Poor gas mileage on new 2016 Tacoma

I've had my new Tacoma for a month now. It's an SRT with a 3" leveling kit so I could fit 285's underneath. It's my work truck, I might carry about 200 lbs of gear in the bed. I've got 1700 miles on it right now. I had a job about 90 miles away today, maybe 90% freeway miles (75MPH here in Arizona). I reset the MPG computer when I left and by the time I got home, I was getting 16.2 MPG. Now the freeways around here are straight and flat, very gentle inclines and declines. I ALWAYS use my cruise control. When on flat or incline roads, the truck is usually in 4th gear (3200 RPM) or sometimes 5th gear (2200 RPM) just to maintain 75MPH. The only time it kicks down to 6th gear (1900 RPM) is when going downhill. Now does this sound normal? Can I expect any better mileage when its fully broken it? I'm sure the larger tires play a part, but I was sure hoping to get better than 16 MPG. My full size V-8 GMC I traded in was getting 15.5 MPG. I was hoping for a bigger jump in fuels savings.

 

Sorry, but that sounds like what everyone else has been getting with the larger tires. I am 100% stock TRD OR and at 75 i get about 19.5-20 MPG depending on how windy it is. These trucks are not the gas saver toyota tries to sell them as...

 

I average about 19mpg stock height, stock wheels/tires, with no weight in the bed. The gear you carry in the bed, bigger tires, and lift could all be a factor in decreased mileage over my completely stock truck. May improve slightly as miles increase.

 

I am getting right at what my door sticker says it should. What do you mean.............. "These trucks are not the gas saver toyota tries to sell them as..."?? Not at all trying to call you our or anything.. just curious on what you mean by that.

 

how are you determining your MPG? If you're using the onboard MPG display then it'll be off (not reporting correctly) with the bigger tires on there.

 

285's only tells us how wide the tires are . I had (305) 60-15's on a stock firebird formula in the rear and they were only 29.4" tall.
Do you compensate for the tire size when you calc. MPG ?

 

200 lbs. of gear
3" lift
large o/r tires
huge brush guard

it looks to me that you're modifying the truck in ways that
are counter productive to the good mileage you're hoping for.

 

Nah it is all good man. Toyota sells the truck as best MPG you can get in a truck kind of things at the point of sale. I have never gotten the 23 MPG HWY that they state on the window sticker EXCEPT at 60 MPH. Now i am well aware EPA HWY mileage tests are mostly at 60-65 mph and only hit 80 mph for a short period of time, but I have always met, if not exceeded, the window sticker on highway mileage. I can live with not meeting the city MPG but I hate driving on the highway to the beach and not being consistently at 23 MPG. I was pretty disappointed with that. I had a 2014 WRX that was listed at 24 mpg and at 80 mph i would get about 24.5 mpg....that is all i am saying here.

As a side note though, I love my truck...as long as i am around 20 i am breaking even over my WRX and the premium fuel costs...

 

Any time you lift you truck and out bigger tires on it you're going to loose your gas mileage. There's no way around it, it's either looks and performance or gas milage. I am dealing with the same issue as I've added a lot more weight then you, from the research I've found the only option to regain mileage is Nitro gears 4.88. You like me just need a bit more torque so you can get those high gears at highway speeds.


Also I am at those same RPMs at highway speeds.

 

Gotcha.. speed limit is 70 here. honestly I set my cruise at 68 and I am just fine. just make sure to stay in the slow lane. my lead foot days went away when I was younger in my 70 chevelle. lol

I was curious if you had an article or something that had toyota selling the mpgs of a tacoma.

 

Nope, no article. But I know they were looking hard to increase MPG with the 6 speed tranny and the atkinson cycle engine

 

Seems to be working as intended.

 

That is a very clean looking pro. Well done! Start a build thread and dump some photos into it.

 

Cruise control does not give optimal gas mileage. Manually controlling your speed will ALWAYS give you better mpg.

 

I bet you can get better mpgs in the 6MT even with the 4.30 gearing, just because you can be in 6th whenever, when the 6spd auto will want to be in 4th or 5th.

I'll find out in a few weeks.

 

Put stock tires back on or deal with the fuel mileage. Can't have your cake and eat it too

 

Larger/heavier tires, lift, and driving over 70mph.

If you drive 65mph gas will get even better. Try playing with it. The in dash fuel economy meter really isn't too bad.

Also, if you mash on the gas a lot, it'll make a difference on this truck.

 

You have more traction when you have bigger tires. I mean more drag too thats why youre getting bad gas mileage

 

200 lbs. of gear
3" lift
large o/r tires
huge brush guard

The larger tires, lift kit and brush guard are not for looks. My job as a land surveyor takes me to extreme off road situations at least once a month. I need the lift and tires for ground clearance over rocks and running through washes. When there are no roads and I have to go cross country, you need to straddle the heavy vegetation and the brush guard saves my grill. I have not compensated for the larger tires when calculating the MPG, but I doubt it's going to raise it to much over 17 MPG. The tires are about 32" tall.

Tom

 

You're stuck with poor fuel economy then. Putting 4.88's in it might help it a little.