[Hotsyhog]

I was looking at some of the posts here and people are getting way better gas mileage than I do. I get around 16 mpg on the highway with my 05 V6 4X4 Tacoma DC Sport. My mom has a new Camry and gets about 8 mpg less than the sticker stated. I'm am now wandering if this is due to how the vehicle is initially drove. During my first tank of gas, I drove very slow, not getting over 2000 rpm. They say that the computer adjusts to ones driving during the first tank of gas. I wander, if I pull my negative terminal for 10 minutes to reset my computer, then drive it hard for a tank of gas if I will get better mileage. I may have to do this experiment.. Anyone have any comments on this.


Thanks 05 Toyota Tacoma DC Sport 4X4 Radient Red......

 

[mickeyd]

Everyone drives differently so everyone will get differnt MPGS. A FAR AS THE COMPUTOR GOES,IT will costantly learn your driving habits and adjust for them far beyond your first tank of gas.

 

[Hotsyhog]

There was a post stating that they were getting 22mpg on the highway at 70 mph. I just got back from a trip running 70 and got 16.67 mpg. This is a big difference. I am going to remove my 2nd filter tomorrow and cut a 3" hole in my air box to add the vent in the air box mod. I will then unplug my battery and see what happens....

 

[BrandonM7]

6-speed or auto?

 

[ronk44]

MPG at speed

I recently took a trip in my 2WD, 4 Door, automatic Prerunner TRD Tacoma. I drove 70 mph consistently for 250 miles without stopping. Most of the trip was flat, but there were a couple of hills. According to my calculations, I got 22.4 MPG. I usually average 18 around town. The only modifications I've made that may improve mileage -- a drop-in K&N and an Undercover lid.

 

[nomad]

I recently took a trip in my 2WD, 4 Door, automatic Prerunner TRD Tacoma. I drove 70 mph consistently for 250 miles without stopping. Most of the trip was flat, but there were a couple of hills. According to my calculations, I got 22.4 MPG. I usually average 18 around town. The only modifications I've made that may improve mileage -- a drop-in K&N and an Undercover lid.

Have you checked to see if your speedo is off?

 

[ronk44]

Have you checked to see if your speedo is off?

Nomad -- no, I have not checked the speedo, but I would suspect it is close to true. Why do you ask -- do you think my mileage is too high for this speed?

 

[Walters]

This is an interesting thread. I have averaged 21 MPG in my prerunner V6 automatic. I always ran premium gas. One time I mistakenly put in the mid grade, because a gas station had the order of the gas screwy, with the premium in the middle of the three hoses. And with the ridiculous names they use for grades of gas, I just put in the wrong one. I decided to run on mid grade for a while to see if it made any difference. I immediately noticed I was getting about 1 MPG lower mileage. This continued for about 4 tankfuls, so I switched back to premium. But my mileage didn't seem to recover. Now it's winter and I'm driving different roads and so forth, so it's hard to tell how well I'm doing -- still getting over 20MPG in mixed driving though. But.........I do wonder if the computer adjusted for the lower grade fuel. And...I wonder, like the thread starter, if possibly it never reverted to the better settings. I'm tempted to try the battery cable trick myself.

 

[Turtleboy]

I always thought that when you reset the computer and drove easy, you would get the best gas mileage, versus aggressive driving. I get about 16mpg city and highway. I just recently started using regular gas for the past 1500 miles and have not noticed a decrease in mileage. But than again, I just turned over 4k miles so I'm still breaking things in.

 

[decoy562]

Well, I see you're in Illinois...so winter gas makes your mileage go down. Do you commute in a big city? Bumper to bumper traffic and stop lights affect your gas mileage vs. straight highway. Do you let your truck warm up for 10 minutes each day? If you do, you're just burning gas and the truck isn't going anywhere, making the gas mileage worse. The 6-speed manual gets worse gas mileage too.

I have the Pre-Runner TRD Sport 4-door...first gas tank was 19mpg, and I'm about to fill up again, and it will be over 20mpg. It helps that I try to avoid traffic, keep the RPM's around 2k, and use cruise whenever possible. Hope this helps

 

[boone]

Well I'll find out next week. I have a 6-speed. I use Shell 89 all the time. I had been getting around 18 or 19 mixed driving. I installed an intake and didn't see much of a change in my mpg. I had disconnected the battery during the install and afterwards drove it very agressively. The throttle response was the only major difference I noticed. Winter moved in and I got some more aggressive tires. I have slowly dropped over the course of 2 months to where I'm at now, around 15 mpg mixed.

I put my initial dose of FP60 in today. It's a highly recommended (on BITOG.com) fuel stabilizer, water remover, fuel injector cleaner and so on. Next week I will also receive my new AEM DryFlow filter for my intake. I will reset the battery, step on the brake to purge the electrical system and then reconnect and drive conservatively for a tank or two. Hopefully this will get me back to where I was before at around 18 or so.

Maybe I will lighten up my lead foot for a while and see what happens. I have never really kept track of mpg with any other cars. The drop in mpg in the winter is no joke.

 

[Hotsyhog]

I live in a small city.. with no traffic jams. My whole family own Toyotas and everyone of us get low gas mileage. Of course my parents both drive very slow, especially with a new vehicle... which really sparked my curiousity on why the low gas mileage. My battery is unplugged now and I just removed the charcoal filter from the air box.... Thinking of going ahead and cutting the 2 3/4 whole in the box for the air box mod. that is on this site. I've already ordered the marine vent for it... I only have 5K miles on my truck and it is automatic.... I been debating on the air box mod. I wonder if it sucking in hot air so close to the headers will hurt anything?

 

[nomad]

Nomad -- no, I have not checked the speedo, but I would suspect it is close to true. Why do you ask -- do you think my mileage is too high for this speed?

The reason I asked was that my speedo (along with many others on this site) was off by 2 - 3 mph. In the situation you mentioned about going 70mph, if my needle read 70, I was actually going about 67 or so... which throws off your odometer. There are threads on this issue if you want to search. But basically with the speedo off, the mileage was off (unless you accounted for the percentage you were off in your mileage calculations which I was failing to do). I had the 245/65-16's (30.5" diameter) for the stock tires. Once I put on the larger 265/75-16's (31.9"), the speedo now read correct and my mileage "appeared" to go down... at least using the same calculations to figure out milage. But in reality, it probably stayed about the same (may have dropped a hair).

Before the tire swap with the 245's, I was getting around 20+ mpg. After, with the 265's, I'm getting around 18+ mpg. Like I said, the milage may have dropped a bit simply because I went to a larger tire, but I think the majority of the difference was a result of the speedo being off that 2 to 3 mph.

Btw, I measured before and after with a gps. And now my gps and speedo are singing the same song. Get a gps if you can and give it a try.

 

[TexasT]

My '05 DC PreRunner is a little over 8k miles and 6 months old and I record each fill-up, milage and MPG. The mean(average) of all driving city, highway is 19.45 mpg.

The highest mpg is 22.9 mpg October 19 with sustained interstate driving, on cruise at about 65mph. The lowest is 18.6mpg on July 25 all city driving. I've tried 87-93 octane with no significant difference in mpg.

I broke in the Tacoma during the first 1k miles, varying driving speeds. After 1000 I would kick it up to 70-75 driving freeway to work, sometimes bumper-to-bumper for a 4 mile stretch. Lately, after the $3/gal gas, I drive like a grandpa and keep the cruise on 65mph.(I have to keep it on cruise because of heavy foot)

I am very curious as to what the milage will be when the Summer gas mixtures are at the pumps again.

By the way, I experimented with several brands of gas, XON, RaceTrak, Shell, Citgo with no difference in milage.

 

[Walters]

I will reset the battery, step on the brake to purge the electrical system

What's this about purging the electical system?

 

[nomad]

I live in a small city.. with no traffic jams. My whole family own Toyotas and everyone of us get low gas mileage. Of course my parents both drive very slow, especially with a new vehicle... which really sparked my curiousity on why the low gas mileage. My battery is unplugged now and I just removed the charcoal filter from the air box.... Thinking of going ahead and cutting the 2 3/4 whole in the box for the air box mod. that is on this site. I've already ordered the marine vent for it... I only have 5K miles on my truck and it is automatic.... I been debating on the air box mod. I wonder if it sucking in hot air so close to the headers will hurt anything?

Just out of curiosity... do you think that cutting a hole in the airbox will give you better gas milage (and/ or performance)? If this is what you think, does it not make sense that Toyota engineers (those that designed this engine) would have done this simple "mod" before it ever rolled off the line? Logically thinking, wouldn't Toyota want to post the best MPG and HP rating that it could for their new Tacoma? If they could have posted a few more MPG by cutting a hole, why wouldn't they have done it? I would imagine this normally aspirated 4.0 is sucking all the air it could use in stock configuration.

Now if you want to talk aftermarket air intake kits... that's a whole other can of worms I don't want to open with a 10 foot pole. :ugh3:

 

[Turtleboy]

As for the air box mod, I doubt you will get better gas mileage. More air = more fuel = less MPG. But it will sound cool and might gain a pony or two.

 

[russ25nys]

Man these posts with 18 to 22 mpg are killin me. I drive like a 90 year old and cant get better than 16 to 17. Now I know winter gas will hurt the mpg's but there is BIG difference from 22 to 17. I don't do much stop and go driving and stopped warming up the truck. What kills me is that th MPG was the main reason I went for this truck.

 

[decoy562]

Man these posts with 18 to 22 mpg are killin me. I drive like a 90 year old and cant get better than 16 to 17. Now I know winter gas will hurt the mpg's but there is BIG difference from 22 to 17. I don't do much stop and go driving and stopped warming up the truck. What kills me is that th MPG was the main reason I went for this truck.

I can see where a drop that big is valid for two reasons:

1) Winter Gas

2) Colder weather.

What temperatures have you been driving in? For down here in GA, the coldest my truck has to drive in lately is 45 degrees in the morning, 60 or so in the afternoon and evening. Also, does your truck sit outside, or is it garaged?

 

[Major Woods]

2005, v-6, 6 speed, double cab Sport.
18.5mpg for the first 5 tanks of gas, then it started to steadily clime up from there.

20mpg regular 87 octane gas work commute (100 mile round trip) 70-75mph most of the time.

15mpg while towing a 20' boat (225 mile round trip) 60-65mph most of the time.