2019 Cruise Control Gas Mileage is HORRIBLE.

I've been waiting for you.. what took you so long? hahah

 

Wow, guess I'm lucky. I use my adaptive cruise all the time and I dont think ive seen an average below 20 mpg ever. Usually I'm in the 21-23 range, that's v6 stock everything with a tonneau cover over the bed. The only time I think it may have been lower was driving into a strong headwind. And yes it downshifts sometimes on hills, every vehicle will do that.

 

I drive the interstate every day for about 25 miles. Cruise control likes to shift to 5th gear and sometimes 4th and hold them. I have found that I can control the throttle myself, build a little momentum before hills, and get a higher mpg than if I was running cruise.

 

I've seen this issue posted many times but never an issue with mine(2016) and plenty of hills/mtns here.

 

The cruise on my 2019 works great! I turn down the sensitivity, from default of 3, to 1.
As @rlx02 mentioned, cruise is always going to be worse, than an eco conscious driver.

Also consider; we're in winter, so winter gas, tires will have reduced pressure (if you didn't top them off), and we've had lots of wind here in the midwest, yesterday in MO we had steady 20-30 mph wind all day. I drive 50 highway miles dead West to my gun club, doing from 65-75 mph in to a 15-25 headwind, I'll be in the mid teens , and I'll be about 20-21 mpg going home.

 

My tacomas cruise control is the first cruise control in 20 years that I have actually liked. Every other car I have had always hung in a lower gear and felt like it was always mashing the throttle. Slight incline = full throttle!

With the tacoma I can set the cruise to 79, then get behind a semi truck. The cruise keeps me back enough to not piss off the trucker, but close enough to ride his wake.

I have no desire to speed, so getting behind a truck is perfect for me.

 

I've done a couple hundred mile road trip and i averaged around 19 MPG with cruise control. Worked fine for me.

 

cruise control set at 72 from Boise to Sacramento (550 miles) and got 20mpg hauling 900lbs in the bed. I did lower the mph though when going up hill and I'm sure that makes a lot of difference. On the way back to Boise, same set speed, I got 22mpg but wasn't hauling as much.

 

I documented this exact same thing in a post a couple of months ago, when I drove across the country from CA to NC and then back to CA. It is exactly as you said, but in my case, when driving through the states where the max speed limit was 65, my gas mileage went way up to between 28-30mpg, which I was quite happy about! If you really wanna get sick though, put the current gas mileage indicator on the dash screen, and watch it CRASHDIVE when you go uphill and the dang transmission downshifts TWO GEARS and as you said, the RPMs go from around 1700 up to about 3300! Believe me, once I got back and had to take mine in for the 10,000 mile checkup, that was one of the things I complained about to the dealer, not that they could do anything about it. I just wanted them to hear it for probably the umpteenth time, so maybe they would relay it to Toyota. Probably won't happen, but hey, if nobody says anything, then Toyota will assume they have a great transmission, which they don't. But also, I NEVER use the DRCC, but the classic cruise control, which as someone else said, is activated by holding the push button for 2-3 seconds, until you see the dash indicator change to "set", and then it is classic cruise control. To me, as I have said in the past, DRCC completely sucks, and really wish at the very least, that I could change the "default" push button setting for a quick-push, from DRCC to Classic Cruise Control, instead of the way it comes with DRCC being the default. I hate it!

 

Like others have said, low tire pressure, AT tires, lifts, winter gas, winter winds will all degrade your MPG

 

OP, how many miles are on your truck? Has the transmission learned yet?

i have the manual tranny, even i have to downshift on hills (with much lower gearing than the auto) — the 3.5l just doesn’t have much torque at lower rpms, especially on the stock tune — so it’s going to downshift to maintain speed, especially going uphill

 

I've noticed with driving in the mountains/hills (I live in SW Virginia), I can do better than the cruise control with the gas mileage on the highway. Though my fuel economy with cruise control has never been as bad as you reported and I'm running heavier tires than stock. With cruise control its typically 17-18 mph and I usually can get 20-21 mph if I'm controlling the gas.

 

9k. Im sure it has learned. Local driving I am in the 17mpg.

 

What mods do you have?
Lift, tires, nard or soft bed top

 

265/70R17 Wildpeaks with -12mm offset
Victory 4x4 Roof Rack
Softtopper Bed Cap.

 

The transmission on my 2018 Tacoma was a little shifty until it had several thousand miles on it. And you won't get great gas mileage at 75 mph.

 

When cresting an incline, lightly tap the accelerator pedal and the truck will shit into a higher gear.

 

Haven't had any issues here. Long trips and cruise control are when I get my best mileage!

 

I have a '17 offroad and as someone said previously, the cruise control (not adaptive, normal) does not equate to decent gas mileage. It tries really hard to get bcak up to the set speed and will reduce gas mileage relative to not using it. So I don't think it's a function of the adaptive cruise control, but just how Toyota programmed the non-adaptive responses.

I've basically given up on using it as it's kind of annoying how it works.

 

I have the same problem, same complaint. I have a 6 mile 10 minute drive to work that is flat with 2 stops and I cant get better than 17.5 mpg no matter how hard I try. It does do better once warmed up and no cruise but I really have to drive it light. Its 2020, we have all these awesome safety features... why does cruise still suck so bad in every automatic car?

Can anyone confirm if OVtune fixes this problem, maybe the gear lock feature?