My wife and I just bought an 08 Sebring touring sedan. Single owner. Impeccable maintenance record. Even spoke with it's only previous owner. They never had a poor fuel economy issue. It's getting between 13-16miles per gallon. Why???

 

Could be lots of reasons for bad gas mileage. Some could be driving habits: These could include letting the car warm up and idle for extended periods, riding the brake pedal, jackrabbit starts, lugging heavy loads in the car/trunk, short trips.

Some could be mechanical: dragging brake caliper, parking brake on, low tire pressure.

You say that you "just bought" the car. Have you driven it enough to accurately test the gas mileage between known fill-ups? Sometimes, if the car isn't parked on a flat and level surface, the filling of the gas tank can vary and this will throw off your measurement of gas mileage, especially if it's only one tankful.

 

Driving habits are simply put: driving miss daisy... we have two kiddos who ride every time the car goes anywhere. Brakes are fine. Tire pressure is fine. We have done average mpg for the last 4 tanks we've filled up. We live on the panhandle of Fl. There's nothing but flat level places to park. I've done an extreme amount of work on my 96 jeep :-) and am very familiar with virtually anything that has or could go wrong with it. This Sebring is a whole other animal apparently...

 

Don't know what engine you have but with either the 4 or the 6, you should be getting better mileage than that. Is the transmission behaving properly?

Feel each wheel with your hand after a good trip. See if one is warm.

How is the engine power? If you are burning that much gas, one would think something is not working right. PCV valve? EGR? Codes?

 

are you doing the math or are you letting teh on board computer do it?

 

I have the 2.4L 4cylinder. I am doing the math. This model doesn't do the math for me... after 210 miles driven we put almost 16gallons in the tank. Transmission runs smooth as butter.

 

im guessing ac on all the time as well? that droops
a 4 cyl down about 4 mpg

 

I bought an 05 2.7l Sebring Convertible and experienced the same as you are, but it was in the colder months so I thought it was that. Tranny seemed ok except for one gear when it was cold, second to third. I thought nothing of it. It ended up being the Transmission as the problem as it just went out one day. No forward gears worked only reverse. Happened out of no where too. It was a used car when I bought it and was replaced for $500 since it was under warranty and passed the car fax warranty. Works perfect now and MPG is around 24-25 now.