Getting rid of steel front bumper for better mpg

Hey everyone. Sorry another poor fuel mileage post coming in.

I'm on a mission to get better mpg. Currently I have 255 80 r17's on. They are Toyo open country at2's. I'm looking to swap them out with 265 70 r17. I drive almost all city. Not looking for aesthetics just function. Would anyone be able to recommend a good city tire that I could keep on all year and would possibly cut it during the winter. I live in south central British Columbia so we get moderate winters here with a decent amount of snow. The snow doesn't last long though. I'd say there's a total of a month where you actually need good tires. Not sure if I should put on winters and possibly run them all year, all terrain tires or all season tires. I have a 2" lift also.

The truck came with a fairly heavy duty front winch bumper that I don't need at all. How much is this contributing to bad fuel economy? If I have zero use for it should I just dump it for stock? I'm perfectly ok with the stock bumper. How easy is it to do yourself or roughly how much would it cost to get a shop to do it? Where's the best place to find one? I used to work in oil and gas so I'm not terrible with wrenches.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

 

You’re in the 1st gen section, you may get more specific advice in the 2nd gen forum.

However, I can tell you that unless that hidden winch tray weighs 400 lbs (it doesn’t), it’s not contributing significantly to any mpg impact you’re seeing. Your ROI on buying a stock bumper and/or having a shop replace it would be in the dozens if not hundreds of years based on gas mileage alone.
Tire size and your right foot will make the most impact.

 

You are in the wrong car if that’s what you’re looking for. Tacomas are made to be in inefficient, slow, and be able to drive across the Sahara desert.

Standard load tires will help. Michelin makes good street tires for trucks.

 

A lighter weight, smaller diameter, highway focused tire is probably going to make the biggest difference. I had some Michelin LTX on my Tacoma many years ago, they were good but I do not remember much about them (12+ years ago). They seem to be rated pretty good looking at consumer reviews

The difference may be 1-2 mpg if I had to take a wild guess without knowing what you are getting now.
In all likelyhood, the cost of a new set of tires would probably take years for you to offset with mpg gains.