Purposely Ran My Truck Out of Gas

[Shawn5800]

Why is everyone able to put in 16 gallons?....I barely make 14-15 and i get 230-240 out of a tank, stock everything. Just with 265/75/15s

 

[A&F]

Why is everyone able to put in 16 gallons?....I barely make 14-15 and i get 230-240 out of a tank, stock everything. Just with 265/75/15s

I get 17.5-18.8mpg in town. Typical fill up on red light is just over 14 gallons at around 265 miles.

 

[A&F]

So I'm pretty annoyed of only going about 250 miles, my gas gauge reading empty, and then the pump clicking off at 16 gallons. This gives me the assumption that my gas gauge is really inaccurate (I know thats been documented to an extent) since we have 18.5 gallon tanks.

It's not inaccurate, it's idiot proof.

2.5 gallons is only 30-45 miles. You never want to fill the tank to maximum because of heat expansion and vapors. You also don't want to run the pump dry so you'll always want .5-1 gallons in there.

So your 18.5 tank is really a 17 gallon tank and you light coming on and getting you 16 gallons is perfect.

It's giving you 15-20 miles to either realize your idiot light is on, or to find a station. Its not uncommon for stations to be 30-60 miles apart on some freeways.

 

[RonMAIDEN]

I've had my Runner for almost 7 years and even when my fuel guage gets nervously low I always fillup with between 15-16 gallons and I've gone over 16 gallons only a couple of times and my MPGs always sit between 15-17 city and 19-20hwy which is acceptable but us high altitude folks seem to get less per tank for the most part in due to the engine making less ponies up here and has to work a bit harder.

My mom also drives a bone stock '99 Limited and she fills up the same but sees a couple more MPGs since she's not as hot on the throttle as I am.

The biggest factor in MPGs is throttle position and how hard you are pushing it but it sure seems our trucks eat more gas maintaining 75 while driving a more sedate 65 mph seems to gain a significant improvement in miles per gallon.

 

[turbodudey2]

I'd like to see that. Especially on a V6 4x4.

I just went 350 miles on a tank and filled up with 16.2 gallons. (around 21 mpg, and I drive a lifted V6 4x4 with 285s.)

So, 400 on one tank isn't completely unreasonable... just unlikely for most driving conditions.

 

[SJC4Runner]

The biggest factor in MPGs is throttle position and how hard you are pushing it but it sure seems our trucks eat more gas maintaining 75 while driving a more sedate 65 mph seems to gain a significant improvement in miles per gallon.

I concur this this one!

60~ I would get about 20.5 mpg
65~19
70~18.5
80~16-17mpg

I did this while cruising across the country. I started finding the "old country roads" somewhere in Canada and noticed the improvement. When you don't have to be anywhere the slow way is the more interesting economical way
At least on the east coast where all you can see from a highway is trees!