Bad Gas Mileage??
 

Greetings everyone, I drive a 2002 SR5 with a 3-inch lift and 33-inch tires. It has ~225,000 miles on it. I'm only getting around 12 mpg and wanted to know if you guys had any insight. I know they're not known for great mileage, but 12 just seems low. I only get 200 miles out of a tank (usually 16-17 gallons when I fill it) Any suggestions?
TIA, brevv.

Old profile picture btw, before lift and wheels+tires

The only way you will improve your current MPG much at all is to go back to how it looks in your profile photo!

Ok thanks, I realize that it would improve if I went back to stock tires, but I guess I'm just wondering how my mpg compares to other people with a similar lift/tire setup.

No, somethings up. I'm running 33s with 300-350lbs of extra equipment (armor, winch, tools), a 2.5in lift, and I'm still getting 16-18mpg consistently while also living in an extremely hill-y area. And I'm far from the only one, plenty of people here run 33s with stock gearing and very similar mods yet still retain pretty good efficiency in the same ballpark as I.

I did a 2.5 inch lift (sonaran steel) and 33's and got 13 winter. A friend did a 3 inch and 33s and regretted it as best was 13 on the flats, but had a job in the mountains and said was getting 12 if lucky and said it was gutless

however...my current t4r is a factory lifted highlander version..only 1 inch higher than "stock" running 265.75.16 and in winter in 4wd 24/7 snows i get 14+ but I am too not living in the flats. and when switch to summer and summer tires I can pull 18 hiway flats...but since I play...maybe 16 is typical or lucky. I bet in summer with summer tires, not my e rated ko2 summers , maybe something more skinny and street friendly tread I could do bettter

these things are not a prius...and at the time,,,with design and stuff....that was good mpg

I'm getting 15.5 mpg, long term average, on mine. 5 spd, 1999, bumpers, sliders, armor, TC doubler, winch, 3" lift, 1" body lift, currently running 33" tires.

It does get better MPG, as you'd expect, on long road trips, but I tend to drive a bit slower on long interstate drives than I used to, simply because the truck has to work harder. So instead of 75 mph out west, it's 65. in town, esp doing shorter trips, the MPG is worse. Takes a lot of work to accelerate the thing back up to speed over and over.

Another thing to consider is that you need to correct the odometer reading to get a true apples to apples comparison of your before and after MPG. I don't bother, since I'm not really concerned with the MPG number, just in spotting odd drops because of some looming issue. But the 4Runner gets its speed info from the ABS system, which is counting wheel revolutions. This means it isn't affected by differential gearing changes (nice) but it is affected by tire size changes. So bigger tires do use more fuel, but they also lower the odometer miles and will reduce your MPG in an artificial way.

Stock tire size for most 4Runners (16 inch wheels) was 265/70/16, with a roughly 30.6" height, 96.2" diameter. You didn't say which specific 33" tire you have, but circumference of a 33" tire would be 103.7". That's a 7.7% increase in circumference, so the odometer is going to read 7.7% less per actual distance travelled. Not to say the odometer is incredibly accurate to begin with, but that's how much it will change. You drive an actual 100 miles on the road, odometer will show 92.8 miles. It's not a big difference (13 mpg vs. 12, more or less) but it's part of the drop.

Just to add something to the mix, I get about 13-14 miles per gallon on average with mixed city and highway driving. A tank lasts me about 215-220 miles before my gas light turns on.

I'm running 33's, stock gears, pretty decent suspension lift + a 1" body lift as well. All my maintenance is up to date, o2/AF sensors, plugs & wires, you name it. I'm not hard on my rig by any means, if anything I treat it like a grandma. So I'm suspecting it must be due to overall road conditions like traffic, stop and go, etc. I've done a bunch to try helping myself yield better mileage but I don't know what else can be done at this point for a truck that has 335K miles on it... lol.

EDIT: I also have the cancerous P0420 code so I imagine that likely may have something to do with it. But I'm not replacing cats, so, it is what it is.

I'm in a similar vain so I think it is fairly standard.

33's, 2-3" lift, sherpa rack, toolbox in the back, averaging around 200 miles a tank in town and closer to 280 highway road trips.

All evap maintenance is up to date with no codes except for a P0770 but I'm not sure if that effects mileage in any way.

12mpg, which is ~13 after adjusting for the tire size change.

If city MPG, that good/normal. If highway (at an indicated 65-70mph) that's low.

-Charlie