some valuable info for 88-02 prizm's, corollas with the 3 speed auto
 

i just recently bought the 97 prizm 3 speed auto, i only bought it because of the price and the fact that it runs so well. and this car will be used mostly in the city. i wouldnt really touch this with a 10 foot pole because of the transmission, but the car had a rebuilt transmission 50k miles ago, no rust, working a/c, 160k, clean title, 2 new tires, and a cd player,scanguage compatable (OBD2) all for 1250.

im not really the kind of guy that likes power all the time, i even thought my dx civic 5 speed with the 1.5 had more power than i needed. but this car lacked power at acceleration from the start, and passing power on the highway. its really that bad. the 3 gears are spead out so far apart its not even funny.


i borrowed a friends scanguage2 to check the rpm's


50 mph, its at 2100 rpm (maybe this is at 2nd gear, i have no way of knowing)
55- 2740 rpm
60 - 3070 rpm
65- 3255 rpm
70 - 3520 rpm

at 60 mph, my mpg was at 33.5, thats with 44psi tires, and 4 other passengers in the car, nothing in trunk.

also, when idleing in Drive at a stoplight, its right at 0.3 gph, once i throw it in neutral, its at 0.2. i think this applies to all the automatic corollas and prizms out there

You might be able to get 30mpg in city, since you get 33.5 on highway, with 4 peoples, and a 3 speed transmission.

I bet you might get 45 mpg at 50mph (and look at your RPM, at 50mph, you cant be in second gear, and yes you can know, even if you dont have the RPM indicator, just listen to the engine when you accelerate, and notes when it shift).

yea i guess i was in 3rd. its just the difference between 50 and 55 was alot of rpms. maybe i will check again.

the 33.5 that i got out of it, was the average. sometimes it shot up to 50, and sometimes it went down to the low 20's, but the most constant was 33 to about 36. this was driving at night with lights on, radio on, full load of people.

Promissing, for 1250$

yup...

all the other corollas and prizms are like 2000 with the 4 speed. i figure it would take a while to break even in gas saved.

But in city, I dont think there is much difference between the 3 speeds and the 4 speeds, and since your mom can drive it, there are 2 users of this car, thats a bonus.

well i think the 1st and 2nd are longer since its a 3 speed. the epa estimates for the 3 speed 1.6 liter engine for the city is 22 mpg, while the 1.8 4 speed auto is rated at 23 city, with .2 liters bigger in displacement, it got better mpg.


its just like driving your VX in the city and a EX or DX in the city. the VX or HF tranny will really suck in the city because of the longer 1st, 2nd and 3rd. trust me, i driven a cx before :)

This should help determine the break even point, but there's no telling how long gas will be so cheap.

https://www.sporkforge.com/finance/gas_cost.php

Thank you. I've been looking for a calculator like that for a long time. That link is going in my sig meta thread.

That one is rather simplistic, though. It's best for comparing two similar-condition vehicles, not so good for comparing TCO including maintenance/repair costs to an old vehicle and insurance cost differences, etc. I ought to put one together in a spreadsheet and import it into Google Docs. Does anyone know if Google Docs supports anonymous sharing, such that I could post a link that anyone could use and save their own copy in their Google account / export to a local file?

If it's like my old '90 corolla 3 speed the best cruising speed is 48 mph. You can hear it sounding like it's shifting into 4th at that speed. That's when the torque converter locks up.