Brand new Gas Mileage way lower than expected

My truck only has 400ish miles on it. I took delivery a week ago. I put down decent miles for work on days when I get out in the field, so I've been looking at the mileage. Going to top off today and reset the trip meter, but my dash is reporting 14.2mpg average across 200+ miles that are mostly highway, with some idling on jobsites (I work in construction on rough sites). Putting in regular gas.

I thought these trucks were averaging 17+ in city driving on regular gas. Am I mistaken?

 

My truck dash was saying 4.2MPG when I first got it. There were 9 miles before I picked it up. I think they let these idle for a long time in those initial miles where the factory is checking it. It will help to reset to get those first miles off the history. I would imagine that the idling at the job sites (and driving on rough roads) isn't going to help you get a good reading.

EDIT: There are settings to reset both the Trip odometer counter and a separate reset for the MPG calculation.

 

I would not discount how large an affect idling has on your fuel consumption, especially if you are running A/C.

 

Yes, yes you are.

When have posted performance numbers for anything been accurate?

 

I was getting low 14's when I first bought the truck, and I am now hovering in the mid 16's with mostly city driving at about 3500 miles. Fuel economy is very dependent on a lot of factors; elevation, wind, uphill/downhill, and speed. I have noticed that I get peak fuel economy (22-23mpg) on the highway at about 65-70mph. Anything over that and it starts to drop off. At 80, I think the best I have gotten is 19-20. (This is all based off of the fuel economy readout on the dash, I have not been tracking miles and gallons at the pump or anything)

I have also noticed that babying the truck and trying to be super efficient coming out of stop lights was actually making it worse. I noticed that the radar cruise control seems to get me much better mileage than I am able to get myself, and it drives more aggressively than I do, so I started accelerating a bit harder and stopped running eco mode, and my mileage has been at least 1 mpg better than when I was babying it (not pedal to the metal, but give it some more beans). The more you drive, the more you will figure it out, and it'll start to bring the numbers up. I also have my fuel economy gauge reset after every fill-up, which is a setting you can configure in the dash. Helps keep a better idea of what kind of mileage I get per month or so when I fill up.

 

MPG will improve as it breaks in. Avoid long steady throttle settings during breaking in period per the manual.

 

I have friends who arrive at work 20 min early and sit idling in their vehicles with the AC or heat (depending on the season) running, talking or scrolling on their phones. They will then complain that their fuel economy doesn't match what the window sticker said when they bought the vehicle.

Your MPG average over a whole tank of fuel averages together all the various rates of fuel economy that you get while the engine is running. Going 0 miles while consuming fuel factors in an MPG of 0. It's the absolute least fuel efficient thing you can do.

OP, I'd wait a few tanks of gas before I start looking for an accurate reading. Who knows how long your truck idled at the dealership on that first tank, and there is something to be said for engine break-in as well.

 

I agreed what you are saying but every time I fill up my gas tank and reset the previous data, my truck shows that I have a range of 435 miles ( it is the highest number I’d seen so far). Im just do a simple math, gas tank hold 32.2 gallons of gas so 435 miles divided by 32.2 gallons = 13.5 mpg average! Just let says there are an 65 miles left in the reserve then 500 miles divided by 32.2 gallons = 15.5 mpg average. It is nowhere near as manufacturers stated 18 city mpg and 24 highway mpg. Am I wrong?

 

Winter blend , new motor

enough said

 

Yes. The truck’s range hits 0 with about 6 gallons of fuel left in the tank. So, if you get 435 miles out of, say 26 gallons of fuel, you’re actually getting 16.7 combined.

 

Ironically my buddy just bought a 2.5 Gen pro and was astonished by his gas mileage. Sent me this pic on his highway trip. Got to be those Michelins on the TRD Pro

 

Thanks but it is still nowhere near mpg as manufacturers states. Mine is 2023 4x4 limited has a little over 3500 miles and all factories installed. Sticker mpg when I bought the truck stated 18 mpg city- 22 mpg Highway and combined 20 mpg. 90% of the mileages i put on the truck are Highway miles which speed at 75 mph. I believe Toyota is not true honest with their 3rd gen. Mpg due to marketing.

 

You’re driving substantially faster. How are your tire pressures? Also, do you idle the truck? Do you warm it up in the your driveway? Remember that idling is factoring in an mpg of 0 to your overall tank average. There are a million mpg threads on this forum, and in pretty much every single one, someone reminds those who complain that fuel economy drops precipitously when you get away from around 62-65mph. You start pushing that giant Lego brick up to 75mph, you’re not going to see EPA fuel economy numbers.

 

I just did two separate round trips between Kansas City and Oklahoma City, so about 1400 miles. 90+% of that was at 81 mph set on cruise control in comfort mode. I averaged 18.2 mpgs both round trips, confirmed with hand calculations at gas pump. That's with winter blend fuel and 81 mph. If I'm filled with summer blend and driving 65-70, I imagine I'd be looking at 21ish mpgs.

 

Agree with those above about speed being a huge contributing factor. With 14k miles (12k on 35's) on mine and various driving. 65 mph has the best mpg at around 20 mpg. 75-80 mph more like 15 mpg. City is about 14.5. All hand calc'd at various points. Dash is off even on stock tires. Head winds kill these trucks mileage. Had a bed rack for about 1k miles and that also knocked it down about 2 mpg. Definitely recommend using a good map app to find actual distance and use fuel receipts to hand calculate.

 

Take a 1/2 tank and drive like being mindful of trying to get as much mpg as possible. No idling, keep speeds at speed limit and rpm's under 2000 or 2500. You will probably be surprised. I had to follow my mother home Saturday night she drives rather slow. We were running 50-55 most of way of a 19 mile trip. Shut my truck off and display showed 26.7 mpg.

 

I think this is because babying it doesn’t get enough exhaust moving to spool the turbos and activate their effect. Aside from adding power, turbos also add better fuel economy.

 

All "city driving" is not equal. Lots of cold starts, short trips, or hard accelerations will crucify your MPG. First, there is what I call a huge "cold start and warmup penalty" that you have to make up on every cold start. The engine runs rich as hell until it is warm enough for the computer to lean it out. This is worse in winter. Then the accelerations will really take a toll. Yesterday about 5 miles after I had refilled the tank and reset the mpg... where the readout can change rapidly still since there are so few miles in the dividend... the mpg meter was reading 17.8 mpg and I gunned for just about 2 or 3 seconds to make a traffic light... mpg instantly dropped to 14.2. It took maybe 5 miles on the highway to get back to that 17.8. Of course, when you do that with more miles on the reset you won't see that... but the system does seriously dump some fuel in there when you hit kick those turbos in.

OTOH, I have seen some break in improvement, now at ~1700 miles. This was my usual weekend drive last night, 2 miles of surface streets and a couple of lights (including the one I had to race for), then 16 miles of interstate, then 5 miles on 40 mph surface streets with a couple of stop signs and one traffic light. Got 21.2 for that trip, which would have been maybe a tenth or 2 more without that hard acceleration. Best yet result on that trip. I began that trip warmed up. MPG would have been 1 or 2 less had I started out dead cold due to the aforementioned cold start/warm up penalty.

 

Using ethanol blended fuel? Ethanol blend will reduce mileage as well. Our embarrassing Canadian government has mandated minimum 10?% ethanol in all fuel. When I fill up in the US with non ethanol I see an instant mileage increase. Bonkers.

 

You should have bought a Corolla if you are going to complain about fuel mileage. It is a truck, it is big and heavy and fuel mileage will suck! Live with it and quit complaining.

 

Lots of variables with MPG. I do a 130 mile one way mainly expressway commute to my job site a few times a month. I have seen everything from 19.5 to 21.9. Last time I did it was 80 degrees and was 21 going 80 the entire way. RPMs never exceed 2k.

Cold, elevation, jack rabbit starts, constant speed changes, idling, heavy loads will kill it.

Around town I routinely get beaten off the line by 80 percent of the folks around me. So when I see low MPG posts I always assume the driver is driving more aggressively than they think just because they are doing what everyone around them is doing. Which is pedal to the metal at every stoplight

 

The turbo itself is not helping your fuel economy. The turbos job is to make big engine power in a little engine. That power takes fuel, so more boost equals more fuel being used. The better mpg in a turbo motor? That’s because you can use a smaller motor. Smaller motors can use less fuel. Stay out of the boost and you’ll get better mpg with your smaller V6. Spooling the turbos makes the truck use more fuel to combine with the increased airflow to make more power.

 

Is there a dash icon or other way indicating turbo usage other than hearing the whine or feeling the initial thrust? If not there should be. It would solve a lot of I am babying it but getting 14 mpg discussions.

 

On my platinum it has a turbo gauge in the cluster as well as the heads up display on the windshield.

 

Fuelly is a good way to compare real time MPG. The 2022 Tundra is averaging 17 MPG for all vehicles.

https://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/tundra

The 2021 Tundra is averaging 14 MPG.

The 2022 Tacoma is averaging 18 MPG.

Generally trucks tend to get lower real time MPG as people tow or modify their trucks. Also browse around other SUVs and they get much lower than you would expect.

2022 4 Runner gets 17.6 mpg.

The turbos have same effect on the F150s MPG. The 3.5 turbo gets roughly the same MPG as the 5.0 V8. Although you can get better MPG with the 3.5 turbo if the turbos don't kick in. The 2.7 turbo gets the best gas milage, responsive, peppy daily driver but not the power of the larger 3.5 twin turbos.

With the 2023 Tundra I expect about 19 average for driving I do. That's a lot of power in the 3.5 twin turbos.

I think the Tundra will be very reliable because it only has one size engine that was designed from the ground up around the twin turbos. The MPG are pretty good and very versatile powerful.

 

How do you do the separate reset on mpg?? I am not having much success with accomplishing this.

 

This is consistent with my experience. I traded a Tacoma for my 2022 Tundra and I get slightly better fuel economy with the Tundra in all scenarios.

One big factor: speed. Anything over, say, 1700 RPM on the highway and fuel economy drops fast. For me, the sweet spot is at about 107 km/h (66 mph).

 

It’s mostly the speed that kills your MPG. Wind resistance really becomes a factor over 60mph or so. Keeping it 65 and under will give your best MPG. That’s why the Gvmt chose 55 mph for the speed limit during the oil embargo in the 70’s

 

Winter Blend and the cold weather,plus idling. Summer I get 18.5 winters I get 14-15 same ride to work.

 

I live south central Louisiana and have about 5500 miles now. I've always average 18-19 in town and highway combined. Just took a trip from Lafayette, La to Orlando, FL and back and at the pump average of 19.5mpg, at the pump, cruise set at 77 mph.