Road Trip Fuel Economy and Radar Cruise Control

So we just got back from a road trip from the Portland area up to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (about 390 miles one way). This was our first big road trip in the 2018 Tundra and I was excited to see how it went. For the most part it was a pretty comfortable ride and smooth sailing the whole way. On the way up we averaged around 70 mph and according to my hand calculation we got about 17 mpg with me, the wife, two kids, our 80 lb dog and a bed full of crap. It was pretty hot on the way up, but I still think we did decent on fuel mileage considering the payload and A/C running most of the time.

However, the way back was a different story. I'm not sure if it was because we had the A/C running on med-high most of the time because of the heat (average temp for most of the trip was about 95), but the trip computer is telling me we only got a little over 14 mpg on the way back! It's fairly flat both ways, so I don't think that would have made much of a difference. The only other difference I can tell would be we had Chevron gas on the way there and Costco gas on the way back... It just sucks because I've been averaging about 14.5 mpg around town (babying it).

Anyway, my other comment is on the radar cruise control. Has anyone noticed the "jerkiness" of the system? If I have it set to 70 and come up on a semi, it essentially slams on the brakes, then when I go to pass it freakin' guns it and downshifts about 2 gears to get back up to speed. I eventually switched back to "manual" cruise and just adjusted it myself as needed. The pre-collision system also hit the brakes for me when we approached an overpass on the freeway with a semi crossing on the overpass. It's as if it thought it was an intersection with a vehicle moving in front of us.

Overall it was a pretty good trip, but that return-trip fuel mileage was a bit of a shock!

 

I've gotten to where I turn off the PCS (Pre-Collision System) each time drive my 2018. It really gets annoying when it thinks it is alerting me to something that is pretty danged obvious and I'm already in management mode. I also have gotten so I rarely use the radar cruise, it gets fooled all the time (aggressive braking to maintain preset following distance for one). I don't like the abruptness either and it is not in the best interest of following drivers. There are times when I do use it though when traffic speeds vary from 50-75 in moderate traffic.

My 2018 is 2wd and I get consistent 16-17mpg, even with some of this in stop & go traffic. I don't know what to say about your return mpg. I only use Chevron so I don't have anything to compare.

Dan

 

Tail-wind on the way out and head-wind on the way back?

 

My guess would be the wind all the way.

As for the Radar Cruise, I disabled it the night I bought mine and haven't used it since. It's crappy and downright dangerous to brake as hard as that thing does. I'm willing to bet some cat is gonna be towing a trailer using radar cruise and the hard braking will cause the trailer to jack-knife. I think it's a crappy, sub-standard system. Lane departure is just downright annoying, so TSS for me is a waste overall.

 

Yeah, I never use the lane departure. I turned it on for a few seconds when I first bough the truck to see what it did and haven't used it since. I'm also becoming less of a fan of all the other TSS stuff. Is there a way to set the "default" cruise to manual/traditional instead of having to hold the button for 3 seconds?

 

There must be. I'll look into it this weekend and report back.