car care

[airgunandy]

My old Neon's been dropping it's gas mileage (slipping down to about 27mpg) and pick up. It has about 147,000 miles. Everything is computerized, so what could be done to fix it? I thought for months and then it hit me. THE SPARK PLUGS!! The engine has no points or distributor, but it still has good old fashioned spark plugs that I could replace myself.
So, I did. And WOW the performance is way up now! Back were it was when I bought the car. The traffic light goes green and I mash the accelerator and off we go. Man this little ol' Plymouth is fun again.
The down side is the gas mileage still hasn't improved much. I guess if I could get my foot out of the throttle it might help!  :)

[North Pack]

Does Chrysler still build Plymouth's??? .... Way "back when" I had a Plymouth Fury - loved it, pure power, style and the chicks couldn't resist it. Looking at these prices, - wish I had held on to it.
.
http://autos.aol.com/used-list/year-1957-1958/make1-Plymouth/model1-Fury

[airgunandy]

No mo Plymouths. Twenty-ought one was the last year and that's what year mine is. I'm hoping it becomes a collectable and some guy will offer me a dollar a mile for it!! :)
Plymouth used to be a pretty good make. I see where GM has dropped Pontiac now. Good bye to another classic American make.
This post was meant to be in the Backroom not here, but it wouldn't take much to politicize what has happened to America's auto industry...

[SDale]

You could also clean or replace the Oxygen Sensor. There's typically 2 of them. One before the pre-cat and one after. The first one in the stream is the one you wanna yank. The second one is just to tell the ECU if the cat is working or not.

Usually when the O2 sensor gets all crudded up, it'll get "Lazy" and it takes a while for it to register rich or lean. A quick cleaning of the tip with a stainless steel brush usually does it. But sometimes a replacment is necessary.

All ya need is a wire brush and a 7/8" wrench with a small section cut outta the box end or you can buy an O2 sensor socket from the parts house for about $20 bucks.

[Bentong]

I had a plymouth laser and loved it..only problem was the speedometer did not have enough numbers to the right.