Could you provide more details on how you fixed it for less than $100 cause that seems quite reasonable to me.
Must be new record 8MPG
- Thread starter T4Running
- Start date
Could you provide more details on how you fixed it for less than $100 cause that seems quite reasonable to me.
Ed_C
Senior Member
Try a different brand/gas station and see if there's an improvement. A Gulf station near my work usually has the cheapest cash prices,and since it's a "brand name" I gave it a try,that was a mistake. It seemed to run fine but MPGs definitely dropped,went through almost two fill-ups from my usual gas stations before mileage went back to normal.
For you NJ/NY members this is the Gulf on Rt.17 South in Mahwah,right before the McDonalds
For you NJ/NY members this is the Gulf on Rt.17 South in Mahwah,right before the McDonalds
dozerfrelich
New member
It could be the colder weather. I know i let my truck warm up because of leather seats and it is better for the motor to be warmer before you start driving. I normally get around 16 in the city in summer but this winter i get around 10-14 depending on the cold.
Unner
New member
How much idling do you do? Is this repeatable over multiple tanks of gas? If I do a lot of idling to warm up and things like that and and only city driving I get 14-16 MPG, but last weekend I averaged 21.1 mpg on a nearly 700 mile round trip on the highway. So that does make a huge difference.
Extended idling is a bad way to achieve a warm engine prior to driving. Much better would be installing and using an engine block heater on bitter cold days. The idea that idling a cold engine to warm it up is a good idea, is apparently a common misconception.
What you're doing leads to fuel dilution of the oil. Very poor average fuel economy. Sludge formation in the engine. A lot more pollution put into the atmosphere than it otherwise would be.
What you should do is use an appropriate viscosity oil for the temperatures your vehicle is used in. If you don't have an engine block heater, start the engine and let the oil circulate for maybe 10-20 seconds if it's bitter cold (below 0°F) then put it in gear and start driving gently.
Doing this will promote a much faster engine warm-up. Less chance for fuel dilution. Better fuel economy, and less chance of sludge formation. Cleaner air as the engine reaches operating temperature and goes into closed-loop mode, sooner. The rest of the drivetrain will also warm up gradually while driving.
Back when I worked on consumer cars for a living, I saw the effects of the extended idling warm-up, people liked to use on cold winter days. I'll just say that I saw a lot of nasty, sludged engines.
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This.
Idling will kill your mpg heavily especially if you let it warm up for 30 minutes or something like some people I know haha. But it shouldn't be at 8, ever. Do you feel like the truck is running rough or something? There should be some other indication, you shouldn't be at 8 MPG and not feel something.
gamefreakgc
Elite Member
Lots of opinions on here.
Idleing, warming your car and driving style will not net you 8 MPG. They are contributors, but you've got something wrong with your engine or your sensors.
Idleing, warming your car and driving style will not net you 8 MPG. They are contributors, but you've got something wrong with your engine or your sensors.
It depends on the circumstances.
I have a neighbor that did the extended idling warm-up of about 20 minutes, before they drove 5 miles on surface streets to their job at no more than 40 mph. They would repeat that procedure for the drive home. They just loved their remote start..
They had a 4-cylinder mid-size sedan.
They couldn't understand why they were averaging around 5 MPG. So they asked me, knowing my automotive repair background. Once they told me their driving routine, I suggested some changes to their driving habits.
Not surprisingly, after they stopped their ridiculous extended idling warm-ups, their average commute MPG went up to about 22 MPG. Right where its EPA City MPG was expected to be.
THatfield
New member
2000 Toyota 4Runner Parts - Camelback Toyota Parts - Genuine OEM Parts - Free Shipping
installed it with the help of my dad. We had dropped the tank previously to replace the fuel pump so we knew what to look for. only took us a couple of hours to do, and we weren't moving fast. It does mount to a different spot than the original on the "stalk" that drops into the tank, due to the updated design. My dad found that on google after we thought we got the wrong part.
Anyways for 90 bucks or so I fixed mine.
I appreciate all the input/discussion but gamefreakgc is completely right. There are a number of uncontrollable factors, being quite the gear head I understand all the obvious things and I know not to let my car idle too long (also do have a block heater).
But longer idling can be necessary in some cases (living near the mountains in canada) its not uncommon to be around -40C, which can require a longer warm up as the engine will be revving quite high when that cold.
I do believe mechanical issues are my main problems.
I agree that you can get bad gas sometimes (never fill up when the station is getting a refill) but I am averaging that milage and have used different stations/octane.
Normally, higher octane fuel (even if your car isn't tuned for it) will make a vehicle run better overall. They will also burn cleaner, for example almost every gas station in Japan carries 100octane fuel!
The main mpg impact from fuel comes from the variation in ethanol levels. Most stations have around 10% ethanol, but the higher ethanol content should actually provide slightly more power where lower ethanol should provide better mpg.
The octane rating refers only to the knock resistance of the fuel.
An engine will only run better on higher octane gas, if it can utilize the higher octane.
Ie: If an engine can run on regular gas without pre-ignition (knocking), even at full ignition advance, there will be no benefit from running a higher octane gas in that particular engine.
Higher octane has nothing to do with burning cleaner. Regular and Premium can and do (assuming a top-tier fuel) have the same amount of detergents in them.
Finally, Japan uses the RON (Research Octane Number) octane rating. This is a different method of measuring the Octane, resulting on a higher number than the AKI (anti-knock Index) RON+MON/2 octane rating method used in the US and Canada.
The 100 RON octane rating in Japan, would be approx. 94 R+M/2 in the US and Canada.
drei4runner29
New member
Glad I saw this post. I had some questions concerning my lower MPG also. Not as bad as the OP but still pretty bad. Averaging about 14-15 MPG and 16 on a good day now. Prior was 17-18 MPG.
