Cold Starts Breaking My Balls

Hi, all. This is my first week of ownership - 2004 V6 DC 2wd TRD PreRunner. Unfortunately, my drive to work is only 2 miles, so I basically have a cold start in the morning, drive 2 miles, and then a cold start in the afternoon for a 2 mile drive home. Yesterday when I left home, my tank was at 3/4 full, and after 6 miles of driving, it is almost down to 1/2. WTF?! I'm not heavy on the throttle, and my a/c has been off. Is there anything I can do to lessen the mpg loss with this kind of driving?

 

That sounds like a malfunctioning gas gauge to me, mine tend to do this around the 3/4 full mark and then it'll be screwy and show really low until it gets to in between 3/4 and 1/2 then it reports correctly again.

 

Well, I really hope you're right. As of now, I'm going to be lucky to get 250 miles out of this tank. I'll keep you posted.

 

How long does your drive to work take you?

My gauge often doesn't read correctly for the first like 10-15 minutes of a drive (it will say 1/2 when I start the truck and slowly rise to 3/4 after a few minutes and then act normal from there)

EDIT: I should add that it's worse the colder it is.

 

Sounds normal. You're going to be running rich on a cold start. If you're driving the truck in a rich state mostly (2 miles is barely enough to get the engine to proper fuel dumping levels), then yeah, your MPG is gonna suck.

 

on a positive note you will only have to fill up once maybe twice a month

 

250-ish miles a tank is about normal for me and I have 1/2 city 1/2 highway commute usually (not that miles per tank is an accurate way of comparing mileage but still).

Still though, being a 2wd and only going a few miles a day you should be getting better I'd imagine. Start with the basics...hold old are your spark plugs? Might be time to clean the throttle body and/or injectors.

 

It's very simple. Calculate your real gas mileage- using math. Until then there's nothing to worry about. 240-250 miles per tank is about average for our trucks, that will yield you around 16mpg