Horrible Gas Mileage

So does heat play a part in it? It has been about 95 around here and humid as hell!

 

Absolutely, that is why there such a demand for Cold Air Intake Kits. As gas atomizes and is compressed in the cylinders the amount of gas the engine uses is less when the air is cooler (Air/Fuel ratio). On a cool and rainy day your gas mileage will go up marginally.

I have always wondered why toyota never ran the air intake through a sealed bypass system that cooled the air on the vehicles equipped with AC ? At least the efforts of having the AC on during a hot day would negate some of the mpg lost due to AC pulley running
Now that electric power steering is on hybrids -- how soon before we have an electric AC unit that would give us back some of our lost mpg???

 

Actually, from what I have been seeing on this website, the automatics in the later generation actually get better fuel mileage. I suspect this is related to gearing.

 

I used to try to figure out my mileage all the time when I first got my Tacoma. It was around 14mpg when I first got it. This I though ... hey .. it's a truck ... if I wanted amazing gas mileage I would have kept my Honda Civic!! Now I just drive it however I feel that day. Sometimes I floor it and enjoy the power and other times I drive like an old man. Either way I stopped worrying about the mileage and now I enjoy the truck more than ever!!

However, I did a road trip this spring (14 hours each way) and I was curious and I averaged just over 20mpg. I wasn't really trying to "take it easy" but that was the average. It was still cool weather in the spring so that may have helped.

Hope you can stop worrying too much about you mpg and enjoy your awesome truck!!

Cheers.

 

If I may throw in my 2 cents. Just came back from Blackstone Virginia 4 weeks ago, I have an 06 DC SR5 4WD nothing special. Drove up 95 to 83 to 81 did 70-73 all the way home except through yes through Washington DC. I got about 23-24 MPG. I drive about 45 miles to and from work every other day and I see about 20-22 MPG I drive harder to and from work, plus all mountains. synthetic Mobil 1 and the mobil 1 oil filter and changed the rear diff fluid to synthetc. Never watched the RPM's. I do only have the 245- 70 tire size so when I change that I am sure to loose MPG's. I have better MPG's with this truck than I did with my liberty.