Ray: Wow. That's some epically lousy mileage, Anne. Congratulations. According to our metric-to-English conversion chart, you're getting about 2.5 miles per gallon. That low enough to make a 2003 Escalade jealous.
We don’t work on a lot of African RAV4s, Anne. While all the RAV4s we see are fuel-injected, it’s possible yours is carbureted to make it simpler to fix. We don’t know.
But here are a few things that come to mind: If you have a carburetor, one thing I’d suspect is a very filthy air filter. That won’t affect your mileage if the car is fuel-injected, but without computerized engine management, the dust could clog up the air filter enough to throw off the fuel-air mixture and cause gasoline to pour into the carburetor. If you remove the air filter and hold it up to the sun, you should be able to see light coming through it - looking the long way. If you can’t, it’s plugged up.
Then you’d call Kigali Toyota and get a new filter. Or, if that’s not an option, you’d find someone with an air compressor, blow the dust out of the filter and reuse it. You may have to do that every few weeks if it’s as dusty as you say it is.
It’s simple enough to try that as a test. You replace the filter, or clean it well, put it back in and see what your mileage is.
But do resist the temptation to take out the filter and leave it out. Because then all that red dust will scratch your cylinder walls and ruin the engine. Then, for every kilometer, you’ll be burning one liter of fuel and one liter of oil.
If the air filter’s not plugged up, then the mechanical fuel pump could be the culprit. The diaphragms in those pumps can fail, sending 25 percent of the fuel to the carburetor and the other 75 percent onto the ground. And the stuff that’s on the ground won’t help your gas mileage.
If your RAV4 is indeed fuel-injected, then you’ve got to look for a leak somewhere. Or a thief. Maybe a locking gas cap will solve your problem?
Good luck, Anne.
Post-purchase “cleaning” procedure remains a mystery
Dear Car Talk:
What is it that car dealers do to a car once I've signed the papers but before I drive it off the lot? This has happened during my last two car purchases, a Buick and a Ford: They take the car in the back, out of sight, and they keep it quite a while. They tell me they are "just cleaning it up." But it doesn't look any cleaner. Are they removing something I purchased on the car? Are they dismantling a theft monitor, something required by the government or their insurance company? What are they doing to my car once I have purchased it? Thanks for any insight into this puzzle. Love your column, love your show, great sense of humor, and I trust your opinions. Thanks. - Anita
Ray: What are they doing? They're depreciating it by about 30 percent.
Seriously, I don’t know what they’re doing. I’ve never been present during this mysterious process.
I’m guessing that they do wash it. And they probably clean the glass, inside and out. They remove the plastic coverings that protect interior parts from getting coffee stains on them while other people test-drive the car.
They probably check the tire pressure and the battery output. They may set the navigation system for your region so the first time you use it, it doesn’t ask you, “What part of Manitoba would you like to visit?”
They put your license plates on it, and make sure the oil and windshield-washer fluid are topped off. They may install whatever last-minute accessories they talked you into - like the down-filled velour floor mats. They even might drive it down the street and put some gas in it.
If the car’s been sitting on the lot for a while, it also might need a software update, or even a technical service bulletin repair taken care of.
But I don’t know for sure, Anita. Maybe some of our readers who are dealers can tell us exactly what they do during this final delivery inspection. Fellas? Gals? Does my description sound about right?
Visit the Car Talk website at www.cartalk.com.
About the Author