Neat Trick for Better Gas Mileage

This won't help you get to heaven. But it may save you a little money. One of my parents' cars, a 1987 Mercury sedan, has been getting increasingly bad gas mileage. Dad tried replacing all kinds of parts (I'm not mechanical so you'd have to ask him for the details) but nothing helped. Finally, we got help from a friend who has one of those "computer thingies" that you plug into the car. It showed that a little easy-to-replace $15 widget (some kind of temperature sensor) was bad. That brought the mileage back up to 18 mpg; not bad for a big "boat". Then a couple people told us about another trick. You remove the air cleaner, get a garden hose sprayer that emits a very fine mist, and squirt some mist through the air intake for a couple minutes while the car is running. This cleans out carbon build up. Well, we tried it, and our mileage is now up to 21 mpg! This apparently works for both carburetors and fuel injection (which we have).