Winter gas and gas mileage

I'm not trying to be insulting, but why would you ever expect 22 mpg's?? If the rating says 17-22, that means AT BEST you're going to get 22. At best means keeping speeds below 55, not accelerating quickly, etc. Doing 75 on the highway is at best going to give me 18. I'm happy that I'm getting 18mpg's for overall driving.

 

Also 22 is for the single-cab (or Access cab, which ever is smallest for that year) prerunner with like a 100lb driver lol. To expect the upper end of the EPA ratings on any configuration is a bit silly.

 

I got 19.5 mpg in fall and 18.5 in winter with my '15. Stock dunlops. 75mph highway driving mixed with mountain back road driving.

 

Well, I'm a little sensitive about my age, but you gotta have offspring to be a grandpa so I'm not fitting into that little box.

In summer I get 21-22 on my 4x4 access cab 4.0 auto. I live in two-lane country, so unless I'm taking a trip to the big city or doing interstate time it's 55-70 mph. But it's in the mountains of CO. I'm less than 30 miles from the continental divide. I rarely drive (locally) on flat ground, and I engage the 4wd at least a couple times on most tank's full. A lot of it is keeping the R's down. Keeping the tranny from shifting down by being moderate with the throttle. I can climb some of the big passes around here keeping the R's below 2100. In summer I can climb some big hills and still get over 20, normally 21+.

In winter I rarely see anything above 20. All the reasons given I think. What happens with "winter gas" varies by state and sometimes urban area. In CO, the so-called Front Range counties, the populated area nearer Denver, have strict oxy-fuel standards and emissions testing. Where I am 2-4 hours away we don't have any emissions testing or restrictions on gas. But our gas comes from Front Range refineries, so we don't get "mountain gas". However, if I go over to the West side of the state, the gas is better. I get noticeably better mileage when I fill up over there.

In my experience, some vehicles are more sensitive to gas mix than others. I had a '91 Civic way back in olden times when CO was oxigenating gas with MTBE. Winter gas cost me like 30% with that little car. And you could smell the unburned MTBE coming out the pipe. Nasty. They have since totally prohibited that stuff. It gets into ground water and stays there.

But the biggest single thing that blows mileage in winter is the excessive driveway warmup time some people do. If it's below 10° F I might let it run for two minutes, and if it's less than 35° maybe a minute. Then I'll drive it like gramps for the first couple minutes--I wouldn't just jump right on an interstate on-ramp with the motor still too cold to show on the temp guage. Since carburetors went away there really isn't a mechanical reason to warm up a gas engine, unless you just want the cab warm by the time you get in there. Most of the moving parts wear comes in the first 15 seconds the motor runs, and you can't avoid that unless you have a block heater. If you warm it up you'll knock down some mpg. Which, as everybody mentions, doesn't matter much when the gas is less than $2/gallon.

That said, I drove home from Nebraska early this week. I was on the interstate and bucking a stout headwind in ~20° temps. I got around 13 on that tank, but I wasn't loafing.

 

2007 Tacoma trd sport all stock. all city driving I get 15.4 mpg avg in winter and 18mpg avg in summer (autel scan gauge).Winter gas and cold temps are the culprit here. 1 use a block heater in the winter but never idle the truck for more than a minute or 2 even in -30 F. Just start driving easy until your engine gets to operating temp an you will save a lot of gas. Best gas mileage I ever got was 22.6 mpg on a150 mile trip with a huge tail wind .That is once in 8 years of driving this vehicle. If you get 20 mpg highway driving at 65-70 that is optimum IMO.

 

Yeah not much of a warm up guy myself. Usually wait about 30 seconds tops then head on my way, taking it slow till it warms up. My best mpg was 18 which included some highway.

 

EPA says that, but that shit is blended way stronger than EPA says...

also cold weather reduces MPG, so the combination of 'winter gas and colder air' reduces mpg by a greater
factor than energy content of the gasoline itself

 

Yup, I would love get 20mpg on the highway. Just seems to me the checklist is so long to hit that and with gas slow low, I dont mind. I get the same mileage around town as yourself, sometimes as low as 14.5. Did a good bit of traveling this past blizzard in 4hi, thinking Ill be lucky if I get 13.

 

If that's the case I suspect the mileage reduction is because the ambient temperature is higher than anticipated and the butane or whatever they are using boils off into the atmosphere and never gets burned in the engine.

 

Not really, my 5-lug is rated 25 highway and I really have to try to get worse than that. 30 mpg average after 80K.

55 will get me 34-36 mpg.

 

I need to get my calculator out, but I believe in my '07 Civic, I get a little better mileage, even with the A/C on in the summer. Love the 39-40 mpg. Mobil 1.
Duane

 

Tips from a Canadian. Plug your vehicle in when it gets -10 celcius. It gets 40 below here and if you plug in you can reduce idle time. -40 and the truck fires up and is warm in 5 minutes. As opposed to the 30 minutes it takes to warm up the F350 work truck.

 

The answer to your question is no.

 

I'm in NW Missouri and first noticed this with my '04 OR, and now with my '15 Sport. Winter blend trashes my mpg

 

I'm averaging around 19, but in the winter it drops significantly. I have an automatic starter, and use it. At 1.60 a gallon, I'm not complaining.

 

When you say trashes MPG I suppose that depends on your meaning. You will lose on average about 1 to 2 MPG on these trucks. It is not all about the winter blend.
You have to keep in mind that in the winter the air is denser which means more drag on the vehicle and that causes lower MPG.
Also in the winter the computer keeps the mixture at a heavier gas ratio because of longer periods of warm-ups which causes lower MPG.
Some people warm their vehicles up before driving. That lowers MPG.
It is not all about the blend. There are many factors in the lower MPG.
In the summer I average around 24 HWY and in the winter around 22.

 

My 07 Tacoma is lowered w/18 wheels. I'm not a mpg freak, but I got 19 on a stormy wet day driving 65-75 normally. The thing I noticed the most was how it accelerated in OD. Before lowering it was very sluggish. It should get a good 10% better mpg from lowering.
I will test again when I take a trip.

 

Lomenz and TacomaMike37 for the love of all things holy could you read my post before commenting such nonsense

 

Just filled up my '14 V6 4x4/auto after a 115 mile "95% hwy" trip, and averaged 22mpg's. My "usual" mpg is about 18....

 

What in the hell lol 1. a prerunner and trd are far from the exact same truck.. 2. The hood scoop is a decoration if anything its hurting your mileage lol