Fuel Mileage

I know that most folks here don't ever think about fuel mileage, they just drive it like they stole it. But my 07 (Snoopy) is my daily driver. Fuel mileage matters. Significantly. So here are four screen captures from the app I use to track my mpg.

 

Fuel mileage is important, but the difference between 20 mpg and 22 mpg isn't. You'll burn about 4 gallons (about $12) more gas to drive 1000 miles at 20 mpg than at 22 mpg. When I need a truck, I drive a truck and pay for the gas. When I'm concerned about fuel costs I drive something that gets 35 mpg. Now I'll save about 21 gallons (about $63) to drive 1000 miles.

More info on your truck is needed. 28 mpg is good even for a 4 cyl engine. My 07 4X4 DC with the 4.0 usually does right at 20 mpg on the road. I've hit 22 a few times when driving conditions were ideal.

 

Everyone is different, and has different finances. Many can't afford a 2nd vehicle, but need, or require, a pickup. Or, that is the vehicle that they bought for reliability reasons. That doesn't mean that mpg doesn't matter, especially in places that have higher fuel prices.
Fuel economy may not matter to everyone here, but I'm sure that it matters to a large segment. Considering that everything ekse has gone up considerably over the last several years.

We've been paying the equipment of about $5.50USD a gallon for the longest time.
Just my 2 cents.

 

Impressive!!!

 

A Honda Civic would be a good bet for you...Get itnaturatlly aspirated with with a stick,

 

Here are the mpg readings from my 2006 Tacoma SR5 (4 cyl, 2wd) for the last year:

1/20/2025 27 mpg
11/19/2024 28.7 mpg
11/9/2024 28.5 mpg
10/19/2024 27.7 mpg
10/2/2024 28.7 mpg
9/20/2024 28.1 mpg
8/29/2024 27.9 mpg
8/9/2024 26.8 mpg
7/25/2024 27.4 mpg
7/10/2024 27.3 mpg
6/11/2024 27.0 mpg
6/1/2024 27.9 mpg
5/19/2024 27.1 mpg
5/10/2024 27.6 mpg
4/27/2024 27.7 mpg
4/18/2024 27.5 mpg
3/26/2024 27.3 mpg
2/26/2024 27.8 mpg
1/10/2024 27.8 mpg

 

Thats pretty averagefor this truck with a 4 cylinder. I have the 4.0L v6 and average 23.7. Some will accuse me of driving it soft, others will just scoff. I was just interested in doing the best I could with what I have and am very happy with my results.

 

For the critics.
My truck is a stock 07 PR Access cab 2wd with a 4.0L V6 and 5 spd auto. I have changed the muffler to a flow through design and shortened the tail pipe to exit just behind the axle. I run Denso TT plugs. I have a soft cover on the bed. This is my daily driver and only vehicle. I don't want a Civic, (someone suggested I should get one if mpg were my goal).
I just wanted to share what I've been able to accomplish via minor tweaks with my otherwise stock truck. If you don't care or just want to scoff, don't bother to respond with rude comments, just keep on scrolling. I'm not a hyper-miler, just a guy who strives to achieve all that is possible with what I've got. Peace to all.

 

Yeah I'm having a really hard time believing that anyone is getting 24 MPG in a 4.0. That's above the highly optimistic EPA estimates for the truck which basically never happens in real life. Most people are getting under 20 in these trucks.

How exactly are you tracking this? I see RPMs and air temps in your pics which indicates this is estimating usage and not actually tracking how many miles you went and how much gas you burnt doing so. The 3rd gens have the same inaccurate readout problems because it's based on fuel injector pulses or something and not actual measured fuel usage.

 

According to a quick google search, your truck is rated 19 city/22 highway and you say that your onboard mileage estimator says you're averaging 23-24.

My truck is rated 20 city/27 highway and I've been getting 27-28 (calculated by dividing gallons filled into miles on odometer). I don't think either of us is doing anything magic here except driving a lot of highway miles at a moderate speed, probably with cruise control.

If you do the same thing in a 2025 SR5 2wd, you can expect to get 26 mpg.

 

Fuck to get those miles
Even when was daily
Mine is 4x4 but shit
I get like 20 hwy 14 twn

 

I think I still have my OG sticker
Now I run mud terrains and don't tow it I tow with them

 

I routinely got 23-24 mpg in my X-Runner if I used cruise control and kept the speed around 60 mph. I actually exceeded 25 mpg twice on trips.
(Fuel mileage over 200+ miles.)

 

I got between 10-11 this winter, but I let my truck idle for 5-10 mins every morning to get up to temp. Realistically I'd estimate I'm in the 12-15 range city driving.

 

Years ago, I had 2 different vehicles that I managed to coax 26mpg out of. The first was a 1973 Camaro w/a 350 and automatic transmission. The second was a 1968 ElCamino with a small block 400 and automatic transmission. Both used a Quadrajet I had smoothed the bores on and adjusted to run clean on the primaries and locked out the huge secondaries until demand called for it. They both had headers and duals and used a stock HEI distributor. Nothing special outside of the carb mods and tuning.
Currently, on my 07 PR SR, the only non stock item is the shortened exhaust exiting through a Summit Racing 2.5" flow through muffler and a shortened, over the axle tail pipe.
I use a OBDLink + device plugged in to my OBD port that sends a Bluetooth signal to an old Android phone I use to run the OBD link app that allows me to monitor my fuel economy.
Without the device and the app, I was calculating mpg the old vasioned way dividing miles traveled by gallons used. I was told that pulling the mpg off the ECU via the OBD port was more accurate. Using the math method, I average 15-17 mpg around town going back and forth to work. On the highway I average 22+ mpg (see the attached receipt).
My biggest piece of advice is two-fold. Drive sensibly and use non-ethanol fuel for your longer/highway trips. When I use a minimum of 1/4 tank of Non-Ethanol fuel, my mileage goes up to the numbers I share in the screen shots I started this post with.
So, no offense to the nay layers about 20+ mpg, but even calculating it the old fashioned math method, using Non-Ethanol boosted my mpg to 26, when I was driving sensibly.

 

Those old 4 bbl carbs could achieve better MPG than 2 bbl carbs, if you kept your foot out of it...but that was very difficult...lol

 

So very true! And everyone dogged the Q-jet as worthless. Except for those of us who saw it's true potential, as an economy/power machine, when tuned correctly. I polished the primary bores on my last one to a mirror like finish. The air passing through it made it fog up.

 

420 miles per tank with no AC on
driving 45 mph mostly with no big hills
yes i run it until its past the E a bit

 

Sounds like the ethanol free gas might be the key there. And unfortunately we don't have that in Canada which is probably why I am so skeptical of your numbers. All gas here is "may contain up to 10% ethanol" no matter what station you go to.

I have way too many mods on my truck to worry about fuel economy, but even in my wife's stock CX-5 with a 2.5l 4cyl we can barely get 24 MPG (10 l/100km) on average during highway trips. I've never heard of anyone with a Tacoma getting close to that here. Even stock 4runners (with the 4.0 v6) that I know struggle to get 20 MPG on the highway. So it must have a lot to do with the ethanol content in the gas. I had no idea it made that much of a difference.

 

Although ethanol free gasoline can be found, it's sometimes very difficult to find. I'm in an area of several million people, and there's not one gas station that sells it here. I found one station in my old home town (city+county population around 65K) that sells it, and it's quite a bit more expensive than our 10% ethanol mix. I would say ethanol is not much (if any) of a factor.