, i noticed my bushings were about shot, I wanted to have the dealer change them being the car only has 24k on it, but they said it was because of my wheels. How jacked is that!!!

 

hmm right not im at 256mi and the most ive gotten was around this many and im a little under a quart left...i should be getting real good mpg this week.

 

I get about 300 miles to a tank on my 1st gen. I drive real hard and still get that. There is got to be somethin wrong if you are only gettin 200. Try a general tune-up, plugs, wires, air filter, injector cleaner, see what that does.

 

But shouldn't they have to look and see whats wrong? The cars only got 3700 miles on it. I got the extended coverage.

 

Dude I get better then that with my altima. Not by much though I get 26 an a daily basis.

 

My mechanic believes it could be a lazy O2 censor or something related. Filter is fine, plugs and wires are fine, coil seems fine. It's a pain in the *** to get the dealer to do anything. I swear they hold on to the car for a day or two and then give it back to me. Hopefully I can fix this.

As far as the A-arm bushings go.... not only did they replace the bushings, but they replaced both lower A-arms as well. I should post pics. I believe this to be a material defect and I would fight with the dealer a bit more if I was you. I have stock wheels and the left one was completely torn out, right one was starting to tear. I don't race the car. You probably won't have much luck, but somethings not right. I only checked it out because I was going to put black 17x7's on the car.

I am going to go ahead and get some NGK plugs and some new wires.

Joe B.

 

35 mpg this week nukkas

 

Will what I was thinking about doing was putting my steelies back on there and going to another dealer and see what they say. (Yes, I kept my stock wheels and tires, they only had 15000 miles on them.)

 

Just drove my 04 from Phily to Wildwood NJ. and back yesterday.
and i got just over 300 miles to the tank before the light came on.

Cars got 7000 miles on it.

If I were you, I'd take that bad boy back to the dealer quick like.

Tell them it's just not runnun right, and getting really crappy gas mileage!!!

Just my 02$

Jeff