Scangauge...difficult to install?

I'm considering getting one of these since it's too expensive to fill up my tank and then fill it again, running those numbers to see my mpg. Does anyone have one of these hooked up on the Riv? Is it a hard install, or something someone could do over the weekend?

I'm not sure if they make one for OBDI cars , but if you can find one , all you do is hook it up to the scan port and figure out a way to mount it and hide the wiring. shouldn't be that hard.

Scan port, that's that connector thingy under the driver's side dash, right?

So wait, it won't work on my car? Is there anything like this that will?

Correct on the first question.

If you search for OBDI Scan guage you might find something. I don't know.

Nah, I already tried google. This sucks, I have no idea what kind of gas mileage I'm getting between my dumbass gauge and my $91 full tank.

Its simple , fill up , drive around till youre near empty , fill up again , divied miles driven by gallons put in your tank to fill it up. Its not perfect but it'll give you an idea within 1 mpg i'd say.

Didn't you hear what I said? $91 tank. I can't afford to fill up my tank even once, let alone twice in a row. I know what to do, I just have no money to do it.

Just my humble opinion, but don't spend money on a scan gauge if it's difficult to even fill your tank. Aren't they over $200 for the Aeroforce gauge, that doesn't even work with OBDI? I thought you had told us at one time what kind of mpg's you were getting?

I agree with Dave to a good degree.

No gauge is going to accurately tell you fuel mileage w/o being part of the pcm calculations for load, fuel delivery etc etc. There are a lot of factors taken into the calculation for reasonably accurate mileage calculations.

I know not to get it, since it won't work with my OBD1 car. There's nothing for my setup anyway. I guess I'll never know...

Oh yeah, I said I was getting 31, just by going off my fuel gauge, which we all know is the biggest POS on this entire car. By the time the needle goes down from full to 3/4, I'm probably on 1/2 left. So I divided 3.5ish gallons(the needle was a little over a click over 3/4) by the 110 miles I had gotten and came up with 31.4mpg, which clearly shows that my gauge has a few problems.



Here's what happens from a full tank:

Over the course of about 100 miles, the needle slowly drops to the 3/4 mark.

Once there, it drops like a rock to the 1/2, and then stays there for about 2 weeks.

All of a sudden, I'll go out to start the car one day, usually after driving it somewhere to run an errand, and it'll be at the 1/4 mark.

As I drive, the needle will float back up to just under 1/2.

Then it drops quickly to under 1/4.

It gets into the gas light range, then comes back up, then goes back into the range, and either drops more or comes back up again, then drops more.

By the time it's between 1/2 and 1/4, I put whatever gas I can into it. I've only let it get so low as to see the gas light on twice in the time I've owned the car.

That's somewhat normal behavior for the needle. But like Bill and others have pointed out, It's not reliable to use the needle for mileage calculations, and buying a scan gauge isn't cheap.

The method for filling the tank and calculating from miles driven works, and you don't need to drain your tank to do it. Fill it up once, drive 5 miles, fill it up again, and divide 5 by the number of gallons consumed. However, if you drive more miles, you'll get a much more accurate reading for average mpg.

The way I see it, you're going to drive anyway. I don't see why it's so hard to monitor gas you're already using.

I think everyone's missing the point, I can't afford to fill the gas tank in order to do these calculations. I know exactly what to do, and was willing to spend the money on the scangauge only if it worked on the car. Birthday present. My birthday's August 9th, by the way.

Happy Birthday, Ilan. If it were me, I'd ask for a $250 gas card instead. I understand the desire to have a scan gauge, but it's useless if you can't afford gas.

I can afford gas, just never a full tank at once. I usually put $40 in at a time. Besides, I'm getting a Magellan Maestro 4250 for my birthday already, I'd have used money from my report card, final exam scores, and SAT scores for the scangauge.

If you don't drive for a week.. you can afford to fill. Or if you drive a little less each week, you will eventually have a full tank.

Bill got the idea try not to drive so much, coast as much as possible(Rivs are coasting cars), Scangauges are not the greatest thing to have, it nice but not my 250$ worth. Save up for a beater?

They're only $165, shipping included, from the official website.


I've been coasting a lot, trying some pulse and glide by accelerating to about 10 over the limit and sticking it in neutral until it goes about 5-10 under, depending on who's up my ass by then.

It's not really going to matter, because your car uses OBDI; you must use an OBDI-specific scan tool. OBDII scanners and gauges won't work.

If anyone is looking into the Scanguage II for $169, be aware that it doesn't support advanced GM parameters, including the most important: KR. It also doesn't have analog inputs like the Aeroforce gauge does. Here's another example of "you get what you pay for".

It's alright, I'm not getting one. Our next car will have a fuel economy readout built in, most likely, and we don't really care about knock in our Saturns. They're little, 87-burning 4-bangers.