Why I like my Gen 3

[WU7X]

I just got back from a round trip to the Grand Canyon and SE Utah. I put a total 2910 miles on my '97 T4R. I had my Columbus RTT on top, and the back was loaded with hiking and camping gear, a typical load for most of us. The T4R now has 209,500 miles on it.

Being a bit OCD, I like to keep records. Here is what I came up with for this trip:

Total mileage: 2,910 miles
Total gas purchased: 146.4 U.S. gal.
Total cost for gas: $583.39
Mileage:
Best tank: 23.3 MPG
Worst tank: 17.7 MPG
Ave. mileage: 19.9 MPG
Cost/mile: $0.20

For the trip to and from the Flagstaff airport and the Grand Canyon, we had three adult men in the rig. All the rest of the time there were only two of us. We kept the rig speed at 60-65 MPH while on the highway. We never had to use 4WD. The worst roads were washboard gravel. I did speed up to 70 MPH for the last 500 miles or so. But we still averaged 19.5 MPG doing that speed. The worst two tanks were either with a headwind and highspeed in the mountains or crawling along washboard roads. One last thing; the vehicle is basically stock.

All in all, I am very pleased with getting almost 20 MPG with this old baby. What kind of mileage do you get?

 

[masphx]

Sweet,

We just did the same basic trip you did just the other way back in August. Phoenix to Twin Falls ID -> Yakima, WA -> Mt Rainer to Oregon Coast. Down Oregon Coast a few days into N. Cali. -> San Francisco. Then a full one day drive from S.F. back to Phx. We averaged ~21 mpg. Most of the time we were 68-78 mph. Only had a week and two days but still a great trip. 4Runner even had CEL from S.F to Phoenix.

Mason

 

[WU7X]

Thought I should add one more point about my trip. I am running slightly larger tires; Mastercraft Courser LTR 265/75R16 M&S's. These are almost identical to the new Cooper AT3's; same sidewall, same compound, but slightly different tread pattern. In fact, Cooper Tire makes these in the same factory. I like them better than anything else I've had on my vehicles for a long time. Scott Brady tested a set of the Coopers out and thinks they could replace BFG, etc., type tires everyone has been using for the last decade or so.

I checked out my odometer/trip odometer using a DeLorme PN-60W GPS at high and low speeds. These slightly large tires make speedometer readout on the T4R and the GPS identical. So I think my speed and MPG numbers are accurate as I can make them.