Unusually HIGH Gas Milage

We don't have a baja here, but have lots of loose mud to get dirty.

 

I recently got a 2022 TRD OR auto (got what I could at the time on short notice, so a manual wasn’t in the cards unfortunately).

This is my first Tacoma, and honestly I’ve been very surprised with how poor the mileage is. I got the truck at the end of December and had Nordsman snow tires installed at the dealer. Through the winter I averaged somewhere in the neighborhood of 15mpg per tank. Sometimes worse. It was a pretty cold winter in VT this year, and a decent amount of idling/warming up the truck happened (first time having remote start... which is quit nice on those sub-zero days). The best I did was around 19 on a 250 mile trip.

I typically keep speeds right around 70-75 on the highway, and everything is stock. I picked up a used softopper at around 2k miles, but didn't notice any difference with it on.

Now that I’m on the stock ”AT” tires, I’m seeing equally bad MPG—around 15. Is this normal?

 

Welcome to the forum
Snow tires are mileage killers, AT tires are only "less bad".
Remote start gets you zero mpg.
Speed really knocks you down, I see a drop of 2 - 3 mpg between running at 67 and 73.

 

Thanks! I’ve been lurking for some time… but saw this thread and felt like I had to get to the bottom of how a stock truck could be SOOO far off from the OP. I know snow tires can eat MPG, as can AT tires (though these Wrangler Adventurer tires barely seem to qualify, from all I’ve read/experienced), lead-footed tendencies, ECT Power button, high speeds, etc.

If anything, I think my Nordsman snow tires actually may have done slightly better (just going off of anecdote/memory on warmer days where I filled the tank and went for a longer drive—though I definitely didn’t do any proper apples-to-apples comparisons). They definitely gripped a lot better in mud, though the ride wasn’t as compliant over pot holes and washboard. I was expecting to see a couple MPG improvement going to the stock wranglers, but that hasn’t been the case.

I guess I should try to maintain 67 on my next long drive and see what I get. I got pretty used to driving 80+ most of the time on the interstate with my B5 S4 Audi I was daily driving for the past year before getting this truck, so going 70-75 has already been an adjustment. But with this powertrain (especially the transmission), it does feel/sound a lot happier at those speeds and really likes to hunt between 5th and 6th to maintain speeds above 75 on the hilly highways we have in VT.

I really would like to experience this engine in a manual—and would have bought it that way if it had been available at the time. Even though they claim the auto is more efficient, I just don’t like how shifty it gets on our hilly roads, and feel I could drive a manual more efficiently by simply putting my foot in it without the downshift this truck so frequently likes to take on me. But I digress…

Do you know if people with bone stock TRD ORs typically get noticeably worse fuel economy than TRD Sport drivers? I only ask because sports have even less aggressive stock tires and an air dam, so surely they do better on fuel, but by how much? I think the window sticker claims the OR gets 1 or 2 MPG less, but what I’m experiencing seems to be a fair bit worse than that.

I should also note: I didn’t get this truck for good fuel economy, and use it a fair amount on pretty rough back roads and accessing farms and in/around the compost sites I work at, but I’m just curious since I didn’t think it would be this bad. This is a bridge for me until there’s a compelling (relatively affordable) electric truck offering (hopefully from Toyota), and I love most things about the truck so far.

 

What I don’t get is that I’m getting similar mileage to you with a bone stock ‘22 TRD OR, and I’m not particularly lead-footing it with this truck. I have a twin turbo B5 S4 Audi for that. I did get on it when the going was slippery this winter and I still had new-truck energy going on—and to see what an electronic “limited slip” diff was all about (I discovered a couple weeks into ownership that the real fun comes only after you hold the traction control button for 3 seconds to turn off all the nannies). But I’m still not getting much better than 18 highway driving, and 15 or so around town/back roads

 

My truck is stock including tires and air dam.
I enjoy the manual. There are plenty of folks who squawk about the gearing, the throw of the shifter, the clutch engagement point, the odd power band of the engine -- on and on. I think many came FWD cars and seem to expect that level of refinement in a truck. Drive a 1975 F-100 with a 3 speed on the wheel for example and then get back in the Tacoma.

Just like any other machine it is a matter of learning what the truck wants you to do so it will do what you want it to do. Coming from domestic in line sixes and V8s with lots of low end torque and a heavy flywheel that never had much need for RPMs is the big adjustment. This engine has the off idle torque of a Briggs & Stratton.

Once I accepted that "I paid for the entire tachometer - I might as well use it" driving got a lot more fun.

On secondary roads 45-60 I can climb up in the 24-27 mpg range.
Steady highway 65-67 usually is around 21-22.
Steady 72-73 will be 19-21.
I don't go much faster - having a bright orange truck and speeding seems like a bad combination.

 

I have read that the computer does a lot of learning when the truck is new and mileage improves after several thousand miles, I bought mine used with 12k miles and it isn't my daily so I didn't have that experience.

 

I guess I’ll have to find a 3rd gen manual to see what I’m missing out on! I know what you mean about getting used to this engine and how it likes to be revved (even though it doesn’t like to hold it in the revs with the auto!). The only other truck I have daily driven extensively was a 2011 Frontier with a 6 Speed manual. That engine seemed to have a lot more low end torque, so I would often run it at low RPMs and just keep my speed up by burying my foot in the throttle rather than downshifting. I also drove a Ram 1500 with a manual that my dad had when I was in high school a little, and that was certainly even more inclined to putter along in the same gear at low RPMs with plenty of torque to step up and go without a downshift.

I probably learned that habit from my dad who grew up on straight sixes, V8s, and square cut gears that needed double clutching on the downshift (something I still do sometimes out of habit and still sometimes hearing my dad tell me “why burn the synchros when you could just sync the transmission yourself” somewhere in the back of my mind). If you have torque down low, why bother downshifting if you don’t have to I guess? But now I’ve really digressed…

 

I guess we shall see. I’m about to hit 5k miles. I’ll keep an eye on it, and check the “analogue” way a few times (filling tank/clearing trip meter and calculating on next fill-up).

 

Same here when i had my 4.7 v8 tundra....its a main reason i bought a tacoma.