I have been observing excessive fuel consumption on my 2004 Ford Focus SE 2.3L engine. It gives me between 15 to 20 MPG in city running. I have replaced the air filter, spark plugs (platinum from Bosch) and cleaned the MAF sensor as prescribed in one of the topics on the forum. There is no check engine light that is on to indicate any kind of malfuntion. I have also changed the engine oil/filter as well as transmission oil. The car has done 45,000 miles todate. As regards the driving or the power, it has a great pick up and generally drives very well. In fact, my tires and battery are also new.

The workshop manual says to change the fuel filter which I intend trying as well. I was wondering what elseI need to do so that I can expect a better average/mileage.

 

You could go back to the motorcraft spark plugs, they will outperform bosch any day.

 

What is it with everyone claiming their focus gets such bad feul economy? Is this really that common, or are they driving like crap? I've never had a car get less than it's rated economy. And I've had 2 that got considerably better. How is it possible for a 32mpg car to only get 22 or whatever under NORMAL driving conditions and normal maintenance? Doesn't this seem a bit odd or exagerated? I could see like 4mpg less than EPA rated happening, but not 30% lower. Maybe it's the driver.........

 

The newer ford motors are very sensitive about the fuel filters, I would change it immediately. My 2005 ST 2.3L has 76K miles on it and still pulls 31-32 mpg but the fuel I use comes from newer stations and I think it is pretty clean. My Ranger picked up about 4 mpg when I changed the filter at 45K and I plan on changing the one in my Focus soon. As stated above, switch back to the Motorcraft plugs.