Maybe it's a Lemon??

Now that I have your attention...
I have a 2017 DCSB TRD Sport 4x4. I stalked this forum for a while then joined recently and I have seen a lot of negatives about this truck and wanted to share my experience. I just got back from a conference that was about 300 miles each way. Of that 300 miles, about 200 was interstate, the rest 2 and 4 lane roads with 45-60 mph speed limits. On this trip, I averaged a little over 21 mpg. The cruise was set on the interstate at 80 mph and it was clocking right at 2000 rpm. The truck was not hunting for gears and wasn't trying to kick out of 6th. It would down gear for hills, but that is to be expected. My truck has 14000 miles on it now and I will admit it did take me a little bit to learn how to drive this moving from a 5.4 V8 to the 3.5, but this truck has enough power to do what it needs to do as long as you understand that it will never be a speed demon without a lot of help. I just wanted to add my story in here because it seems like the negatives that you read on here far out weigh the positives and I don't want someone who is thinking about buying one to be swayed without all the facts, and the fact is that this is a good truck. I drive about 50 miles to work and back every day and my average MPGs is around 22 on every tank. I have pulled as high as 24 mpg on a tank but that was good gas and not running the air conditioner.

 

21mpg doesn't sound unreasonable at 80mph.

 

It's a lot better than the 15 I got with the 2007 F150 with the 5.4

 

In my opinion I think the majority people on message boards and forums are those with bad experiences and want to vent about them or find solutions. I have a 17 SR5 DCSB and love it. As you mentioned, it definitely takes some getting used to. I came from a 5 speed manual so I could control shift points. At first I absolutely hated how the automatic shifted, hunted for gears, double downshifting (6th to 5th to 4th) when you need to speed up quickly, etc. I have since grown used to it and know how much throttle to give or not give depending on what I want it to do.

 

Yup, no real issues with mine either. I have found TW to be very entertaining, but I also think theres a lot of whiners and complainers on here..

 

Weird I can’t seem to get anything better than 20 and that’s with speeds set lower than 80.

15 in a 07 F150 with a 5.4 isn’t bad at all. I only got around 17-18 in my ecoboost. Hell a few trucks from 07 only get around 11-12 mpg

 

Remember the Corollas are in row three if you're looking for MPG

 

Over 21 mpg at 80 mph in a quad cab 4 wheel drive....I was more than happy. Like I said, the 5.4 got 15 on a great day and it was 2 wheel drive.

 

The 3rd gen Tacoma is a nice solid little truck imo.

Toyota sells a lot of them every month, so apparently many people agree with this statement.

TW represents a very small percentage of actual 3rd gen owners. Most owners are happily oblivious to the problems reported here, for better or worse.

Many of the issues Toyota are addressing- leaking diff, CPS failures, etc were being reported here first, which gives us TW members an edge on what to be aware of.

And things have really calmed down over the last year or so- when I first joined in Feb 2016, the 3rd gen forum was like a wild west town without a sheriff imo.

Glad you are happy with your truck, it's nice to see a positive thread once in awhile.

Cheers

 

I never had any big issues with the truck, like gear hunting, etc although it did feel like a dog in some occasions and the throttle delay if not using ect was annoying so I am glad the newest TSB's fixed it and improved the driveability but it was never as bad as some people made it out to be. Getting 25mpg on highway trips is awesome and has stayed that way with the latest update as well.

 

Definitely a lemon. Time to trade it. I only saw 22mpg 1 time on a road trip for 1 tank of gas. Almost 2 yrs later now and I'm happy if I can squeeze out 15 mpg. Thats all my doing not Toyota or the Tacoma's fault.

 

Meh ! Count your lucky stars you got a good one off of the production line.

 

FWIW, I see 25mpg, keeping it around 65mph on the freeway, in my 2.7L MT 4x4.

 

My Taco has escaped all of the early gremlins, except the factory battery of course. It never hunts for gears, and I can easily hold my speed ascending and descending. I'm coming up on 50k already in 2 more weeks. So I'll definitely be checking everything thoroughly like the first time.

 

It seems like the offroads get a few less mpg's than the sports. I was averaging 17.5 over 25,000k before I got the tune.

 

Yea, they also have the bottom wind deflector or whatever you want to call it. Some people here claim they get mid 20s. I baby my truck half the time driving and still can’t get more than 20 tank average. If I drove my normal kind of driving I’ll get around 17-18

 

Usually you only get about 19 or so going 80+ and around 70ish mph youll be getting around 22mpg. I drive an hour back and forth to work every day

 

Maybe he goes downhill both ways.

 

I commute daily 20 miles one way 75% freeway ~60mph and 25% city roads 30-40mph and I get anywhere from 21 to 23 mpg, completely stock v6 AT

 

I wonder if mine being a 2017, my milage just wasn't up to these numbers. I did a very long interstate trip and at times only at around 70mph with terrible milage. I'd say between 15-17 highway mainly in cruise. I did have A/T's on