with my 1980 Mazda GLC 1.5 litre manual transmission,I got 45 miles per imperial gallon.

with the 1992 Mercedes 300e 2.6 I rarely get more 22 milesper gallon.

Is that progress ,would consuming more gasoline produce less emission?
These have to be answered by Green proponents and actors driving around in big limo and SUV?

Now everybody is GREEN!!!!!!

But 1987 car passes today's emissions tests. Granted, that a finer time scale of mixture adjustment will produce less emissions. I think like any other feedback system, it is not always easy to pin point the problem to a single component and when one of the components is the computer and the other is the O2 sensor, we have to pick the O2 sensor for replacement. Atleast in my car which has a mechanical fuel injection system, the other problem is the baseline air/fuel ratio, the computer/O2 feedback system can only make fine adjustments not anything coarse. So even if the output of the O2 sensor would appear to remain constant, nothing may be wrong with the computer/O2 feedback system.

Okay, one more time.
While your car is passing the emissions test ( with 1987 standards as far as CO, HC, and NOx , have a look and compare what the 2007 limits ( standards ) are and what they were in 1987.
Jeepers, ....all a car was expected to do in 1987 was to run.
That is exactly why we don't have the " crude " systems ( fuel injection, on-board electronics, etc. ) anymore today, that were utilized in 1987.

Yeah, yeah,.....my 1967 Austin-Healy Sprite, with a 4-speed manual transmission and a 1300 cc engine got almost 50 miles per gallon.
And the weight of the car was a little more than 1/3 rd of what my car weighs today, thanks to all the useless gadgets on it.
Furthermore, yes it is possible to use more fuel & produce less emissions.
Happens everyday.
Those big limos and SUV's, while consuming a lot of fuel, are still 10 times cleaner than your 1980 Mazda ever was. ;)

Huh !! Are the emission test results compared on a car by car basis ? In otherwords, the todays results of an 87 260E will be compared to a set of limits established in 1987 for the car to pass or fail the emission testing. This is totally surprising for me, did not know this. If this is the case, I dont know how my emission output compares to today's car.

False.
The limits in Ontario were tightened few yrs ago for my 17 yrs old Volvo but still I passed.
Big government and auto industry want to get rid of older cars so you buy more new cars and keep lining corrupt politicians's pocket.

Which is worse?Burning up all the earth's oil BUT say I did it the clean way???

Just for you.
The limits with which " Drive Clean " started, were specific for each make, model & year.
After several yars of testing & looking at the average results of these vehicles, the limits were lowered, to reflect the overall average.
Oh yeah, there is a Big Conspiracy between Government, the Vehicle Manufacturers and the Big Oil Companies. :rolleyes: