MPG? FYI. Why Your Tacoma Gets What It Gets

Lmao that sorta-bed can haul about 300 pounds more in the bed than your manly man truck ya insecure turd

 

Hot goes to cold and nothing is free...

 

Not true actually, while the ridgeline has a higher payload than many Tacoma configurations, the bed itself is has a 1100lb limit.

 

Yes. Really the oxygen and fuel are nothing alone, the energy is in the chemical bonds made in the reaction between the two.

 

Where do you see that?

 

Wikipedia lol.

 

Each pound of unsprung weight added is equivalent to 4 lbs added to the chassis. Put differently, those bigger tires on my brand spankin new taco and big brakes could be shrunk and the gear ratio in the diff reduced to pick up more mpg or power but minimally so. The comment about aero is bang on. I have an RV and the MPG threads on that forum are laughable. People obsess about getting 7.5 mpg and cry foul when folks claim to be getting over 9 mpg. That being said my old class C that was on an E350 chassis (10,500 GVWR, 23 ft long) got the same the mileage as my current E450 rig which is one ton heavier and nine feet longer! They had the same drive train and present the same brick wall going down the road and as a result get the same MPG.

For MPG, when all else is equal (aero, weight, etc), torque is king. That's why the duramax Canyons and Colorados pull 20/28 mpg in 4x4 trim and 22/30 in 2wd. You just have to be willing to shell out an extra 10 - 15k on purchase and deal with the increased depreciation. The trucks can get the same object moving up to speed at a lower rpm resulting in less fuel burned.

 

You really dont think them being diesel has anything to do with it? You know, an entirely different fuel.

 

Of course it's because they're modern diesel engines Rudolfs engines are torque monsters for a reason but it's the design of the engine and what is done with the fuel, not just the fuel itself that makes the power down low. Diesel does have more chemical energy than gas but that's only part of the story. If only the fuel were needed then a 4x4 taco could in theory get 27.12 mpg just by burning diesel in the same engine. Of course we all know attempting that is inviting mechanical disaster

https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/fuel_comparison_chart.pdf

Entirely different fuel and entirely different engine. I know folks that occasionally make their own fuel from used cooking oil to make their own fuel and burn that in their engines without a mpg loss. Cheaper for them but it makes everyone around them crave more fries...

What I was trying to emphasize was where the engine made its power. Since the 2.8 duramax has a torque peak at 2000 rpm it's got more oomph to move you down the road at a lower RPM. It will never win a drag race and the cost of the 5 gallon oil change and higher fuel costs kinda offsets any cost savings from the improved fuel mileage. That's why I'm a new Tacoma owner and not a Canyon owner!

 

There aren't a lot of points to disagree with, but this is one.

I own 2 very similarly equipped trucks. An 07 DC 4X4 Tacoma that weighs 4500 lbs. And that includes a fiberglass cap weighing about 180 lbs. My 2014 F-150 Supercrew 4X4 is 6000 lbs with a similar cap. Those weights are on scales at the county landfill where trucks are weighed in and out. And pretty close to the numbers on the door sticker when you subtract payload from GVWR.

Even with the weight difference the Tacoma gets roughly 1 mpg better fuel mileage than the Ford, about 5% better. I can't recall the HP ratings, but the Ford 5.0 V8 is considerably more. One thing that I believe important, and you didn't touch on is that a Tacoma is closer in real performance to 1/2 tons than most give them credit for. My Tacoma has 1200 lbs of payload, the F-150, 1700. In towing capacity the Tacoma is rated for 6500 lbs, my Ford 7700 lbs. My Tacoma has 70% of the payload of the Ford, and 85% of the towing capacity. While getting 5% better fuel economy.

All things being equal a Tundra will get about 2 mpg less than Chevy or Ford. That works out to about 7 gallons more gas to drive 1000 miles. Not going to break the bank. The problem is that Ford/Chevy/Dodge play tricks with their advertising. They advertise trucks that will tow 10,000 lbs and they advertise trucks that will get 22 mpg. They make those trucks, but they aren't the same truck. The ones that will tow 10,000 lbs don't get any better fuel mileage than Tundra. The ones that get better fuel mileage won't tow what a Tundra will.

I'm more familiar with Ford so I'll use them as an example. They offer 4 engines and 4 different axle ratios ranging between 3.15 to 3.73, and 3.73 is almost impossible to find. The most common is 3.31. Some of those trucks will tow and haul LESS than a Tacoma. Most are similar to mine and rated to tow 7000- 8000 lbs.

Toyota doesn't do that. If you choose the 5.7L Tundra engine you get a truck with 4.30 gears that will tow 10,000 lbs, no other options. Yea, it sucks gas, but the Fords, Chevy's and Dodges that will tow 10,000 lbs are unicorns, and the ones that do don't get any better fuel mileage than Tundra.

 

I learned about in my thermodynamics class when we had to calculate the output of various reactions.

 

Well, yup! The amount of energy in common matter is mind boggling! Making use of it for humans is the tough part.

 

Yeah this pisses me off so much. It's that little * that in the bottom in tiny print says "when properly equipped"

Ok. It's been a while since my chemistry classes, but while oxygen is a powerful oxidizer, there is not any energy released when you break the O=O bond. The energy comes from O accepting electrons from the "fuel" and bond formation into the products.

From my understanding it's not quite accurate to say all the potential energy in a reaction is in the oxygen, what really determines how much energy is released depends on what you are oxidizing.
Edit: turbo/supercharging works because with more oxygen, you can add more fuel.

On a semi related topic, I think it would be cool to make a bottled water that is "purified" by burning H2 and 02 for it's product, pure water.

 

I think one of the easiest ways for the Tacoma to become more efficient is to cut weight.

I'm pretty sure i read somewhere that the 3rd gen weighs more than the 2nd gen...how is that possible? Guessing maybe from all the tech.

Change the hood, doors, and tailgate to aluminium or something and that should help. Every little bit counts.

 

Yep. It's not all oxygen and it's not all gasoline. It's all about what happens when you combine the two with a little ignition source!

 

It's all about safety is the reason the became so bloated. Seriously.

 

Wow, awesome post. It's sure to stop all the "what mpg you getting" threads I bet.

 

Ya I'm going to call bs on the 3.73 being hard to find, 65 of 179 F150s at a local to me dealer have 3.73s. I'm far too lazy to break that down to the ones with the right engine to tow 10k+, but I'm sure they have a few dozen there.

Edit: although I do chuckle when I see the 26mpg and highest in class towing claim in the same sentence!

 

Yes they do. My brothers gmc with the 6.2l and 12,000lb tow rating gets 20 highway.

 

You missed one of the most significant impacts to efficiency and why full size fords and GMs get same if not better mileage (compared to the Manual transmission Tacoma for sure).

They have 10 speed transmissions that allow for the lowest RPM at any given speed. Toyota just now debuted their 10 speed transmission and their "10 speed" CVT/4 speed hybrid transmission.


My Manual Tacoma gets 21-23 MPGs on the highway mainly because of the way I drive (no faster than 75mph) and a Tonno-cover, which appears to have helped more than what I imagined.


The toyota corporate 3.5 v6 puts out the same HP as the old stock 2JZ (300hp+) and the old Nissan Twin turbo V6. The new naturally aspirated 3.5 V6 gets better mileage and has higher output than those old Turbo engines, so there have actually been significant improvements over the years.

The Toyota Corporate V6 has been mated to a Turbo in the new LS and a Hybrid assist system in the LC500h. Whether they put those new modular systems in the 4runner/Tacoma/Tundra is wildcard. However, the Tacoma is up 35% in sales compared to June 2017, so I don't think they are going to be in any rush to put the new engine systems in their trucks.


Further...


Mazda already cracked the petro code with the new Skyactive compression detonation engine. The petro engine isn't quite dead yet.