very low MPG
 

2012 camaro 2ss m6

getting about 10mpg combined, it has 65,000 and admittedly the last 2 years have been crazy lost a job, wife, moved across the country bought a home, etc i have neglected my poor car lol. so i haven't done any real maintenance at all other than oil changes. i am thinking fuel filter replacement and spark plugs might be a good place to start? my k&n could probably use a cleaning as well. let me know if you guys have any suggestions; i don't want to go overboard on things that probably won't help much. thanks!

my 12 isn't great either that I just purchased. going to be doing what I can to boost it up abit.

Hows it running?
Hard starts, surging, any smoke?

You don't have a serviceable fuel filter in your car, it's built into the tank.


I would check the plugs, but you also need to get a data scanner hooked up to the car to see what is going on

My early '10 SS has 67,000 miles and after 12 years I have done 17 oil changes and that's about it other than tires, batteries, etc.
It gets about 16 MPG locally and 23-24 on the highway just as it always has. It's never been abused in any way.
I believe in "If It's Not Broke, Don't Fix It."

are you talking about a typical obd2 scanner like you can get at autozone, or something else (i thought those only reported check engine lights, etc).

btw the car runs fine, i don't notice any issues with it and doesn't smell like it's running rich or anything like that.

Something else. Something that monitors your sensors and sees what the car is commanding. 10 mpg is very low, could have a stuck open injector, could have the car commanding way too much fuel, etc. You need a data logger hooked up and looking at what the computer is trying to do.

Get rid of that filter!

what filter do you recommend? do they make a paper cone filter? the one that came with the cold air intake kit had the K&N filter.

Get your data scanner and monitor your MAF warm at idle with the a/c off. Should see right around 7.5gps. then look at your fuel trim, if it's less than 10% +/- it's operating as designed. Try calculating the old fashioned way, fill the tank and keep track of the miles driven then refill and do the math. Also, alcohol content in your fuel can effect fuel economy as well but 10mpg doesnt seem possible regardless.

Put the factory intake and filter back in (unless you have a tune for that CAI).

can someone link me to a scanner that would work? would a regular mechanic/dealer be able to do this for me (and not charge me something insane)?

it's been on for a decade with no issue on mileage until recently, not to mention when i moved across the country i tossed the stock one anyway.

I have a CAI and a little tune, avg 20.8mpg on my 100 or so mile per day commute.

I was getting dead nuts 21 but we “fiddled” with the software a little more and I lost a little.

FYI, if your going by what the car is telling you, a skewed fuel level sensor will effect the algorithm in the ecm and falsely report mpg. If the MAF and fuel trim parameters are within spec, you don't have a fuel consumption problem on a basically stock engine.