Terrible MPG and sometimes hard starts

Wise dudes and dudettes of this forum I need your assistance!

1998 3rzfe 4x4

Is it normal to get about 230-250 miles per fill-up? 14-17mpg? Seems low to me. Mostly city driving but even cruising at 65-70 I'm getting 17 tops.

Also about 1/10 times that I go to start the truck it'll struggle and if I don't press the gas pedal down (like you would on an old carbureted car) it'll just crank for a while until it starts. Looked around for vacuum leaks and replaced a couple suspicious vacuum lines, checked all the VSV's and they all click when given 12v, still does the same thing.

-oldschool

 

You live in Italy?

 

17 would be wonderful

Probably need to clean or replace your IAC

 

How old are the injectors.....
.....a leaking injector causes floods....

and inefficient spray would cause fuel consumption....

 

Stuck or bad egr valve would cause similar issues.......

and charcoal evac system is pretty important......there's two valves there.....and the egr control module itself.....

 

manual or auto? What is your tire size? Lifted? What are you hauling? City or hwy driver or both? I would start simple, air filter, maf cleaned, pcv valve changed, 5w30 oil, check trans oil, clean iacv and tb. I have a 97 reg cab 4x4 auto 3rz and I get 15mpg, 16 if all hwy. Thats normal. If you idle the truck a lot youll get worse mileage. Imo a lot of the people that think ther taco should be getting 30mpg is from the guys in the 8”’s saying ther pickup got 30mpg, well yeah they could get that high cus it was a smaller motor and a manual and a vehicle that was lower and weighed less. Now theyre more powerfull and gas hungry.

 

Truck is manual, tire diameter is factory but they are wider than factory, lifted an inch or two. From the replies sounds like the mpg I'm getting is accurate :,) Thanks everyone.

For the hard starting issue I'll check all that you guys have suggested and hopefully it'll be one of those things. I cleaned the IAC not that long ago and verified it was working, cleaned TB as well, I haven't checked the EGR/charcoal evac system yet but there's no codes so... hopefully they're good? Ordering a new PCV and grommet as I've never checked on that before and its loose.

 

I have the exact same truck in the same spec as you, I’m happy to get 13 MPG haha.

 

Manual 3rz on stock size tires should do better than that for mpg, unless it’s got some funky ass tall gears or you’re doing 80-90 on the highway. I get 18-19 out of my 97 mixed driving on 35” tires, yes that’s corrected for the tires, and I was regularly over 20 mpg on 33” tires. I’d say something is a miss, especially with the starting issue.

 

Yeah. Your 4 cylinder should get better than 13. You should be above 17 based off of what you've said. MPG is always worst in winter, but you might be in Arizona for all I know.