Real World MPG with 5th Gen?

[RysiuM]

I just fueled it up yesterday. Topped off with 17.98 gal at Arco Am/Pm, 365 miles since the last last top-off. Daily commute is 27 miles in about 45 minutes each way (50% two-lane road, 50% city). Now I go a little earlier (before schools start loading) so I don't need to crawl for 10 minutes at each 4-way stop, and that alone bought be 0.5mpg.

That useless mpg computer still shows 19.8mpg. The range computer is not much better (shows 395miles range after fueling up). Unless it gives me the range till low fuel warning light comes on. At that time I still have 3.5 gallons in the 23 gal tank. The realistic range should be about 440 miles assuming the truck needs about 1 gallon of "vapor fuel" before it starts sucking the air.

4Runner is 2012 4x4 SR5 (33k miles) with original Bridgestone Tires and stock roof rack with stock cross-members. Light foot driving with the green "ECO" light on most of the the time.

 

[suprarztt]

Can anyone with a limited chime in?

I have a 2015 Limited, completely stock, stock tires. 12,000km on the truck.

Im getting around 17L/100km (14MPG ish). Mostly city driving.
I don't warm up for long, maybe a minute at most.
I've tried driving with the eco light on, or driving normally seem to both yeild the same MPG.

Is it supposed to be this bad? I'm not expecting it to be amazing, but this seems pretty bad.

 

[RysiuM]

Im getting around 17L/100km (14MPG ish). Mostly city driving.

I don't think there is any difference between models - it's the same engine and powertrain - the difference is in equipment. When my house-wife used 4R for daily shopping (she put 5k miles in 2 years driving the truck every day), the gas mileage was 15mpg.

I did experiment what would be the gas mileage if I drive it like not paying attention to green ECO light (I don't mean driving like a rental - just normal driving with the flow of traffic). I got about 1mpg drop from my ECO driving (read: driving like on lady).

So it is not as much important how you drive, but where you drive. Stop and go will kill the fuel efficiency immediately - I suspect that even Tesla burns some gas on stop-and-go traffic:dance:.

 

[black bnr32]

17...

 

[Moroney167]

On a road trip now. Givin I have 7k miles on truck before it but around town I can't break 17 hand calc. That's 22 miles a day approx 60% cruising 55mph rest stop an go.

Beginning part of trip was lot of hills so first tank was 17.1 mpg. Once I got to more consistent flats I got 18.1 mpg which made me happy. Cruising 70 mph slowest. 80 tops. Me an the wife are small. Two bags of clothes and some snacks. So no read weight.

Seeing these numbers and remembering stock I wish I got 20+ on highway. I hit 325 miles at best when fuel light comes on.

Running 275 BFGs although I love to death starting to miss power for climbing hills and not shifting so much. In hilly roads I pretty much shift myself. Miss my diesel trucks....

 

[Magnetic4R]

Seems like I'm losing 0.1 mpg every month since I've own it now. Currently about 15.4 mpg.

 

[Desert_Runner]

Currently 15.1 per the computer in all suburban stoplight to stoplight driving. It hasn't been above 16 since I reset it after our trip to Iowa. I'm a little disappointed, but neither the wife and I are not light on the throttle so I guess it's to be expected. Only 5800 miles on it, so I'm still hoping it'll get a little better as the miles rack up.

Averaged just under 19 on highway to/from Iowa, but that was at ~80 mph speeds where the vehicle's brick-like shape kills it.

2016 TRD here, this is exactly what my experience has been. 15ish in town and 18-19 on the highway. I drove from Memphis back to Vegas (because I couldn't get a white TRD on the west coast) and averaged 19mpg at 75-80mph.

 

[jwkilgore]

Update after more trips:
We took a long-distance interstate trip recently (5+ hours each way) with an aerodynamic car-top luggage carrier installed. I held mostly to the speed limit (~70mph), and got between 19-20mpg. My wife drives like a maniac as usual (80mph+) and was getting 16-17mpg.

After removing the luggage carrier, this weekend when running errands I drove it for a few hours down rural roads averaging about 45-55mph and got 22.0mpg. Last year at this time a similar drive netted me at about 24mpg, so that's about 2mpg lost from the lift and AT tires. I think the lift and (accidentally) removing the front air dam had much more of an effect than the tires.

These are all using the on-board computer, and resetting the average when swapping drivers.

 

[Jetboy]

I'm curious about the question of how rake effects the mpg. I have adjustable coilovers and I've notices a significant mpg drop at 85mph highway cruising, but I added 285s and lifted the front about 1" at the same time.

My biggest problem with doing any analysis is that it takes so many miles to get reliable data. I've yet to find any real info on how rake effects aerodynamics. I can't help but think that a level kit significantly increases air flow underneath and causes at least some of the mpg drop we see with larger tires and lifts. I may drop the front down to stock height just to see if it makes a big difference on my next road trip.

Anyone mess around with rake and compare MPG at different settings? It would be easiest for those of you with airbags to lift the rear to add rake for a segment of a road trip and see what the result is.

 

[Bstrom]

Can anyone with a limited chime in?

I have a 2015 Limited, completely stock, stock tires. 12,000km on the truck.

Im getting around 17L/100km (14MPG ish). Mostly city driving.
I don't warm up for long, maybe a minute at most.
I've tried driving with the eco light on, or driving normally seem to both yeild the same MPG.

Is it supposed to be this bad? I'm not expecting it to be amazing, but this seems pretty bad.

All these comments point to a driving interval where the engine never reaches its efficiency. My 2003 Mercedes E320 takes over a half hour to get close to its highest fuel mileage of almost 30mpg. It lacks 6-8 mpg until it does. A cold block is the culprit here - letting the vehicle warm for even just a minute might help even thou manufacturers recommend an immediate takeoff from cold starts. Especially on cold mornings, I'd rather let the motor get off its highest idle before I drive off so give a 2-3 minute warmup. Seems to run better thereafter.

I'm also beginning to think keeping the engine at low revs between shifts may not be fuel efficient either. Accelerating through the shift points deliberately may be better than letting the engine find its own shifts at slower acceleration speeds. Just a hunch.

 

[JayceeP]

Can anyone with a limited chime in?

I have a 2015 Limited, completely stock, stock tires. 12,000km on the truck.

Im getting around 17L/100km (14MPG ish). Mostly city driving.
I don't warm up for long, maybe a minute at most.
I've tried driving with the eco light on, or driving normally seem to both yeild the same MPG.

Is it supposed to be this bad? I'm not expecting it to be amazing, but this seems pretty bad.

Not unusual for these concerns to pop up in these threads this time of year. More idling, colder starts, winter gas.

17 is pretty bad though. I've only seen a handful of tanks that bad over 53,000km and only during the coldest of winter days in February. I just filled up last week and my tank started around 16L. I'm now around 15L after some really mild weather (10C the last few days), overnight garage, and slightly longer suburban driving.

In general light day-to-day driving count on around 15L/100km in the winter and more like 13.5L in the summer. Again, light driving. Not heavy traffic. Somewhat suburban. It is all very subjective though.

Since buying, I have averaged a bit over 14L/100km. Best tanks were in the 11's in long flat highway road trips at 120kph+. I do feel like my best mpg was experienced during my first 6 months of ownership. Having said that, I feel like I drove more conservatively when I first bought it.

 

[Avalon786]

My last tank I got ~15 mpg. That was mostly short quick trips.

 

[Linus'_Blanket]

Dang. Pretty darn bad. How can one improve MPG via aftermarket? Headers? Superchip?

 

[RysiuM]

How can one improve MPG via aftermarket? Headers? Superchip?

Seriously? Trade it for Prius :driving:

This is 5 thousand pound brick. To start rolling it you need serious power. And to keep it rolling at high speed too. Aerodynamic is not a selling point of 4Runner - it pushes a lot of air by vertical grill and windsheeld. This truck is all about being tough and comfortable not a gas.

BTW, don't be fulled by the "green technology" of electric cars or super-efficient hybrids. The high gas mileage in "green cars" comes from light weight and aerodynamic bodies, not from so called "efficient engines". If you don't believe, just install "real time fuel usage" (there are whole bunch of devices interfaced to CAN BUS available). You will see that when you start rolling the gas mileage is in single digits. Once you get to 45-55 mph the 4R engine hardly sips any fuel. Go faster and the air resistance starts taking it's toll.

 

[NoDak]

1st, 2016 Tacoma DC Sport 3.5L v6
2nd 2014 4Runner LE Stock


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[4RnR Grl]

1st, 2016 Tacoma DC Sport 3.6L v6
2nd 2014 4Runner LE Stock

That's a cool app. What's it called?

 

[Jhalko]

Trade it for Prius :driving:

This is 5 thousand pound brick. To start rolling it you need serious power. And to keep it rolling at high speed too. Aerodynamic is not a selling point of 4Runner - it pushes a lot of air by vertical grill and windsheeld. This truck is all about being tough and comfortable not a gas.

You will see that when you start rolling the gas mileage is in single digits. Once you get to 45-55 mph the 4R engine hardly sips any fuel. Go faster and the air resistance starts taking it's toll.

Agree.

The worst I get is around 17mpg, generally I average 18mpg AFTER MODS, and my highway mileage is still close to 20mpg. I think the driver makes a bigger difference than the lead footed folks think.

I will say when driving to and from the east coast in October I got much worse mileage, but I was trying to make time not save gas and drove the heck out of it, to your air resistance point.

 

[USKTog]

Agree.

The worst I get is around 17mpg, generally I average 18mpg AFTER MODS, and my highway mileage is still close to 20mpg. I think the driver makes a bigger difference than the lead footed folks think.

I will say when driving to and from the east coast in October I got much worse mileage, but I was trying to make time not save gas and drove the heck out of it, to your air resistance point.

During my 2014 October Road-Trip (26 days, 7700 miles), I found that I had to fuel up using 89 Octane for most of the trip once East of the Mississippi. Once I did that, my fuel economy returned to what I was used to see.

 

[313n703]

That's a cool app. What's it called?

I have the same APP, it's called aCar.

I'm averaging 16.006 MPG, a majority of it is city miles and I try to use the ECO feature a much as I can.

 

[RysiuM]

I'm averaging 16.006 MPG, a majority of it is city miles and I try to use the ECO feature a much as I can.

Some tip on ECO city driving: When you know, that taking off uses a lot of fuel just do not take off. The key is once you going don't stop, keep it moving. Every time you use brakes you you burn your gas heating the brake rotors.

Driving in a city change your driving style from go-stop-go to go-coast. Even taking off in ECO mode puts you in single digit mpg. Accelerating from 5mph makes a huge difference from taking off from full stop.