So lately (like the past couple months) I have been getting horrible gas mileage, and I mean HORRIBLE.. It's to the point where I'm filling up once a week because I'm only getting 250 miles to a tank. For a while I was driving on really low tire pressure, Pooh Bear fixed that for me, and the next tank was a little better. I have tried filling up at different locations to see if I'm just getting bad gas, but I dont think that is it, becasue it doesn't matter where I go anymore. Me and my Dad tore into my car tonight to look at the air filter to see how dirty it is, it was pretty bad, but not bad enough to suck down my gas as bad as it has been. I need suggestions on what else could be making me have such horrible gas mileage. I can't afford the gas in this car anymore, any ideas, suggestions are appreciated.

when was the oil changed last??? what about spark plugs? how many miles on the car?

Oil was changed in December, and it was actually right after I had the oil changed that it started doing this... There is only 10k on the car

what oil are u using? 10K ?? wow let me think about this... what gas rating are u using? mabe need a new fuel filter but not after 10k

So how much mileage were you getting before?

I really have no idea what they put in it.. I have always taken it to Burt to get it done, just because I get a discount...
I have always put 91 in it
And I was getting close to 350 to a tank before... so a huge difference. I'm not sure on the actual MPG... let's see I put 15.035 gallons in it today and it was just under a quarter of a tank, and the mileage was 248.1 so you do the math, because I dont do math..

A lot better than me. Why the complaint

because I can't afford this anymore, I bought this car/truck/suv because it had great gas mileage ratings. I only drive maybe 15 miles to work, 15 miles home.. I dont really drive anywhere else, except when the club meets up. And I'm still filling up once a week, and with the gas prices just climbing, I just cant afford this and need to figure out what happened to the nice gas mileage I was getting a few months ago.

So you would usually fill up every 2.5-3 weeks than. And now every week. Strange.

Are you getting any Check Engine Lights? I had a defective Purge Control Solenoid Valve that caused my car to run too lean and therefore caused the ECU to compensate by increasing the fuel trims... meaning the ECU adds fuel. This would cause you to lose gas mileage. One obvious indicator of this problem is if your car has trouble starting after you refuel. The reason being that fuel vapors back up through the stuck open purge valve into your intake... causing the engine to be too rich at start up.

nope, I haven't had any CEL yet.. I was having problems with starting it back in Sept/October it would start up fine then after a couple minutes would act like it was going to die, like a short in fuel. But everytime this happened I had a full tank of gas or close to it. So my husband took it into his work (Burt Mazda) and they checked it, did all the recalls on the car, and I had the power loss that most of the other speed 3's and 6's were experiencing. I never had a problem with my gas after that, but now after I had this last oil change it just keeps getting worse.

If you are experiencing a 30% drop in fuel economy, I would take it to the dealership and have them look at it. Going from 350 miles per tank to 250 is a huge drop.

Purge Control Solenoid Valve i would go with that ive seen is happen with out the light going on. take it to burt

your air filter was filthy at 10k miles? mmmm yes changing that out will help. how about some fuel system cleaner? fuel injector cleaner? perhaps get rid of
that 50 lb sub box you have in the back

Maybe you should change your fuel filter. heh