1970-1983 Jeep CJ-5/CJ-7 — MPG & Fuel Facts NO OFFICIAL EPA RATING

The EPA's public fuel-economy dataset only goes back to 1984 — the 1970-1983 Jeep (AMC) CJ-5/CJ-7 predates it, so there is no government-rated MPG number for this car anywhere, including here.

Estimated 13–28 MPG combined.

Official EPA/DOE Gas Mileage Guide datafiles for model years 1978-1983 (the years for which primary machine-readable records were accessible) show a real, government-certified spread from 13 mpg city (304 CID V8, automatic) to 28 mpg highway (151 CID 'Iron Duke' four-cylinder, 5-speed manual, 1982-83). No verifiable EPA or period-magazine figure could be confirmed for 1970-77 CJs specifically, since the earliest readable EPA guide with usable Jeep data was 1978.

This is our estimate, not an EPA rating — built from the period road tests, marque-specialist guides and corroborated owner reports cited below, hedged where sources vary. Treat it as a ballpark for planning, not a spec to rely on.

The CJ-5/CJ-7 ran 232/258 CID AMC inline-sixes throughout, a 304 CID V8 option through model year 1981 (dropped thereafter), and — starting in 1980 — a 151 CID Pontiac 'Iron Duke' four-cylinder as a new economy option, paired with 3-speed automatic or 3/4/5-speed manual transmissions and Dana 20/300 transfer cases. That engine range, spanning a four-cylinder economy option to a full V8, is the reason the honest range is wide.

The U.S. DOE/EPA's historical Fuel Economy Guide datafile archive (fueleconomy.gov/feg/download.shtml) hosts downloadable, fixed-width government data files back to model year 1975, but only the 1978-1983 files were machine-readable with available tools (the 1975-77 guides exist only as scanned-image PDFs). Pulling the 'JEEP (CJ-5/CJ-7)' rows directly from those files gives, for example: 1978 258 CID six/manual = 16 city/20 hwy; 1978 304 V8/automatic = 13 city/17 hwy; 1980 151 CID four/manual = 21 city/25 hwy; 1982 151 CID four/5-speed = 23 city/28 hwy; 1983 258 CID six/automatic = 19 city/25 hwy.

Independent, if informal, corroboration comes from owner forums (jeep-cj.com, jeepforum.com), where posters running carbureted 258 CID sixes under normal (non-lifted, stock-tire) conditions converge on roughly 12-16 mpg real-world — consistent with, if slightly below, the EPA city figures for that engine.

Coverage for 1970-1977 model years is a genuine gap: no EPA passenger-vehicle-style guide with Jeep CJ data was found readable for those years, and no period magazine test with a measured MPG figure was located. The stated range should be understood as representative of the 1978-83 era specifically, not the full nominal 1970-83 span.

Sources: EPA/DOE Fuel Economy Guide datafile archive (fueleconomy.gov) · EPA 1978 model year raw data file (fueleconomy.gov) · EPA 1983 model year raw data file (fueleconomy.gov) · EPA official 1984 Jeep CJ-7 rating page (fueleconomy.gov, continuity context just past this range)

All classics Search Jeep (AMC) CJ-5/CJ-7 on FuelFacts (in case a later model year is in our 1984+ EPA data)