It was bad, my car miles per gallon was of course was down to 23-27 miles per gallon. Having been double that in my best moments, I certainly tried not to think about that to prevent self-torture.
So, it was time to use the other 2 Monroe struts I'd bought 7 years ago. I had bought all 4 on a buy 3 get 1 free with rebate and it took that long for them to go bad on my front suspension, lol. Once installed the difference was positively amazing. My car got an immediate 30 miles per gallon. A long way to go back from once I came, but it was a start.
Trying to coast down hill in neutral still didn't speed up my car for my miles per gallon, but at least I could maintain speed. My wheel bearings were still cutting into my car's miles per gallon for sure. I wanted 2 replaced and they only thought 1 needed replacing. Yes, I'll go back and get this fixed. They're an honorable shop. It's just that the Auto Technician didn't see the point without it being totally shot. They were about to close, so I didn't want to argue the point. Wheel Bearings, roughed up just a little will really hurt you. Months later it clicked. I tried greasing the old wheel bearing, but it was too late. It's like my neighbor said once they're making a little noise it's too late. (Regreasing was better on the short run, I didn't get for sure a car miles per gallon boost, but my my numbers didn't dip as much.)
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| Nearly 5 years later the springs had to be replaced too. Notice the extra coil in the new one? |
miles per gallon was city driving), but still I was getting like 33 or 34 car miles per gallon on the freeway before.
By the way, critical note to all. NEVER just replace an axle. They go bad because motor mounts are bad (at least check the motor mounts). $1,000 dollars later, (shop kept guaranteeing the first $400 of work for the axle which kept breaking, but they had to drop the transmission to replace the transmission mount (you can call it a motor mount, does the same thing)), the axle stopped breaking.
See Weapon R Dragon Intake Review for what I did next. :)
See what I did before: Weapon R Dragon Intake Review
2 years later I'm replacing the front and rear motor mounts, one or both of which was replaced above. The both look up as motor mounts for my engine, but the both attach to the transmission. I'm sourcing the top passenger side motor mount and that one only looks up if I use the word transmission mount. Funny right? Well, I'm replacing that and the other passenger motor mount next. You see the motor mounts are good enough, but the engine isn't as solid now with my 2 new ones as it was before at the time of this article, so it's time to finish replacing them all.
Here's part 2 embeded and as a link parts 2 and 3 (part 3 will be further edited for it's official release):
by AutoBravado
