Highway gas mileage sucks.

Looks pretty similar to Toronto. You really should start driving after max 1 minute of warming up. It doesn't need to be in the warm area to start driving. That's a very archaic way of thinking.

 

So your suggestion is that before the metal/bearings have had time to warm up and expand, I should put it in drive and spin it all up in the rpm range for normal driving and force it to expand and warm up..?

 

Agreed. Easliy 20 mpg + here

 

Two minutes to let the oil circulate then gentle driving for 15-20 minutes to get everything up to temp and expanded. Then HAMMER TIME

 

I go from my driveway, a minute down the road then interstate. No 15-20 minutes of easy driving...

 

When the flying Taco mod comes out...


"Shut up and take my money!"

 

your hammering it down on the highway? i think not, keep it under 3000 rpm until its warmed up shouldnt be a problem

 

I have to merge onto the interstate which is a 70 mph speed limit that most people run 75+ on, on ramp is short. I could be the jackass that merges at a slow pace because my truck is a snowflake, or I could merge onto it like normal folk. Do I floor it, no. Does it see over 3k rpm, yep it sure does. Not like these trucks are power houses with a bunch of low end torque to get you moving quickly lol

 

And for the record, my 08 Altima has 238k miles on it, I warm it up exactly the same and always have when I drive it and I haven’t had to do anything other than change the oil in it the entire 2 years I’ve owned it. Doesn’t consume a bunch of oil because it sits and idles too long lol

 

you must be running 35s or something cause i have no issue getting upto 70 with my 34s with out getting on it that much. but i do agree low end power isnt the best but once you past that 3500 mark its 5x better

 

Idling isn’t good for gas engines. Causes carbon build up. Big problem with direct injection engines was carbon building up on the injectors. Our trucks have the self cleaning injectors so that’s toyotas way of dealing with it. However you could still get carbon build up in the heads. Not aware of any problem with these motors but others it happens

 

Just a minor point, but the DI problem is not the injectors but build up on the intake valves since they were no longer getting washed with fuel spray. Like you said, we are taken care of because there is both port injection and DI (D4-S).

 

I personally think people are mixing myth, fact and old ways of thinking into this thread. The problem is, there is no definitive data that says otherwise, so everyone continues to stumble along, thinking that what they know is what is correct.
For example, on really cold days, I start the truck, let it warm up for a few minutes and drive away. I let it warm up because I don't like getting into an ice cold truck. Is it right? Until some definitively proves me wrong with data then yep, my way is right.

Funny story... I have a friend who is also an engineer. He absolutely despises people who cannot let the old myths and legends go. He is always the "get with today's way of thinking" kind of guy.
He bought a Honda Ridgeline several years (2007 maybe) ago, the one with the older body style. He told me, "I think it can go 100K without ever changing the oil. I think I'll try it." He knows quite a bit about fluids and I agree with him, with the caveat that this will be an expensive lesson if you are wrong.

For the next four years, he never changed the oil. He religiously changed the filter every 10K though and added enough oil to bring it up to the "full" line from the loss of oil during the filter change. He had zero problems during that time and went to trade it at 100K miles. He told the dealership what he had done before he traded it. They sent it back into their shop and checked it out (and changed the oil) and test drove it to make sure it was OK. They deducted for high mileage and condition, but really didn't penalize him much on the trade.

Well, they sold it to a local guy. My buddy saw the truck a few years ago at a gas station and pulled in to talk to the guy filling it up. He found out the truck now has over 200K on the clock with zero problems and normal maintenance. The oil was not changed in the first 100K miles.

My point? Modern vehicles are not delicate. They do not take the same cautious operating procedures of old vehicles, where the myths started as fact and continue to be confused as fact. They can be abused and still go a long time. Sure, I take good care of my vehicles and service them when needed, but I also understand that, unless I am trying to get a half a million miles out of it, I can pretty much do the bare minimum and be just fine. That includes idling it for awhile.

 

I struggle to stay over 18.0mpg with a 80/20 city/hwy driving mix. I have to really baby it to get 18 and the road are pretty flat around here. I do have larger wheels and tires, BUT my wheels and tires are 5lb lighter per corner than stock.

 

Oh yeah. We have 50yrs of mass population, carbureted, analog history. Change in the digi age is coming fast and furious.

I'm in the start and drive camp, but our worst weather here is the low 20s Fahrenheit. If it was colder? I might actually put a jacket on and still drive off?

With the large coolant volume in the Taco, it is a good 5min of driving before the needle moves. Waiting that long plus would just hurt my head. I can certainly see where some believe that the oil gets to temp faster than the coolant. I've been meaning to looking into that on Torque.

On my bike, it is a few minutes to see 120F while idling or less than a minute of riding.

I've heard of folks that don't change oil, even with some oil analysis to back it up. 10k intervals for lack of spending money on UOAs works for me, esp when it is either free with Toyota Care or cheap at home. I am doing a 5k change on the Taco just once, and more because I just want to. If this thing can somehow last 500k, I'd be very happy with it.

Beyond that, the cost delta between dino and full synthetic oils is closing. I bought a jug of decent dino for a break in on one of my bikes. It was $18 compared with $22 or so for synth. $0.99 quarts of Havoline3 are still somehow fresh in my head.


Yeah. We are in a place where engineered obsolescence feels real, but cars / trucks are built better than ever. 32k tow ratings, 10k oil intervals, no tune ups, and 100k is just getting broken in. . .

That said, I am just coming off of what is truly the lowest quality new vehicle sold in North America. I am have slight adaption problems with the Toyota way of thinking.

 

What was the vehicle with the low quality?

Also, for me, I don't want to drive a vehicle 500K! I'm 55 yo now. I want to enjoy a vehicle for awhile, then get a new vehicle to enjoy, then get a new... you get my point. It's not about the money or anything. Now, if, in a few years I truly just cannot live without this truck, I will keep it and get something else new. I'm still an enthusiast, but my true love affairs with vehicles and big mods stopped back in the late 80's. now, I just enjoy them and move on.

I totally agree, today's vehicles are amazing compared to the older vehicles, and maintenance is non existent compared to them as well.

 

Fucking Ural, bought new in 2013. The chassis was rugged as hell. The drive train is still garbage.

I am still a motorcyclist at heart and am happy to keep things until they don't make sense any longer. So, I'm thankful to have a reliable V6 RWD MT with a helluva 4wd system. I'm planning on using whatever we get for our Daughter when she's 16 as my play thing. She'll know how to drive the Taco and am thinking about a well used NB Miata or other Mazda.

 

My daughter got a MT CR-V and my son got a MT Subaru... no WRX lol. Now my daughter is married and just bought a new Tundra for herself.

I used to race motocross in the 250 class, back when it was two stroke lol. I quit riding motorcycles when in 1989 I walked away from a crash on my R1100 that I should not have walked away from. Now I ride mountain bikes like an idiot haha.

 

We are wondering what insurance on the Wife's Forester XT would be. The thing is that the Daughter is gaga for WRXs. Not even an option for many reasons.

The funny thing is that our neighbor bought our saab HO turbo for their 16yo. He did really well with it and had no problems. Decisions! I'm just thankful that she is open-minded about MTs.

I've always had the race bug, but never got on a track. Maybe once the Girls stop suck down $$.

A bike's natural position is on its side taking a rest. Who am I to deny that? Yeah, I had a few interesting get offs. Thankfully, nothing high speed, but I should not have lived after a few of them. Still, I'm happier riding than just about anything else. I'm also very thankful that I had the Taco this winter. We had some weather that I hadn't seen in the 12yrs that I was riding.

 

No dirty injectors is a result of direct injection. Obvious toyota has double the injectors because it’s Otto and Atkinscycle. The 3.5 ecoboost gen one had issues with dirty injectors due to carbon build up as well. Ford fixed this problem in the generation ecoboost. But yes the values get build up as well. I had that issue with my jeep. With my f150 I would just open it up a lot to get the carbon off the valves. A few times you’d see a plum of black smoke coming out of the exhaust almost looking like a diesel