Piston Slap: A Rather Thirsty Escort?

TTAC Commentator Weltron writes:

Hi Sajeev!

The car I am writing about today is my winter beater, which is a 1999 Ford Escort SE sedan which says it has a tick over 155,000 miles. The problem I’m having with it is it it getting dreadful gas mileage. My average tank is about 19 miles to the gallon (in comparison that is what my twin turbo straight six Volvo gets around town). Over the winter I replaced both of the o2 sensors and got a marginal improvement (about .4 mpg).

And here’s the kicker: the dumb thing runs perfectly. No error codes or anything. Idles smooth and everything (well as far as Escort refinement goes). When I go on the highway (which is fairly often) I can see upward of 21… If I’m lucky.

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  • Rna65689660 For Los Angeles, this is super cheap housing. For it surely will be not going anywhere very often. Park it at Wallyworld for 3 days, then move to the next lot.
  • MaintenanceCosts This is half a car, because half the time it will be in the shop.
  • Mm3 ^^^ Sounds like a bunch of dudes who have never owned a Land Rover/Range Rover
  • 2ACL The seller is opting out of the 200,000 mile overhaul, and so should anyone else whose wrenching proficiency isn't seasoned dealership tech-level at a minimum. I can't think of an appropriate use for this other than a left-field choice for an overlanding rig project. There's already an expectation of spending lots of money on one, and some of the potentially troublesome systems like the air suspension will be addressed, if not discarded outright.
  • FreedMike Sounds like an excellent way to waste a ton of money.