Awesome gas mileage- Part 2

what kind of break-in procedure did you guys use on your trucks? the TEs in this forum are way below what you post for MPG.

My truck already had 100 miles when I bought it but I did a pretty gentle break-in after that. I forgot I took a pic on the way South...
and a pic when my mileage wasn't that great (lots of off road).
 

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My only trick is to turn off cc on hills and I don't floor it unless I'm passing. Winter gas will drop this number down to 21-22mpg:(


I find that I end up taking off cruise control on hilly sections as well. If I don't the truck is constantly down shifting into a much higher gear than needed. I find I that I can handle mountainous sections for effectively by manually using the gas pedal vs letting the T4R do it for me.
 
I have an 08 V6 and average around 21.8 combined highway and city. I do keep my foot out of the excellerator. I am confused about the Canadian MPG stated higher than US? I would think that the computer would be calculating based on level in fuel take which would be calculated on U.S. gallons? The computer doesn't know or care what units were used to fill the tank. Am I missing something?
 
I have an 08 V6 and average around 21.8 combined highway and city. I do keep my foot out of the excellerator. I am confused about the Canadian MPG stated higher than US? I would think that the computer would be calculating based on level in fuel take which would be calculated on U.S. gallons? The computer doesn't know or care what units were used to fill the tank. Am I missing something?
When Canadians refer to mpg it's typically imperial gallons which are 20% larger.

My #s after 5K (all calculated manually)
50/50 hwy/city
11.8 L/100km
23.9 IMP MPG
19.9 US MPG

I'm at a loss to explain the huge discrepancies seen by others. All I can say is that I feel like if I drive it hard I can literally watch the needle fall, but when I baby is it gets pretty good numbers, some people seem to be driving it carefully and still getting bad #s though. If I couldn't achieve the advertised mileage I would take it to dealer.

A general statement about mileage - I think drag typically accounts for abut 60% of fuel burned, and an increase in drag is not linear with speed, it's an exponential factor, so driving faster burns exponentially more fuel.
 
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A general statement out mileage - I think drag typically accounts for abut 60% of fuel burned, and an increase in drag is not linear with speed, it's an exponential factor, so driving faster burns exponentially more speed.

Did you mean to say "so driving faster burns exponentially more fuel"?

If not, then I am really confused!

Be safe.
 
I must have a lead foot. I only reset my habits at the oil changes so I get a mix of hwy and city. I range between 16.9-17.1

I feel that basing any calculations strictly at optimal highway speeds or claiming superiror gas mileage on a downhill slope with a tail wind or a 50 mile range with the cruise control set at 53 is not an accurate depiction of "actual mpg."

An average taken over several thousand miles in multiple daily driving situations, and multiple geological environments will be a much better sample of that particular vehicles performance.
 
I must have a lead foot. I only reset my habits at the oil changes so I get a mix of hwy and city. I range between 16.9-17.1

I feel that basing any calculations strictly at optimal highway speeds or claiming superiror gas mileage on a downhill slope with a tail wind or a 50 mile range with the cruise control set at 53 is not an accurate depiction of "actual mpg."

An average taken over several thousand miles in multiple daily driving situations, and multiple geological environments will be a much better sample of that particular vehicles performance.
 
Had the 10k mile service done yesterday. I talked to them about the mpg issue, but of course they said there is nothing wrong with the truck. I did get 20mpg coming home, mostly highway at 70 mph. I reset the mpg gauge and I'll leave it for 5k miles to see if the oil change helped at all.

Fingers crossed
 
Don't overlook the gearing through the powertrain, that has alot to do with mileage. I don't know the 4R tranny/rear end ratios, but I"m pretty sure it pushes a long gear at the top end. In my original post I didn't mention that when I looked at the tach in that cruise it was usually around 1400-1600 rpm at 40 -50 mph. That's not too far from an idle. My '93 truck will cruise the same at about 2200 rpm, and it gets worse mileage with a smaller motor, manual transmission and less weight than the 4R. Even my roadster turns at 2100 rpm at 65 mph in top gear. It has a .67 5th and 3.55 gearing in the rear end (never mind what mileage it gets).

When the 4R drops a gear or two, especially in cruise control, that's what blows the mileage out the window. Alot of vehicles now are coming with 6,7 and 8 speed transmissions. Fuel economy has to be the biggest reason.
 
I think speed and predictive driving has a ton to do with the gas mileage in the T4R. Consider is how you come to stops. I usually let off the gas and roll to a stoplight, only applying the brake when I'm getting very close. This means you get off the gas earlier and you use momentum to carry yourself to the light. Once you start doing this, you'll notice that you really don't get to the light much, if any, later than the other cars that are on the gas up until the last minute. I even noticed, on my way through Ohio this weekend, that rolling to the light often meant that I still had some speed by the time the light changed from red to green. The car beside me stayed on the gas right up to the red light, came to a complete stop, and had to speed all the way back up to 55mph from 0mph. We passed under the light at exactly the same time because I was looking ahead and predicting what traffic was doing. Thankfully, WV isn't littered with county roads that have stoplights every 2 or 3 miles like southern OH. I guess these are just tips, in general, to getting good gas mileage, but a larger, heavier SUV is more sensitive to losing energy to braking as far as gas mileage is concerned than a sedan, for example. It takes a lot of energy to get the 4600lbs up to speed. Conserving energy is the best way to save fuel.

Also, I usually set the cruise at 72mph and I regularly get 22mpg on the interstate. The couple times I've been in a hurry and drove 78mph on the interstate, I did see a drop. I'm at 23.5~24mpg when I'm driving local highways (55mph). Haven't really done enough city driving to get an idea of what the mileage is there.
 
I have a 2011 Limited with 17 inch wheels and GY Silent Armor 275/70/17 and the gas mileage sucks! Average 15.3 in mixed city and highway driving. My old 2008 Sport Edition at least got 17 in the same type of driving.

I thought the 5th gen was suppose to get better gas mileage??? :confused:
 
I have a 2011 Limited with 17 inch wheels and GY Silent Armor 275/70/17 and the gas mileage sucks! Average 15.3 in mixed city and highway driving. My old 2008 Sport Edition at least got 17 in the same type of driving.

It looks to me like a 275/70/17 SA is an LT that weighs 53lbs. The 4th gen stock 31" tire weighs about 38lbs. More aggressive tread in the SA and if you're running door sticker air pressure, I can easily see at least that much mpg difference playing out.

And the above represents a small fraction of the possible variables affecting mileage. Trying to match higher message board mpgs is not a recipe for increased truck enjoyment.
 
I have a 2011 Limited with 17 inch wheels and GY Silent Armor 275/70/17 and the gas mileage sucks! Average 15.3 in mixed city and highway driving. My old 2008 Sport Edition at least got 17 in the same type of driving.

I thought the 5th gen was suppose to get better gas mileage??? :confused:

Is that stock size? Mine has 265's but its an SR5 so it might be different. Anyways, if you up size the tires, you will loose real fuel mileage (and it will completely mess up the numbers on the on board computer if that's what you use to calculate)

I can definitely see that if I drove well, didn't have a lift and all my other crap where these high numbers are coming from, I'm around 20 MPG average, so a good tank on the highway with cruise could easily hit 25+ MPG. Then again, a bad tank in the city, or when I'm feeling aggressive could hit 10 MPG also.

I agree with the comment that trying to hypermile a 4runner is probably not going to be that fun. Get a setup you can live with, and then enjoy driving :)
 
Well, we just drove from DC, to Niagara Falls, Toronto, Charleston Lake, then Montreal, and back. 17.7 mpg average, computer and gas receipts agree. Avg speed was about 70 mph.

I managed 18.3 holding 75 to and from Mammoth, Ky.

Manually handling the hills or cruise made little difference, .5 mpg at most.

I had hoped for more on an essentially stock vehicle - just changed to Nitto Terra Grapplers and added RR sliders.

Since it's "not out of the official range" it looks like I get to pay for that wheel alignment myself, according to my local stealership.
 
It looks to me like a 275/70/17 SA is an LT that weighs 53lbs. The 4th gen stock 31" tire weighs about 38lbs. More aggressive tread in the SA and if you're running door sticker air pressure, I can easily see at least that much mpg difference playing out.

And the above represents a small fraction of the possible variables affecting mileage. Trying to match higher message board mpgs is not a recipe for increased truck enjoyment.

I actually purchased the SA that weighs 44lbs, which I'm not sure if they classify as LT or passenger (several versions of the SA in that tire size). The 17 inch rims are OEM SR5 rims weighing 29lbs each (took the stock 20 inch rims off because I didn't like them). OEM tire size for the 2011 SR5 is 275/70/17. I am running the tires at 36 PSI. The interesting thing is I had SA on the 20 inch rims before switching to the 17s and got better mileage with that set-up even though that combo weighed 10lbs more per wheel.
 
I actually purchased the SA that weighs 44lbs, which I'm not sure if they classify as LT or passenger (several versions of the SA in that tire size). The 17 inch rims are OEM SR5 rims weighing 29lbs each (took the stock 20 inch rims off because I didn't like them). OEM tire size for the 2011 SR5 is 275/70/17. I am running the tires at 36 PSI. The interesting thing is I had SA on the 20 inch rims before switching to the 17s and got better mileage with that set-up even though that combo weighed 10lbs more per wheel.

OEM size is 265/70-17 for the SR5.

Toyota 4Runner - 2011 Performance & Specifications (click on tires)

A wider tire = more rolling resistance, especially if you went from the standard 245 of the limited to the 275.
 
Plus, look at people's location... canadian gas mileage /= us mileage.
My limited is averaging 16, with a majority city and NOT in eco.
On the highway i'm getting 21-22.

Completely stock.
 

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