Beartracker

NViejeP, Your just guessing again . You need to fill up , drive a while and fill up again keeping track of how many gallons you you actually used and how many miles you got from those gallons like we showed you above.
9 miles a gallon would make me cry! :cry:
Did you get an owners manual with that vehical? If so it should tell you what size your gas tank is. My 01 Tacoma holds 18 gallons if I remember right. Can't remember the last time I let it go empty but it's been a while.

Jimmeh

My 87 4Runner is 17.1 or something like that. As far as mileage is concerned, I am on the highway a lot, and I am a pretty slow driver (I have yet to pass anybody that was going over 60) So I get a lot of mileage before I fill up. Last week, I had to drive back and forth to school (I usually hitch a ride, but the girl I usually do it with went on a trip) which is about 20 miles a day. Thats 100 miles. I started at half a tank, and by Friday night, I had a little under a quarter. I don't know how many miles I went, but I think I will start keeping track.

slick858

14.27mpg MUST be my new shoes , they didnt feel that heavy when I was trying them on, WHO KNEW???

NViejeP

Yah. I'm just concerned. I really need to measure it right.

Runner003

Fill em tires 5 psi before the max psi, Get a new air filter or better a after market air intake system (like True flow) The worst milage I ever had stock was from shell gas. I was going to AZ straight hwy shot for 220 miles I had to fill up at 208..Ouch,(the average was 260 at 15.5 gallon fill up. The only thing I have done now is the True flow kit with a deck plate mod(that I always have closed) I get 285 on 14.034 gallons all hwy..at a average at 80+ miles an hour the whole time. I love my MPG.... Love my runner.. 265/75R16's max psi on my tires is 65psi cold

NViejeP

Hum.. My tires are from 33-35 PSI. The max on www.tirerack.com for my tires is 50. But it says somewhere on my sidewall that the max is 40. Kind of confusing.

Unfortunately, I drive ALL city pretty much. Stop and go a lot.

NViejeP

Just filled up.

First fill up was at 68838 miles for 13.8 gallon.
Drove 158.2 miles.
At 68996 miles I got 14.681 gallons.

Goes into 10.77 miles per gallon. Maybe 10 - 15 of those miles are highway. Rest are stop sign, and red light districts. I do drive kind of hard, but this tank I took it easy and slowed down. It is the cold and rainy season here in San Francisco.

This seems AWFULLY low to me? Is it normal? I have some friends who drive around the same type of miles as me in sedans reporting around 150-175 miles per tank...

NViejeP

Anyone else get around the same resutls as me? The lowest I saw someone say was 12 miles per gallon.

hotlavaaaa

the lowest i've seen is in the 12s and that was in the middle of summer w/ the air on in stop and go city driving and cold starts every time i drove.

Beartracker

This was posted in another area here because I was unable to find this one for some reason so now I'll place it here. This will show you how I tested mine and the tire size and air pressure can make a big difference. Using the chalk method on the tires is really the only way to determine correct pressure for your tire and weight.
I also drive to Charleston and back on the freeway yesterday(140 miles) and got 22 mpg driving 65 on cruise most of the way. This is still driving on many high inclines and some mountain driving.Mike

It's been a while since the last time I really checked my mileage and did a real test/check of my tires so I did it this weekend.
My Tacoma is a 2001, SR-5 extended cab, 2.7, Auto, 4x4, step-side with 31" Wild Country (TXR-265/75/R16) ,Elbow breather and other little none essential mods and running 87 "Stop and Go" gas.
The tires have #36 in front and #38 in back and I'm hauling myself and truck bed tool box full of tools for about #400 total extra weight.

Mileage at fill up was 79.078 and it took 15.699 to fill it.
Next fill up was .....79.263 for total mileage of 185. It took 9.407 gal. to fill it. .... 185 divided by 9.407 = 19.666 miles per gallon. Keep in mind that this is all town and mountain driving here in Clay county, WV.
I'm very pleased with the gas mileage .

To check the tires I went to the high school parking lot and placed a chalk line across the top of each tire and drove about 100'. The chalk was gone on the fronts all the way across and the rear was gone in the center but a little remained on the outside and inside edge tread and that told me they need to come down a little. Dropped the air down to #36 in the back and re-chalked them and drove it again. Perfect on all four tires! Just a little spring time checking
I LOVE MY TACO Lol, Mike

Beartracker

Here is a link to the best article I have seen on correct tire pressure and it's loaded with pictures to show you the difference. Also shows you just how to do the chalk method for checking your air. Many years ago a friend of mine who sold truck tires showed me this method.
Many people disagree about tire pressure but many things can determine what air pressure is right for your ride. They are not all equal and keeping your tires low for a better ride is not the way to determine tire pressure. Sidewall ply, type of tire, weight in vehicle will all have an effect on your gas mileage and your tire's life. Mike
http://toyotatruckworld.tenmagazines...rticles/31802/

MTL_4runner

If you are doing essentially all stop and go traffic (10% highway / 90% city driving) then I am not that surprised your gas mileage is very, very low. The only way to get it to go up is to really baby the throttle (since the faster you accelerate, the more gas you'll burn). In your case if you plan to continue driving in those conditions and you want fuel economy to go up you might consider regearing or a supercharger. It seems counterintuitive, but both will allow you to use less gas when placing the same load on the motor. Regearing may hurt your highway mileage slightly but that is the tradeoff to make.

NViejeP

Cool thanks for the info. Going to check some tire pressure and stuff to hopefully get better mileage.

So what your saying is that my gas mileage is normal for all the city driving I do?

MTL_4runner

Yep.

The best you can do is to make sure the 4runner is in good mechanical shape (change plugs, air & fuel filters, clean the throttle body and MAF sensor, etc) and that tire pressure is correct (if you run stock 265/70R16s then I usually run them at about 32-33 psi, you can run them as high as 35 psi, but above that there is a point of diminishing returns for running them any higher than that). You may also find things like running amsoil synthetics in your rear diff, tranny and engine may also help improve gas mileage as well.

Beartracker

One of my brothers has the same truck I do but he has the 6 banger and turbo. He lives outside Akron Ohio and it's fairly flat there but he only get's 16.8 mpg due to the fact that he has no idea how to slow down, Lol. He got picked up the other day doing 80 in a 45mph zone. No way will he ever see the gas milage that truck could be getting but he has the money so gas prices don't bother him as much as it does his little brother (ME!), Lol. Mike

rimpainter.com

I don't know, I drive like a maniac most of the time and I get a rock solid 16.5 mpg. 10's and 12's? Something is very wrong there.

Beartracker

NviejeP, I agree with 96 Runner but it would make a difference if you came down a few notches in tire size. A 31 would probably get you around 14 mpg. Other than that I would have that thing checked out real well because something isn't right, thats for sure!.
The size of the tire is not the only thing that decides the max air preasure. The amount of plys in a tire makes a difference also. You can buy tires with 4 ply or maybe 8 ply depending on what your hauling and what the tires are used for. Mike

NViejeP

Damn.. thats awfully weird. Maybe I will get it checked soon. Hopefully that doesn't cost too much. I'm going pretty poor.

I have heard that cold weather will affect performance? Is this true? It's been awfully cold and rainy here.

Any other opinions?

Beartracker

The only reas the cold and damp weather would effect your vehical is if you have bad or cracked wireing or something wrong along that line.
Did you run Techtron in the gas tank? If not buy a bottle of it and run it through the gas tank and it will clean up your lines, plugs, injectoters and so on.Use it with about a half tank of gas, Mike

xcntrk75

Also wouldn’t your odometer be off a small percentage due to the bit larger tire you’re running? Maybe you’re getting more miles per tank then the odometer is reflecting. By my calculation there's about a 5% odometer delta…

Just a thought…