MPG, is it just me?

I'm about the same as most here . . . stock 2006 DC 2WD.
Cab-High Snugtop shell . . . debatable if it helps or hurts w/ mileage.
11-12 city . . . . 16 'maybe' 17 highway . . . . but I can get 15+ pulling my little boat & loaded for a trip so that's not bad & no complaints.

Side note - my neighbor just gave his 2006 tacoma to his nephew w/ 225K miles & bought a 2024 Tacoma.
The dealer knocked $4K off the price & said 'Give me $60K and we got a deal' . . . . Jeeeezo. That's a LOT of gas money.

Even if I sold both my trucks for $15K each, I'd still have to finance $30K !!!!! . . . . that's a major forget it.

 

Just filled up yesterday. Heavy foot, mostly street driving and managed 13.3mpg.

 

what kind of Tacoma was it?
what dealer was it?
Just to be sure I steer clear or both of those. a current model limited double cab 4wd Tacoma last year was still in the high $40s just this year they broke $50k so….

 

05 DC 4wd, 265/75/16 AT KO2 LRE (worn), canopy with cross bars.

just did a 1000 mile road trip - just me and some light camping gear. got around 18-19 mpg (after adjustment for tire size).
400 miles on freeway (Montana 80mph but I don't go above 70, even slower on the passes).
500 miles mountain highway up to 7000 ft elevation, 60 mph max.
100 miles of 50 mph easy cruising and some dirt road miles.
I always drive like Grandma.

19 is about the best I've ever done. mixed city and highway I'm pretty consistently around 12-15. Any amount of stop and go really kills mileage.

My 06 sequoia (w/ 240k odo) with no lift and street tires is consistently 15+ city and can do up to 20 on the highway (60).

Gas is expensive, but a reliable and simple truck that is paid for (10 years ago) = priceless. I'm guessing the yearly insurance on a new truck is close what I pay in gas for a year. Plus sales tax to buy something else... Nope

 

Just towed this fully loaded for camping and all my tools. 250ish miles and averaged hand calculated 12.9mpg on new E-Rated 34’s. Averaged 70-75ish.

 

Ok, but where's the truck and trailer?

 

That's about what my 06 on 33's, 4.56's, and full armor gets if I go like 80mph, loaded with gear, no trailer.

 

I know a ton of people here and on the 4r forum really like those Falken Wildpeaks on your truck, but my personal opinion is the tires on the camper are the best tire on the market.

 

This bro's my kinda bro.

 

I riding on +1” lift with 265/70r17s. Did a mild tuneup, with new air filter, plugs, oil and diff change. I did a 300 mile trip on Saturday and got just at 16.2. I’m an 06 DC 2wd. Around town I’m usually 13.5-14.5.

 

Huntington Beach Toyota (Southern California)
Not sure what level / model it is . . . but it's got lots of 'stuff'.
The guy is fairly tech-savy & he says it's completely overwhelming how much 'electronic assist' stuff is on it.
He was saying something regarding the brakes , that the truck actually brakes for you as you approach an intersection. No Clue on my end. LOL.
The dash screen is 'IMO' ridiculously large . . . it's appears bigger than some laptops.
It's a double cab, and the back seat appears to be completely useless outside of being under 10 years old, or a place to transport groceries or other stuff.

If I was shopping toyota tacoma's . . . I'd be looking at some of the last years w/ the V6 & less 'crap'.
I just can't see that turbo along with all the other bells & whistles being reliable in the long run . . . but what do I know?

 

I would not even consider beyond a first or second gen Tacoma myself.

 

AH... So its got a +$10,000 dealer mark-up on it due to location.

 

I had to zoom in lol.

This is my first run with the Falkins. I like to try new tires ever time I replace them.

My work truck has the General AT’s and they are great tires.

 

I used to run BFG on everything and bought a ram 3500 with generals stock. They were bad from the get-go I had 4 out of round. I complained to my dealer and tried to reach out to Dodge and none of them had my back. Just a “whoops sorry”. I eventually caught up with a general rep at a desert race and he gave me the rundown on what happens with OEMs, basically the OEMs come to the tire manufacturers and say
“We want this many tires and we want them at this price and this many at a time”
In order to meet this, the standards are lowered and the manufacturers will accept lower than top tier products. So in my case my truck ended up with a couple of tires that had terrible run-out. The rep ended up helping me get a replacement set and they had the AT2 tire like what’s on your trailer. Best tire I had ever owned, so awesome. I’ve had a bunch of them now on many different vehicles. Really really happy with them on every vehicle.

 

I hadn't been actively looking, but I finally happened upon a gas station that carries ethanol-free. Only premium. I found a website that lists all gas stations rumored to have ethanol-free. Seems like sometime during the 20-teens any gas station carrying anything besides premium stopped carrying it, and if they still have ethanol-free, it's only premium. Makes the economics a lot harder to justify. I paid $79 for this fill. That's significantly higher than usual. I don't think 1-2mpg improvement will compensate for the higher cost.








Still had a quarter tank when I filled up, and haven't checked my mileage on the drive home yet. I did get 16.4 on the previous tank though, which is the best I've seen from my truck since buying it. That was with normal mid-grade gas with ethanol.

 

i suspect the 4.7L has something to do with it as well. One of the reasons i moved onto a 5.7L Tundra was that my Tacoma required a heavy foot to stay with the flow of traffic. I really wasn't surprised to find my mileage was similar despite the Tundra having a ton more power and is considerably bigger.

 

im getting about 13ish. 265/75/16 ko2s e rated. My 3rd gen 4runner gets only about 17 this time of year

 

Your first tank of ethanol free you are going to get about +5-10% better fuel mileage
Your second tank you will see another +10%
The ECU has to change the mapping for the injector duty cycle, which takes time. The ECU is watching the AFR with the oxygen sensors and slowly changes the mapping of the injectors in order to change the AFR to match the ethanol free fuel. That price is pretty high, and might not be worth the difference you will get. Around here we are only about +$0.20 cents higher.

 

Where I'm at we have a station right by my house that sells 87 non ethanol and another station in town that sells 90. Another local station used to sell the 90 but they dropped it in favor of E-85.

I run the 87 non ethanol in my small engines and in my side by side just for peace of mind I guess and because they don't use as much fuel in comparison.

 

Also recommend going on Amazon or ebay and getting one of the ethanol testers. Its a clear bottle with a sticker on it that has a bunch of lines. Use a regular water bottle of water and fill to the top of the blue line, then fill to the top of the bottle with gasoline, then shake it up. The water from the water bottle will mix in with any water from the gasoline and pull the water out of suspension. The lines on the bottle are there to measure how much water you remove out of the gasoline. This tells you how much ethanol was in the fuel.

One of my gas stations that sells 100% gas, sells 100% gas
The other two of my gas stations that sell 100% gas, sell 98% gas and 2% water.
The lowest ethanol content i have found was a station about an hour away, they are consistently 7-8% ethanol
The highest locally is actually at a LOVES, and it was like 13-14% ethanol.

EVERY ounce of ethanol in the blend, is going to decrease the mileage. Going from 100% fuel to 10% ethanol blend, the injectors typically are +18/20% higher duty cycle to achieve the target AFR the ECU is trying to get. This directly means your fuel economy is going to be -18/20% lower with 10% ethanol blend.
Subsequently, if you have a 15% ethanol blend, you can expect -27/28% worse fuel economy over 100% gasoline.
Knowing the amount of ethanol in the fuel can help you understand exactly whats happening with your fuel mileage.

 

Wow. I'd have to run some numbers to decide if getting that in-depth is worth the effort. I appreciate people who do go so deep though!

My current approach is simply to buy at the locally owned station. Of course the gas is an international corporation, but the station itself is local. Not sure how many more criteria I want to add to my decision matrix

 

What fuel treatment? Do you think it makes a difference?

 

I dunno if it does. I've never had a clogged injector. I typically use a can of Seafoam in the tank, half a can at about a quarter tank.

 

I also add a treatment. Usually Lucas injector cleaner. Figure it can't hurt. I don't have a set schedule, but when it feels like it's been "a while", and I'm about to head out on a longer drive that'll burn most of a tank of gas, I'll add a bottle when I fill up.

I also avoid a gas station if there's a gas truck actively refilling the storage tanks. And though there's not much dirty gas in the US, I stick with reputable looking shops (whatever that means) all the same. Drive a lot of highway. Engine is always clean. The conventional wisdom for the 3.4L V6 is that somewhere in the 250,000-ish mile range, the injectors will go bad. I sold my 3.4 with 330,000 miles and hadn't had injector issues. But I don't know if they go bad because of clogging, or electronics, or what.

Anyway if there was a local shop with mid-grade ethanol-free, I'd make a point to use it. Since there's not, I'll probably just stick with my locally-owned shop with ethanol.

 

Yeah, I say every-other-tank, but sometimes that ends up being every 3rd or 4th fill-up. And I'm not doing a full bottle, just a half bottle with a lesser amount of fuel in the tank (~¼ tank) so it's effectively similar as a full bottle on a half tank. I feel like makes for more of a gentle "tickle" to knock the dust off the shelf versus dislodging a boulder. I'm not stupid, i realize it could be completely placebo, but I've always used Seafoam and MMO in my engines on the fuel and oil side, and my engines have always run clean and smooth, and I have yet to have one that doesn't runn better, smoother, longer than people I know with the same. Granted, I also make a point of working on all my own shit, and I have zero doubt that's a factor.

 

I used to run Seafoam and for some reason moved to Lucas. Can't remember why. But yeah, placebo or not, it's a small expense and makes me feel better.

I definitely used Seafoam on my older Toyotas with carburetors.

 

With stock 3.90 I would get about 14mpg mix, 16mpg hwy. New gears , its better, around 17-19 is the best I have seen. This is empty with a 250Lbs box.

Now add anytype of weight or aggressive driving. 11-14MPG. 265/70/16's MT EXP. My truck likes at least 91oct. Long roadtrips around 70 it checks out w solid 18 using odometer/fuelly/logging. Im happy w it. Non-hwy they are thirsty though.

 

Try some Boostane for your fuel system...it'll act as the name implies too, boosting your octane while seriously cleaning your fuel system...get on a highway and run it hot, you'll be seeing results almost immediately!

$33 BOOSTane Professional Octane Booster, Formulated to Increase Octane for High-Performance Race Engines, 32oz (1 Pack)

https://www.amazon.com/BOOSTane-Pro..._csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm

My 2uz 4runner will never use ethanol fuel again and has been great since... I'm getting 15.2 with a 2" lift and heavy 33s with a rack on top, for reference.

 

Cenex stations have only ethanol free on their premium fuel and cost $.60 less then T&P, for what it's worth...Holiday stations have it too, but their too proud of their fuel to spend that coin...