a lease can't require you to repair with only factory parts so he's really in decent shape overall.

I have friends who have modified leased cars/trucks and the leasing company doesn't care much unless it obviously lowers the value of the car.

 

My evo is not modded (other than slotted rotors which suck).

 

wow........................ um..................................... did it occur to any one thats its an evo not a prius if u want mpg get a toyota and stop plaguing us with your nonsense

 

I honestly think it's just due to the cold weather. So it's taking the car longer to get up to full operating temp and until it does get up to operating temp (probably about 170F), it's going to run richer and result in lower gas mileage.

If you're making a bunch of short trips where the car never fully gets up to temp, it'll really kill the mileage.

 

Dude, I get horrible mileage in the winter from the "Winter Mix" crap they put in the fuel to keep it from Gelling...

 

On the lease---you signed an obligation and have a contract to fullfill...you can trade the car in and sign a new lease....but you are still responsible for the remainder on the existing lease....you guys need to read the contracts you sign...there is no "getting out" of your lease, you can roll it into a new one, but you still pay for it...Listen to Kevin D...he has the rt angle. Good luck on finding the prob....the other option (lease) isn't a good one

 

You can modify a leased car....but they will not take it back from you at the end of a lease if the plan was just to return the car when the lease is up.

and technically you can't mod a leased car becuase you don't own it...it isn't yours to do anything with except drive it.

I've noticed my gas mileage too has not been as good since the weather has cooled....you would think it would be the other way around...but winter gas and longer warmup I guess could be culprits.....well that and the fact in the winter makes me want to boost more often

 

BINGO!

It's possible that there is also something not functioning correctly but this is the likely primary culprit.

Don't forget cold starts use a lot of fuel. Are you letting your car warm up before driving it? You should, but if you're not, I hope you're staying off boost. (+) boost in a cold engine leads to bad things...

Their are very few forced induction cars that are fuel concious, sans diesels.

 

Unless your car is considered a lemon than I think you are going to be stuck with the car or you will have to pay the penalty of breaking the lease.

 

Have you changed tire or rim size recently?

 

Hmmm.... another good question would be have you checked your tire PRESSURE? When it gets cold out, you usually have to add some air. Low tire pressure causes crappy mileage as well.

 

Winter mix or not. He said it dropped from 20 to 12 mpg. Thats a 40 percent drop. At most, due to fuel, it should drop 10 percent. Check your pressures. Even a 5 psi in pressure (when hot) can cause up to 4mpg loss at certain speeds.

 

Have them check the alignment. My car was getting about 13-15mpg this summer, and after chewing through a set of tires in the first 3000 miles they realigned it on two different occasions and now im up to about 22/26.

 

First of all you can NOT cancel a lease. If you stop paying, you'll obviously get a REPO. Trading your car would be the BEST BET if the MPG really bothers yu that much but then you need to know the buy-out which will be low which means you have to come up with the difference in the amount of payments you have left or you can lease another mitsu and mitsu always has deals that you can get out of your lease early as long as you lease another mitsu.

Second, yes you can mod leased cars but its stupid b/c unless you take all the stuff off, thats pretty much money down the drain since the car gets returned.

Third, my suggestion would be Obviously only use PREMIUM fuel at good gas stations, shell, BP, Mobil....etc as well as the o2 Sensor and your 7mpg loss will be much cheaper than thousand of negative equity. SO KEEP THE CAR

 

+1 on this. 13 MPG is about perfect for a failed front O2 sensor. The rear O2 won't cause you to run this way (I ran mine with my O2 simulator failed for a month). You *should* be throwing a code on the front O2 sensor though. Through diagnostics, if you're getting that, and not throwing a code, I would suspect a failed ECU. The factory service manual goes through this exactly...but it is a PITA to troubleshoot, so I'd bet the dealer didn't want to bother.

+1 on taking it to another dealer too.