Worst Fuel Economy of Any Car.... What's yours?

My '97 Porsche turbo gets about 16 MPG. The worst was a '95 Land Rover at 13 MPG.

 

1964 rambler station wagon. Great solid car. I couldn't afford to run it when gas was about .50/gallon. Sold it for a 1966 ford truck which was cherry, only used to haul hay on a ranch, but again, poor mileage. Next car 1963 chevy (impala?) super sport. Extremely cool car in great demand today with the low rider set.

 

I had a 1969 Toyota Landcruiser FJ40 manual that got rather poor mileage for a "small" six. I recall it was around 14-18 MPG imperial. That vehicle was a wind sock! Pushed air really well.

Then I got a 1979 Toyota Landcruiser FJ55 (wagon) manual. I kept making changes to improve mileage on it, including Mich. street tires. The best it ever did was 20 MPG imperial/20 l/100 km. The worst was around 12 MPG imperial.

Then there was a Subaru wagon manual, which got good mileage - 6 l/100 km, 8 in the winter. Kept it for seven years, but it was a little small for me.

Got a new 1990 Toyota 4Runner manual. It got an average of 13-14 l/100 km. Best 9.5, worst 17.

My 1993 Mazda RX-7 twin turbo makes over 300 HP. It gets pretty decent mileage on the highway, about 10 l/100 km, but not good in town, at 17 l/100 km. I'm tempted to measure it in tires per km as it will spin them up at will, and sometimes without will. With a top speed of about 300 km/hr and the ability to pull one G in corners, it's a car in search of a road worthy to drive on.

Even the anti-Prius (2001 Pathfinder) did better than the Landcruisers, and it had almost twice the HP! It got around 14-15 l/100 km average, worst 18, best 10.5. Funny, the anti-Prius was about 600 lbs heavier too. And was an automatic!

 

My first car was a 36 Plymouth. Yes I am getting old. Gas was cheap, around 16 to 20 cents a gallon. I din't worry about the MPG, but I had to carry a 2 gallon can of drain oil and a 5 gallon can of water to add between fill ups. I was still proud of my first car.

My present motor home gets better MPG than some of the cars in this thread, 8 to 9.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dfrost7 @ May 19 2007, 12:06 AM) [snapback]445504[/snapback]</div>

You're so right! I had either a '64 or '65 Plymouth Sport Fury. That WAS an awesome car! It could pull a loaded horse trailer. We bought it used for $700 and I drove it through high school, college and grad school. I don't think it ever broke down. I can still remember how it smelled (which was of vinyl, nothing objectionable). AFter I moved on to VWs, my father drove it as his "going to the country" car and he drove it forever. Then sold it to an employee who is probably still driving it.

The guy who sold it to us sold it because it had developed a rattle. The car he replaced it with was not nearly as reliable. Every time I see him, even now, he talks about how sorry he is that he let us have that car....

Who cared about mileage then? I think gas was under 50 cents.....

 

the worst fuel economy was dead even between the isuzu rodeo my dad had ( 13 to 14 mpg , used to get 17 mpg for a year ) and the Subaru XT6 turbo ( it was a boxer 6 ), like 10 mpg until the turbo siezed up.

 

Currently the worse fuel economy car is my Prius. Before the Prius it was a 2000 Volvo V70 T5 at about 25mpg.

In a couple of years I hope to be discussing which vehicle suffers the lowest miles per kWh.

 

Our second car is currently a Ford E-350 Chateau van with a V-10 and 4.10 gears. We get 9 MPG pulling our camper with it. Not very green, to say the least!

 

Toyota Tundra with the crappy little V-8 barely managed 15mpg unloaded, 11 towing the boat. My Chevy diesel gets better than 17 empty, 16 with the boat, and 12 with the camper and boat.

edit: a quick vote for the worst mileage I've seen. I followed a Chevy dually w/454 down the freeway. He had environmental plates that read "8mpg". :lol:

 

My worst mileage car was a '92 Range Rover, which averaged about 13mpg. And I don't think it really had all that much room for stuff than my Prius.

 

Had a 1975 Cordoba when I was in grad school......the gas gauge was broken, so we filled it every 180 miles, or else we ran out. It had a 24 gallon tank.

You do the math................

 

Hmmmm. I was given a free rental of a Chevy Silverado 4x4 extended bed during a car repair. The mpg was so bad I turned it in for another free rental, too bad that was an Aveo. The Silverado 4x4 with the BIGGER engine. It was rated at 12 in the city, 16 highway and got about 12 mpg total mixed driving.

 

We still have a 1996 Land Rover Discovery. This beast weighs 5000 pounds, has an old Buick-derived V8 engine, and gets 12-14 mpg.

 

7.5 mpg. A totally underpowered 1973 Mercury Montego LX 4-door with a 302 (4.9L) V-8 and 3-speed automatic. It was in perfect condition but was so underpowered that I drove the thing with my foot to the floor a lot of the time. I had this car in high school in 1980-1981. I had no money and per chart below, gasoline was near today's prices in inflation corrected dollars. Ouch.

 

Most recent vehicle, the 05 Dodge Ram Hemi...9-10 mpg city...13 hwy. Now i go 60

 

Re: Worst Fuel Economy of Any Car.... What's yours?

Well, despite the fog of time's passage, I remember;

In high school in the mid-60's drove a '40 Ford panel truck, souped up
with a '53 Mercury? flathead. Gas was, maybe .30/gal. I don't know
what mileage it got. More than likely, it got "yardage."

In 1976, I was able to buy a '77MY, brand-spanking-new 4 door sedan,
Firethorn red, OEM "brown paper wrapper" Chevy Nova police car. (Its
a long story. I couldn't afford a 4 door BMW Bavaria to replace a 2 door
2002, needed due the arrival of first child, car seat access, etc. I could
however wait 6 months. It was an add-on the the San Leandro, CA
police dept. order.)

The car came with a LM1 -- Corvette I was told -- 350-cid, four-barrel
carbureted V-8 with three-speed Turbo Hydro-Matic and a positraction
3.08 rear end, ~170 HP, IIRC. For a few years speedos were limited to
showing I think 65 MPH. Mine went up to 120.

Anyway, if I drove sedately, using only the first two of the carburetor's
four barrels, I could manage ~12 MPG. However, if I was feeling a
little frisky, I'd stomp on the gas and the other two barrels with monster
jets opened. The car went like a scalded cat and handled better than a Z28
Camaro. The gas gauge could, I swear, be observed moving downward
as the speedo went up. I wasn't getting "mileage" at these times, not
even the aforementioned "yardage..."

I suspect that I was getting mere "footage."

But, what the hey! The mechanicals were bulletproof. I drove it for 14
years and spent only ~$1K on it beyond routine maintenance. Gas was
between ~$.60 and $1.15/gal. in that period. The money I didn't spend
on buying new cars put my daughter -- the one who started it all --
through college. No complaints from me.

FWIW, more on my gone-but-not-forgotten, much loved "Police Special:"
Nova Police Cars

 

I have always owned tiny station wagons, so I am not sure I have ever averaged under 24 MPG. (2001 Subaru Forester) Earlier this year I had an accident in my Prius and drove my bosses 2011 Toyota tundra for a week, I could not coax more than 17 MPG average out of it. 1/3 what I get in the Prius.

 

Re: Worst Fuel Economy of Any Car.... What's yours?

Old test results are interesting.

As nice a car as that was then, it was only a hair quicker to 60 and 5 mph faster than a Gen 3 Prius. I would be willing to lay down some money saying that a Prius would out handle and out brake it by a generous margin and leave it way behind of a road race course if a fair test could be arranged. The gradual improvements in overall automotive performance over the decades are remarkable when you look at a 40 year gap between similar market position cars.