MPG, is it just me?

How are u calculating mileage? Totally legit sounding figures , but if you have upsized tires you want to back up your math like a journalist. I like fuelly and the app on my headunit that uses gps, enter volume of fill up etc. It even shows temp and elevation. IMO, ( MEANS LITTLE) a combination of logging and gps mileage tracking is safe calculation.

I can get 290 miles to a tank to 375-380, depending on many factors. What are u guys seeing to a topped off tank?

* 380 would be all hwy at sea level empty bed.

 

Always a good question...and good to make note when making suggestions (speaking for myself) how one calculates their efficiency...I always hand-calc as tires, reduce accuracies of a computer and fall short...especially if you swap on bigger injectors got boost! I don't even add the larger tire factor of around 8% to my miles when calculating. Regardless, I drive rural-city, if that's a thing... it's not quite stop and go but not long distances either...soft pedal until I want to get somewhere fast...I also routinely monitor for sticky brake calipers which is a near normal occurance on my 4runner...though my upgraded calipers have been perfect...too many variables, like you stated, to justly make a simple statement on one item...I've had the truck since 22k miles and just rolled past 103k last week...it's an 05, for what it's worth.

My tundra though, is a very thirsty beast when I drive like a high schooler...but I've gotten 19+ on a road trip and as low as 6.7 towing...I've now created 14mpg after the last x10 fills per fully, though!

Boostane has treated my vehicles wonderfully and BG44 is another top auto fuel system cleaner...

 

Have you taken it out of 4WD?? Lol

I'm at 2199xx miles 4.7 2wd with 4.08s and I'm pushing like 15 combined and like 17.2 HW. And I'm on 255 70 17s Kumo AT2's 8 ply E1s, so not light weights

Try cleaning your throttle body, do a fuel systems cleaner, everyone has their own brand. And run a SeaFoam treatment through it a bout 250 miles before you next oil change. Oh and change out your inline fuel filter if you haven't already.

Just some food for thoughts.

 

Well hell...I don't think the numbers add up to real savings, so I'll likely stick with my ethanol gas strategy, but I just filled up for the first time since trying premium (91), non-ethanol fuel. This is just one tank, not much of a sample size, and I put the non-ethanol on top of 1/4 tank of normal gas, but I got 17.5mpg. That's easily 1mpg more that I've ever got with this truck.

Like I said, 1mpg makes it hard to justify premium octane, but I'd be up for more experimenting if I could find non-ethanol mid-grade.

Screw those corn farmers and their subsidies anyway (said by somehow who supports farmers and farming)

And since I just noticed it was brought up: if possible, I always fill up when I hit 1/4 tank. I figure the fact that my 98 Tacoma with 330,000 miles still had the original fuel pump was partly due to this practice. Anyway with only running my tanks down to 1/4, I've been getting about 270 miles per tank at best. This most recent tank with 91 octane non-ethanol was the first time I broke 300. I think 316. I don't expect to ever do better than that.

 

Im at about a $13 difference between 87 oct snd 93 Oct if filling up with 22 Gallons. I like to use the 93 Oct in MD heat. This truck seems to like it, now my old 4.0 XJ somehow ran worse w anything but 87 lol.

Gas has gone up again recently:
$3.45 -87 Oct
$4.81-93 Oct ( this would be w local shell w $.05C discount per gal/rewards. What are the prices for you guys now? Should go down after summer travel demands traditionally.

 

Like i said, the first tank you can expect about +5-10% change but the second tank you will see another +10% change. If you had stuck to it and ran the second tank thru with non ethanol you likely would have tickled 19mpg. Its not hard, with 100% gas, these trucks will get 19 pretty easily. If you drive it like a paw paw i bet you could get 21-22
My 2008 4.0 1GR-FE 4runner will get 22 if i drive it nice. It has 285 LRE tires on it. I am currently on a tank that has been minimal city stop and go and i am on par to get about 385-390 miles to this tank. My lifetime average is 20.4 since the last reset.

 

Shell, $4.99 for regular, cash price. SoCal.

 

I ran thru death valley back in august 2016 or 2017 i believe and the station out there was like $8.99 a gallon for regular. This was when fuel prices were cheap. I bet they topped $12 a gallon when the fuel prices were so high in 2022.

 

I believe it, that same Shell I referenced, I've seen it as high as $7.42 I remember. It's been in the low $5.00 range for months now, and just dropped to the bargain price of $4.99.

 

Strictly from a cash standpoint, using a conservative estimate for mileage, it's a wash.

Hear me out here, because I'm legitimately interested now, though I understand one impressive tank of gas tells me very little, and could be a fluke. What are the other factors to consider, beyond mpg?

I ran a quick test through an online fuel savings calculator. It assumes 13,000 miles/year.

16mpg @ $3.85/gallon = $3,128 (89 octane ethanol)
18mpg @ $4.30/gallon = $3,105 (91 octane ethanol-free)

If I was going to be really, really optimistic:

20mpg @ $4.30/gallon = $2,795 (91 ethanol-free)

I know you'll tell me different, but I don't expect to get 20mpg. If I did, that's a little over $300/year savings. Or close to $30/month. That isn't nothing, especially with the tight margins I run on my monthly budget.

At 18mpg, I'd have to hear more benefits than just gas mileage to go out of my way to always seek out ethanol-free gas. I'm sure some small towns around here don't even have it. So...will my truck last longer? Run noticeably better (I mean something I can notice, beyond gas mileage)?

At 20mpg, it's pretty easy to justify, strictly from a financial standpoint. Anything less, and I'd need convince myself that my truck is healthier. Please prove me wrong here if I am, but I don't necessarily see a direct connection between gas mileage and engine health. An engine may be less efficient with ethanol additive, but does that mean the additive is hurting the engine, however minor that injury may be? Or does it just mean it gets worse gas mileage, and nothing more?

Will the slight increase in, say, carbon build-up due to less efficient fuel burning actually be something noticeable, that effects the long-term health of my engine, or is it more on the "theoretic" effect spectrum?

I think for the immediate future, I'm intrigued enough to try a few more tanks of 91 ethanol-free, just to see if the mpg increase is repeatable and consistent.

 

That's science and NASA logic...if you let your truck sit more then a month at a time, use ethanol free fuel...if you daily drive it, ethanol can work.

 

Healthier-probably not honestly. To be truthful I don’t think there is a measurable difference other than fuel mileage. If you’ve ever seen an engine split open you’ll see it’s full of junk and gunk. The gasoline commercials and fuel additive commercials all say they rid harmful deposits and have nice graphics showing the sludge on the intake valves disappear but…. Snake oil much.
The EGR and crankcase breathers on modern day engines that puke exhaust gas into the intake and then blow-by from the crankcase back up into the intake is why the engines are so dirty. It doesn’t matter if you run chevron, Texaco, Phil Morris, or Terrible Herbst fuel, you’re still getting blow-by and EGR puking awful stuff up into your intake and filling your trucks lungs with black tar similar to smoking cigarettes. Doesn’t matter if you drink sweet tea or unsweetened tea when the smoking is gonna kill you first.
I doubt the fuel matters except for wearables and issues with fuel system. A good example is take a clear plastic jug like a clear gallon Clorox shaped jug. Put it half full with 100% gasoline. Sit it outside for two weeks and watch it with the cap slightly loose for breathing. Notice there isn’t anything funny maybe just a slight color change the older it gets. Now do the same test with ethanol blend gasoline. Notice in the mornings when there is Dew on your vehicle, the inside of the clear jug will have condensate on it. Watch it for two weeks and you’ll see water build up in the bottom of that clear jug. Tilt the jug over at the end of two weeks and you’ll have an ounce or two of clear water.
My biggest concern there is that water doesn’t bond with fuel unless alcohol is present. They mix the alcohol (ethanol) and water so they combine. My thoughts are they’re using a certain amount of alcohol and water to basically water the gasoline down. This is why you don’t see any power benefits and you see fuel mileage decrease. All they did was add enough alcohol to split the water molecules and make the water molecules burnable. When you add more water due to the jug condensation on the inside you’re adding more water than can be readily absorbed bu the amount of alcohol they added. So over time I think you’ll end up with actual water in the tank and have to use the water/fuel treatment stuff which is the same as putting a bottle of 90% rubbing alcohol in the tank. The alcohol splits the water molecules so it can be spit thru the injector and burned but regardless, you have a bunch of water in the fuel and its not doing you any good. If anything the ethanol blend will potentially have more water in the tank over time that you will eventually need to put fuel treatment in, in order to get rid of the water.

Ethanol blended fuel has less BTU so it makes less power, thats a given and thats what most people understand about it. When you think about it a little more and break it down a little further and realize the "ethanol" is alcohol, mixed with water, at a specific solubility point. Basically they add just enough alcohol and water so they mix perfectly and blend with the gasoline. This is why with the ethanol testers, you add water to the bottle and shake it up and the water instantly reforms back to water molecules. Once you added a little more water you created "phase separation" which is when the water separates out of the fuel, once you realize how much water is in there and you start to realize how much we are getting screwed. They add a little alcohol, and then a bunch of water. The alcohol breaks the water molecule down small enough that it will pass thru the injector and burn in the engine. The reason the ethanol blend has less BTU is because the water is cooling the ignition down, and i simply cant get around thinking that the gobbermint found a way to put a measurable amount of water into gasoline, (basically free) with a little alcohol (also very cheap) and pass it off as a savings to us and claim its better for us. Meh i just cant get around it, and my vehicles get better fuel mileage with 100% gasoline, and my price is only about $0.25ish cents off so its a smarter buy for me to get 100% gasoline.

https://petroclear.com/resources/dont-be-phased.php

 

Interesting, thanks.

I'm no expert, but my understanding is that farmers needed a place for the corn surplus. The government encouraged farmers to 'get big or get out', decades ago, and switch to industrial-scale farming, often mono-crops. Fields and fields of corn. This does feed people, though mostly feeds cattle. But then you have food producers only producing one type of food, and what happens if the market tanks? Or there's a few years of drought? You can't have a bunch of large American farms go out of business. This is why there's crop insurance, and large government programs that pay farmers and ranchers during bad years to keep them afloat. Lots of people complain about subsidizing crops and there are definitely problems with it. Anyone under the illusion that the market is "free" is...under an illusion. But for people whose livelihood is determined by the weather, it's a reasonable way to give them some security that they won't lose their business and home because of a year or two of drought, or a downturn in the market. Our food supply is too important. I'd rather see lots of local, diversified crops. But if we want the population to be able to grow unchecked (a serious problem, but I'm certainly not going to endorse population control), we need to produce food at scale.

So...they created a market for surplus corn. Put it in our gas.

I'll try a few more tanks of ethanol free, see if the mileage increase continues, see if I notice any power improvements, see how annoying it is to have to plan ahead and seek out gas stations that still carry it.

For better or worse, my truck rarely sits for more than a day or two, so fuel/water separation isn't a concern.

 

Any chance that running a few tanks for ethanol-free premium could cause an O2 sensor to send a code? I got my first check engine light yesterday, P0155, sensor 1 bank 2. Might have just been its time, but it happened after 3 tanks of this gas experiment.

 

Definitely possible...age only, related...

 

It would seem unlikely
The sensor is just looking at AFR, and the ECU is adjusting injector duty cycle to normalize the AFR
I doubt ethanol free fuel is to blame, but you cant rule it out since its been the only change you have made
After the 3 tanks what did you see on fuel mileage? +15% increase or more?

 

Either way, I've got two new Denso sensors for bank 2 on their way.

I'll get back to you. Unfortunately on one of the fill-ups I somehow forgot to zero my trip mileage, so I don't know my mpg on that tank. The next tank was 17mpg, but was a mix of "city" and highway. This next tank will be city, highway and off-road. But so long as it's convenient to keep trying ethanol-free, I'll keep experimenting and before long I'll have some pure highway mile tanks to compare. Much harder to compare the mixed-driving tanks, since town/highway/off-road mixed tanks can be such wildly variable driving conditions.

Not sure how long this kick will last, but for whatever reason, for now I'm interested in experimenting. Bottom line, whether it's a wash financially or I come out slightly ahead, this does allow me a couple dozen more miles per tank on road trips, assuming a 2mpg improvement.

 

I just filled up the other day and I got a whopping 12.5 mpg! Even with the big tires, lift, driving like an AH, etc. This tank had (1) trip to the hills and the rest was city driving.

 

Ive had my truck 2 years and replaced bank 1 on each side. Once after i first purchased truck ( had been sitting 8 months) , once on work trip to NY could have been anything. Seems to be pretty common issue. I just hear about people throwing those codes fairly often. I have been getting 14-18MPG , mixed use, AC blasting it. Driving however I want. Prob majority around town. It will get 350-360 if all highway but this is as low as I have ever run it. Per calculations 16.8 MPG using just fuelly app this time. Id say 14-16.5 is prob more accurate. Please note I scaled out two dump runs ...one was 890 Lbs , the other 1099Lbs of demo's 70's porn tile. Latter was first ive seen her level lol

 

Porn tile?!…so is it hard to lay?

 

Guessing a reference to the hideous brown and yellow ceramic tiles prevalent in the San Fernando valley in the late 60s and early 70s.

 

i was thinking it would be the late 60s early 70s baby blue and sea green tiles?

 

could also be from the 80's . . . Pink & burgundy wall tiles, with maybe a 'Nagel Painting' thrown in for good measure . . . LOL

 

Bingo- brown

 

There is one thing that government values more than the needs of farmers...much more. That's control. By mandating ethanol fuel, they are controlling farmers. So now, instead of growing good healthy local diversified crops for the masses, they are growing GMO corn instead. This is better for the large corporations because they can sell more herbicides and pesticides and better for Wall Street because they can manipulate corn futures.

 

Big farm is real!
We had a kitchen at this newer farm and I started talking to the guy; the farmers don’t always determine what to grow, it’s the seed companies, they tell them what to grow based on the seeds they supply, and the farm doesn’t own the seed either, they usually have to send some back for testing, and destroy the rest of them, kinda crazy to think about. This was specifically a cotton/corn operation I think

 

Whew , new record, empty bed. No tailgate, 70/30 Hwy/cty, 93 Oct. Fuelly 390.9. Odometer 387.0, 265/70/16 MT Baja exp at 35 psi all around, temps are in 75-85, 60*'s at night. Tailgate? I remember tracking last few so pretty sure its close. Just filled 21.63 just auto click/fuel pump off. Stoked with solid 18 mpg lol.

 

thats better than the 12-13 you had right?

 

93 Oct will do that