Fill the tank. Check the mileage reading on the odometer. Run it till it's about out. Fill tank again. Subtract previous mileage reading from current one. Divide that by how many gallons you put in the car. Then post that number. Your 15 gallon tank and car wasting gas discriptions are meaningless. If it's leaking fuel, you'll smell it even if it's just a little. If you don't feel a misfire, the plugs and wires are doing their jobs so leave them alone. If it's burning gas as fast as you suspect it is, there ought to be visible emmissions...cloud of black smoke following you around. If you're going by what the gas guage says without checking, the problem could just be the gas guage. I've seen them read full for 200 miles then drop quickly to 1/4 tank, or drop quickly from full and stay at a quarter tank. If you're going to try to figure this kind of thing out on your own, you got to at least do the math for starters.

SUCCESS WITH OLD STALE GROUT. I recently tiled a small extension to floor tiles that were laid 25 years ago with 10mm gaps between .... and with tongue in cheek experimented with an old bag of grout of the same vintage, which had neither been sealed or in any way protected from the ravages of time and which was both powdery and clumpy. The colour had not changed and was irreplaceable with colours of grout currently on the market. So I gave it a go with a small sample! I got what I expected. It didn't work! Not one to accept all of the current wisdom and expert opinion at face value (most of which I believe comes from those with vested interests) I did what I normally do when being told "it can't be done!"..... Obviously the problem was lack of adhesion so I believed it might be possible to mix the old grout in another readily available cement additive ..... BONDCRETE which I found many years ago also had "waterproofing and sealing properties" if painted on top of cement and or cement products ..........and considered that it may be possible to mix some of the old grout with Bondcrete, that could be painted over a normal clean cement base. I decided to fill the 10mm gaps with normal builders cement which was shaped before setting to form a base over which I would then paint my concoction of old grout and Bondcrete mix. It worked perfectly with only one coat painted over the concrete, you could not distinguish between the original grout laid so long ago. A scratch test with a screwdriver the following morning showed no signs of weakness of the mixture. However for more strength and depth of colour maybe 1 or 2 more coats may be useful. Caution:As Bondcrete is the adhesion medium I used, it is important to ensure that its effectiveness in not diluted by adding too much grout or water. Suggested Ingredients: 10 Parts Bondcrete to 1 part grout plus a small amount of water to form a paint consistency; Method: 1. Mix small amount of water to 1 part of grout and stir well to make a thickened paste maybe to a wipped cream consistency (note that even old clumpy grout can be crushed to powder form and re-used) Add one part of "grout paste" to 10 parts of Bondcrete and mix well to a paintable consistency. You can vary the parts of Bondcrete more or less to suit. Paint onto respective clean concrete surface and allow to dry overnight. Paint additional coats if necessary to achieve required depth of colour. You may need to increase grout to Bondcrete mix by experimentation to obtain greater depth of colour. Ensure removal of excess paint from overlapping surfaces before it dries. Note well: For small gaps between tiles It may be worhwhile, as a suggestion only, that you experiment with filling the gap with a fine mixture cement first and wipe it clean to a depth that when dry you can simply paint over it. Please note I am a home handyman and have no association whatsoever with Bondcrete or its associated companies or businesses in any form whatsoever. This medium worked for me and I make no assertions to its success or otherwise of its use by any other persons or entity. I hope this advice helps any and all who have been or are similarly afflicted with the stale grout syndrome. I would welcome any comments on your success or otherwise. Pop

A batteries total stored energy is rated in "Reserve Power", and is typically on the order of one hundred amp/hours. In other-words, if your vehicle demand is twenty amps of current, the battery will be depleted in five hours. The facts are most of today's cars demand forty to one hundred amps continuously, so depending on how many options are turned on, it could be as little as one hours time. Obviously you have made it further than that already which suggests your alternator is at least producing some power, and could in fact be charging normally but the ability to report the charging level to the instrument panel may actually be what is lost. That in many cases still requires an alternator circuit repair or repair or replacement of the alternator but explains how you have operated the car for this amount of time. The only problem here though is your expectation that AZ as a viable source for solving this problem. I do not use them as a parts supplier at any level for my business. With them using a strategy where people with little, to no formal training are blindly relying on some type of automated testing in order to circumvent the real skills used by professional technicians, they place us in a position where if we were to try and compete, we would have to not get more training for our technicians, and not invest in the tools and equipment required to completely service our customers cars. There is a cost to the public when we lose the easier work like this, and it goes way beyond the price side of the equation. Yes, one CAN deal with a number of the easier problems by using the AZ's of the world. But what do you do when the problem is more than the AZ routine can handle, and the net result of the "unfair to us (me)" competition they created is that you don't have access to a professional technician and the car ends up stranded for an extended period of time? (This is a REAL problem BTW) There are quite a number of things that can cause your alternator to not charge correctly, that are all external of the alternator. In a perfect world, losing the alternator jobs wouldn't have an impact on our doing business, so when one of these other problems occur it wouldn't be a big deal. But the world isn't perfect so when we lose the alternators (or whatever) to unlicensed activities and only see the nightmares, our CODB rises substantially. This price pressure has made it more difficult for you to have repairs done as affordably as you would like them to be. It's also made it so complete repairs can only be performed by a handful of shops that have purchased the factory scan tool to support your car, or the dealer that sells the make that you have. (This applies to each and every manufacturer)

Hi minnie. Sure lots of ideas, the problem is only one of them is likely to be correct. Diagnosing a problem on a car takes effort, and with some kinds a of problems a little bit of luck, as in the car has to act up for the tech, because the only time that the problem can be accurately diagnosed is while it's happening. Keep in mind, the hard start may have absolutely nothing to do with the car quitting on the road. You could almost treat those two problems as if they are occurring on separate cars for now. The best you can do is allow the shop to keep the car for a couple days, and give them the details of when the problems occur. Keep in mind things like weather, hot, cold, rainy etc. The hard start is likely easier to find at this time. Tell them what the car does, not what someone thinks it does. The worst thing you could do right now is go to the shop and tell them you think the fuel pump is failing because someone told you that might be the problem. The facts are it could be, but so could many other things, like a corroded wiring connection for the pump. Proper testing during the failure comes up with the right answer, without throwing unnecessary parts up front.