Crazy Bad MPG

2024 Limited with factory installed 33" Ridge Grapplers and 3" TRD lift.

4202 miles. 70% City, 30% mixed, no off-road.

Average mpg: 13.8
Best seen MPG: 14.6
Towing 2800lb utility trailer @ 70mph: 12.6 MPG

Today I'm towing a 4000lb trailer, average 63mph in tow mode and getting.....8.5mpg!!!!

Tell me this isn't normal. People pulling horse trailers and campers are passing me constantly. No hard accelerations, no hills here in South GA.

What's going on?!?!

 

Seems normal. Turbo engines are good at burning gas under load.

Or…. you’re dealing with some additional power train resistance from friction welding your main bearings to the crankshaft…..


…too soon? Sorry.

 

I do mostly towing with mine and the mileage isn't what we expected with the V6. Our previous truck (Honda Ridgeline) also had a V6 and got much better mileage when towing the same trailer.

Those tires wont help much as they are probably much heavier than any starter tires like the Michelins or Falkens

Also, that extra lift cuts the aerodynamics.

I just stopped tracking my mileage as it didn't make me happy and just accepted it.

 

I get about the same city mph (14.8). I switched from ECO to Normal and it seemed to help a little. The light trailer isn’t bad, I get 11.5 with a similar small light trailer on flat roads in Florida. Drops significantly with an increase in speed.

I have a stock 22 SR5 OR so with your lift and bigger tires you aren’t doing all that bad.

 

Tire and lift. Seems normal to me.
In town and stock truck, like total city driving I'm at 15.5
On the highway I can see 20.

Towing a trailer and I'm single digits.
Alll stock

 

Lift and bigger tires will hurt your mpg. Watch your boost gauge. If you’re making boost, you’re eating gas. The turbos don’t make the truck get better mpg, having a smaller engine with less cylinders does. When you need big engine power, the turbos kick in and start adding more air than the small engine can suck in on its own so it can burn more fuel than it should be able to so it can make more power than it should be able to. Towing takes energy. Gas has energy in it. Towing always craters mpg. 4000# trailer requires the same amount of energy to move regardless what vehicle you pull it with. Ultimately though, your mpg is due to your driving habits.

 

Perfectly normal, IMO. I just have a 2" level on the front with the factory 32" wildpeaks on mine. I'm averaging like 14.7. About half city, half highway.

 

Lift and tires... lift and tires...

 

14 mpg here, and that's all city. No lift, TRD Pro setup.

 

33” Falkens (TRD Pro wheels and tires), no lift, a light foot, 19 and change MPG here so far. I averaged about 17 in hilly WV. To see people get mid teens with a lift and bigger tires doesn’t surprise me much when the perfect-world baseline is probably about 20 (smooth tires, stock height, light foot)

 

Maybe adjust driving habits, while braking or turning.

I little bit of coasting could help. When slowing the vehicle, instead of transitioning gas-to-brake, try gas-coast-brake.

On turns or winding roads, instead of accelerating through it, set your gas pedal as soon as you trail off the brake and maintain steady gas input until you pass the apex of the corner.

 

I have notice the hybrid does not get as good of gas mileage as the non hybrid. But also wasn’t designed for fuel economy and was designed for my power and easier towing. Best I ever got with my truck was 19.4 mpg on a road trip. That was with stock tires and just going off what the gauge says on the dash. After I added c load tires in a size 34” the best I’m doing no is like 17.5 if I’m easy on the throttle (which most the time I’m not). City I’m usually in the 14-15 mpg range. It might be a little higher if I calculated it at fill ups but I don’t really care enough to do that. Lift and tires will always hurt mpg a lot no matter what you do or how you drive. Just the way it is. Looks cool but expect to pay for the coolness at the pump.

 

These threads are the best. Puts big tires and a lift on his truck and can't understand the bad gas mileage. Turbo motors under load eat more fuel and air than NA counterparts but they also provide more HP/Liter. The extra power is not free.

 

What's going on

Is your towing

And you lifted and put heavier tires on

No surprises, go get a Cummins diesel and your mpg will be the same towing 4k or not

 

Your non-towing mileage does seem low to me, even with lift and larger tires. Give your engine a little time to break in. I started noticing improved mileage at around 15k miles. My truck isn’t lifted, but I am running 33” tires. I’m averaging 19-22 mpg over all driving conditions when not towing.

 

Have you checked your air filters and made sure they ain’t clogged? I checked mine shortly after I got it, maybe around 7-8k miles, and was shocked at how dirty they were already…this these trucks suck in some air. Also don’t be too easy on the motor, you want to vary the rpm a lot and take it up to redline every once in a while for break in.

I get like 18-19 city and 22-23 hwy with my old man set up of stock tires and stock suspension. At 15k miles now, very happy with the mpg.

 

I can get 22mpg on road trips all the time in the hybrid . Put it in eco mode otherwise your gas will suffer.

Last trip I took

 

So lets see what we can do to make it get worst gas mileage. Put taller and wider tires, changes gear ration for worst. Heavier tires robs horsepower and forces it into lower gears in transmission getting away from overdrive for worst fuel mileage. No let us throw some weight behind it to make it worse. Why I'm I not surprised.

Meanwhile I get same as poster above. Even better on longer road trips.

 

I have a 2024 Limited OF Hyrbid with the TRD 3 inch lift and 33” Toyo Open Country AT3. In normal mode, I average 19.5 to 20 mpg with a lot of city driving and long highway trips 2x to 3x per month. Before upgrading the tires, with just the lift, 20 mpg+ was not a problem.

When it came to upgrading tire, I took my time researching the tire that wouldn’t be a major jump in weight. I went with 275/65/20 Toyo’s that are SL rated, and roughly 3 lbs more per tire than stock Falken’s.

Secondly, as I’ve put more miles on it, I’ve noticed the mpg improve. I’m fairly light footed when I drive it so that probably helps a little too

Enjoy the truck!

 

'24 Limited 4x TRD OR with stock lift Toyo Open Country A/T III 285/60R20 (heavy). Just getting 14mpg around town. Not enough HWY yet to get those numbers - just over 1000+ miles. Drives nice, but hate the turning radius. My '17 SR5 Tundra 2x, lifted with bigger tires, etc. was getting 14 -15 around town and up to 19 mpg HWY, sometimes 20-21, if I didn't push the peddle past 65. No towing numbers on either.

 

I am curious about the MPG drop with lift and tires. I have never owned a lifted truck but would like to install the TRD lift on mine. Run some 35’s as well. But bone stock I’m getting around 19 MPG, I expect a lift and tires to hurt MPG but is it really going to drop to 14 or so?

 

Yes. Previous gen 5.7s would get 10-11 around town with 35s. The new 3.4TT really hasn’t proved to be that much better, especially when you take the highway rated 32” tires off and put on bigger, heavier tires.

 

Under load a turbo motor uses the same amount of fuel as a NA bigger engine doing the same work. The only mpg gain is unloaded cruising on a 6 cyl and not under boost. Big tires with more air underneath and a higher profile in the wind puts the engine under load boosting much more often and for a longer duration bringing the mpg down. Any time your boosting the MAF sensor gives it more fuel to match the amount of air going through.

 

The new truck is carefully optimized for max MPG running with no load, no trailer, stock tires and a light foot. Get away from that specific formula and welcome to a different reality - Little motor has to work harder and efficiency drops when not run as it was carefully tuned for. Slap on big tires and use your truck as a truck expect to get truck like MPG.

 

I have about 1000 miles on my 2024 now, so take it for what its worth but I get 20+- with the same 275/70/18 KO2 that I had swapped to my new truck, not light tires 60lbs I think. My 2016 I traded in got 14-15 in the exact same driving. No lift on either truck but same heavy tires, I would think tire weight would be the biggest factor in mpg from stock, but it seems like lifts might be more detrimental on the gen 3?

 

I have a 3" lift with 35" tires on my hybrid. Before the lift, I was getting 18-19, mostly in town driving. Now I get about 16, give or take a 1/2 mpg. My son has a non-hybrid with the same set-up and he gets about 15 with mostly city driving. I towed a 7500lb trailer and got 7.5 on the way up the hill and 9.5 on the way down. Never an issue with power, smooth sailing.

I'll tell you as I was told when I had my Ford Ecoboosts. You either get eco or you get boost, you don't get both at the same time. If the turbos are spooling, which they will be more often with a lift and bigger, heavier tires, your mileage will suffer. That being said, I did get 1-2 mpg better on Fords with a similar lift and tire set-up. Toyota hasn't figured out efficiency in their trucks yet.

 

meh dont matter to us what mpg we get. we got crap mpg in our 2016 tacoma, 2018 tundra, 2023 tundra. we are in ND, where its always windy, cold and a lot of remote starts starting in oct thru march every year (wife gets cold easily).

her vehicles see 95% city driving and M-F she drives to work and back and its maybe 3 maybe 4 miles round trip. worse in the winter time with remote starts for at least 10 mins at a time and the short drive to/from work and then sits until the next morning to repeat.

1st pic 2016 tacoma (50 fill ups)
2nd pic 2018 tundra (249 fills ups)
3rd pic 2023 tundra (60 fill ups)

 

What app is that?
How do you guys with larger tires ‘hand calc’ mpg? Is it as simple as miles at fill up x 1.071%(32.5” stock /35”)?
For example, the numerator of 400 miles on odometer is really 428 miles.

 

Another huge factor is that the big tires and more weight just won’t allow the truck to sit in 10th or even 9th gear when cruising. The truck simply needs more power to turn them. The 2-4mpg drop is expected when you turn it into an 8speed transmission and run higher rpm.

 

a-car from fuelly. android only from what i remember

only bad part is the app still counts days even when you retire or mark it as sold. good example is the tacoma, going on 8 yrs 11 months and we sold it in 2018, so some stats are way off like the running cost per day.

2016 tacoma

bought 19-oct-2015
sold 30-nov-2017

773 days ownership

18716 miles total during timeframe

gas cost 1495.52

$1495.52 / 773 days = $1.934 per day

$1495.52 / 3276 days (today - buy date = 3276 days) = $0.456 per day which equals the pic i posted of running cost/day = $0.46