My 4runner is so bad on MPG

You guys might want to try this. 3 ounces for ten gallons. I used in it my lawn mower and got a lot more cuts out of a tank. I don’t really calculate mileage. But one of you might want to give it a try? It’s not hazardous, and you can’t use too much..

 

I Recently did a 1,058 mile trip with my 2020 Trd Pro 4Runner and that was From Salt Lake City UT to Lake Tahoe NV area The Mpg both ways was excellent considering that the return trip I was towing a boat for 528 miles of it the low was 16.8 mpg with the high was 21 mpg (actually higher but that was rolling down the big mountain run sections so we won't include that) but the entire trip averaged out at 18 mpg with the 4Runner has mild lift running on BF Goodrich AT KO2 tires great deal of the trip was at 65 to 75 mph with some 80 mph keeping the Rpms between 20 to 25k except on a couple of hard climb hills. No complaints here at all.

 

I use that in my Boat the Trolling motor seems (maybe it is just in my head) to run much smoother.

 

Just for the hell of it I drove to my parents and tried Adaptive cruise control @ 70mph. I got 20.1 mpg. The best I've got before on regular cruise was 17.2mpg. The problem is I hate it. Someone cuts in front of you it basically slams on the breaks. Most annoying thing I've ever used on a vehicle. Now I know why I never use it. On a long trip it might work, but in the city its useless to me.

 

I have an 18 Limited with about 42k on the odometer. With a mix of around town and highway driving (75mph average). I'm averaging 18.5 and can get 20.5 on long highway trips. It's baffling to me that people still don't understand you're buying a ~4800LB truck with a 5 speed tranny. I didn't buy the 4R expecting good gas mileage. I bought it for reliability, capability and cargo space

 

I am getting 19 city- 22 highway mpg .
2020 SR5 with bridgestone dueler HT tires set at 33psi.
I also drive like a grandpa and I usually dont carry much weight in the cargo area or roof, never use the Air conditioning, and never tow anything, no climbing hills.....(I know, i am boring!).
I would think on a long trip with cruise control , I could get almost 25mpg for sure.
Is that weird?

 

As I said to someone who asked about MPG when I got the 4Runner, "It's a truck. It doesn't get MPG."

I think of gas for the 4Runner mostly in terms of how often I need to fill the tank and how much that costs. Because it holds 23 gallons, the range is typical of many vehicles and so you're filling up about as often. Because most of my prior cars required Premium, the difference in cost to fill up doesn't seem that dramatic. For example, we currently have a Mini Cooper that gets almost twice the MPG of the 4Runner, but only has an 11 gallon tank. So we have to fill that car as frequently as the 4Runner. But the Premium gas means we don't save as much $ on each fill-up as one might think.

In any case, my experience and that of most others on the forum is that the EPA city estimate for the 4Runner is a bit optimistic, while the highway estimate is a bit pessimistic. It's not hard to get 20 MPG highway if you keep the speeds down and avoid heavy throttle application. MPG seems to plummet over 70/75. But you can get 22 in the 55-60 MPH range. Car and Driver reported getting 22 at a steady 75MPH over a 200 mile highway run in a 2019 ORP, but they also reported much less in another 4Runner. So their first result seems a bit of an aberration.

In city driving it's easy to get only 13 or 14 MPG in my experience. My computer says I've averaged a bit over 18 in more than 8000 miles of use, but roughly 1/2 to 2/3rds of that was highway.

Someone above mentioned getting better MPG by using the radar based cruise control, but I'm skeptical of that because in my experience this system results in more downshifts and a lot more abrupt acceleration and deceleration. You can get much more consistent speeds by either using your right foot or using standard cruise control and manually adjusting the speed as needed via the wand.

 

I totally agree MountainMan! Life is about choices. Some are good and some are not so good.
On mileage, I know how to squeeze good mileage out of a 4 Runner, but I choose not to have to drive like that. Hey, it’s only money and a matter of priorities.

 

There's no denying that the 4Runner gets bad mileage. There are bigger vehicles that get the same or bit higher MPG, and vehicles of similar size that get a lot higher MPG. Most of us accepted poor MPG as a worthwhile tradeoff for the proven-tough mechanical simplicity of the truck, with its unusually high levels of reliability and durability, unusually high degree of bad weather and off road ability, and its large cargo capacity relative to its exterior dimensions.

That said, to @MountainMan 's point, the people who complain aren't often doing the math. Or they are doing an apples to oranges comparison. It's not fair to compare the 4Runner to a crossover, unless all you really want is a commuter or mall crawler -- in which case the crossover is usually more sensible. But even there, the difference isn't as stark as one might think. For example:

Before getting my Limited I toyed with the idea of a Tahoe or Kia Telluride. I decided the Tahoe was a tad big for me on the outside, and the Telluride was a tad small on the inside. But I was mostly swayed by the reliability/durability/capability of the 4Runner. I did consider the much higher MPG of the Telluride (about 20% higher in fact), but when I actually did the math I saw that the hit to the wallet isn't as big as it looks.

Specifically: Imagine you drive 12K miles per year, which I think is on the high side of average. And imagine you're paying $3.00 a gallon (which is high for my region). Now apply the EPA MPG numbers: The 4Runner is rated at 17 combined, the Telluride at a much nicer 21. That comes out to 706 gallons and $2117 per year for the Runner, and 571 gallons and $1714 per year for the Telluride. That's a difference of $403 per year or $33.58 per month. Real money sure, but hardly a real lot.

If one's concern is mostly environmental, the Runner is probably a bad choice. But if it's mostly financial, the above illustrates there isn't a huge difference -- even if your comparison is a bit apples to oranges.

 

I got 18.4 mpg over 900 mostly highway miles this past weekend. It is what it is. Reliability and capability trumps MPG every day.

 

Come on! really get serious the 4Runner Gas Mileage may not be the greatest there ever was (it sure beats my Tundra) where the Value really is in that 4Runner is the Smiles Per Miles beats the heck out of several other daily drivers out there Plus yes there is a Plus to all of it if you take good care of it and keep it long time the cost of ownership evens out and maybe could just make up the differences of that slightly lower Mpg with lower cost in the long run to own... Just saying because I have had 2 other early 4Runners 1989 and a 1995 that ran forever...

 

You know… repair bills add up. So if you had a vehicle that got good mpg but required a few repair bills over the years vs a T4R that never needed a single repair…

You might actually come out ahead with a T4R and the poorer mpg’s.

(I’m not talking 18 vs 30 mpg. But comparing a T4R at 18.1 mpg vs something that got 22? Hmmm…)

 

I have to agree with all of the comments regarding the overall cost of ownership VS crummy fuel economy. Fuel I can plan for, whereas repairs can come as a surprise. I really hope this one holds up as well as the previous 2!

That said, I do what I can to get the best fuel economy possible. Of course, I could remove the lift and put on stock size tires, but I'm not going to go THAT far! I just keep the speed reasonable and don't accelerate aggressively when it's not necessary.

 

Return on investment? I’ve always been blown away by how well I’ve done on sales/trades over 25 years with my several Tacoma’s (and the same will happen with the T4R).

Had they all been Fords or Chevy’s that got 5mpg better?? I bet in the end I’d be worse off as far as money left over in my pocket right now. Just a hunch.

MPG in and of itself isn’t a good barometer of “value”. To go out and specifically buy a vehicle that gets good gas mileage, thinking it’s gonna save you money… good luck with that approach.

I had a buddy with an early Chevy Volt and it cost him thousands. I worry the new F-150’s will be a similar situation. Hope not. But… I wouldn’t be keeping one much beyond the warranty period.

It’ll be interesting when they’ve been on the road for 5 years to compare overall ownership costs to a “dinosaur” T4R that gets a shitty 18mpg on fossil fuels. The T4R might come out looking pretty rosey (and maybe even “green-er”).

 

Lol a limited? That's a grocery wagon

 

My quote from above: "Most of us accepted poor MPG as a worthwhile tradeoff for the proven-tough mechanical simplicity of the truck, with its unusually high levels of reliability and durability, unusually high degree of bad weather and off road ability, and its large cargo capacity relative to its exterior dimensions."

Those things apply to all models of the 4Runner.

I'm sorry that you secretly realize you way overpaid for your ego-support wagon. You coulda gotten a more capable truck for less money for all your amazing off-road adventures. That's too bad for you.

PS On second thought, you probably really wanted that unique PRO color of Magnetic Gray Metallic. That could explain it.

 

That's one way to see it. The real question is: how many smiles per miles do you get out of the 4R compared to the HHR?
Sometimes it is about the quality of life. I got a nice vehicle, I paid a lot of money for it, I better enjoy it. I am here only once. It's like not doing the gf so the next guy can enjoy her more.

 

The 4Runner uses a transmission that was designed to operate with six gears and doesn’t have a great highway gear.

Why Toyota left it out is a mystery because the Prado is reliable with a six speed, the 200 series Land Cruiser is reliable with a six speed and an eight speed.

Either way, stop trying to expect excellent gas mileage from something that weighs over 2 tons and has the aerodynamics of a brick.

 

Interesting, and news to me. Regardless, and as you point out, it's not like Toyota was incapable of putting a tough 6 or 8 spd tranny in these things.

I know it won't happen but have been begging Toyota (via telepathy lol) to keep this engine and many other current parts for the 6th Gen, just add a durable trans with more gears and find some weight savings to boost MPG a bit. Presumably their new BOF platform is lighter while also being more rigid -- that's typically the case for new platforms. So that could be a plus. Maybe they could even get the drag coefficient down too without compromising interior space.

But we know that the MPG gains from the above won't be enough for them. So more compromises are coming.

 

This seems to be something common only on Toyota forums that people have this idea that just because the engine design is from the 1990s and the transmission is old as shit, putting a more powerful and equally tested engine and better transmission into the truck is somehow going to affect its legendary reliability when 3/4 of the people on these forums will trade their truck in after 3 years for something newer and shinier.

 

Well, good points but I don't blame people for having an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" view of this issue. It's worth noting that the reliability and durability of these trucks isn't just some kind of Internet meme. The 4Runner consistently ranks near the top of vehicles likely to exceed 200K miles. This seems especially impressive when you realize how common it is for these things to be heavily modded. All those lifts and armor and racks and bumpers and extra heavy tires and everything can't help but increase the strain on the engine, tranny and other components. Yet the things still last longer than the vast majority of other vehicles.

But, again, I agree with you about the tranny. There are proven durable alternatives with more gears. And if we had one we'd get both better MPG and better performance.

 

Whatever anyone has to say I love MY 4Runner that I may have overpaid for but more than likely Not (I'm a cheap SOB) and I doubt that there is even a slim chance that I could have got a more capable truck for less money for all My amazing off-road adventures. Bring it On! and while you do I'm gonna go have a Cold Beer then give my 4Runner a Hug err I mean a washing.

 

Lol

 

You should post a bunch of pics from your gnarly off road adventures. You know, all the rock crawling you do with the extra capability of your PRO. We've seen that one pic from the time you drove through a muddy puddle. That must have been epic. And there was that smooth dirt road on the way to the hunting camp. Must have been a white-knuckler! Show us some more like those, dude, we all really want to see you putting that PRO through its paces.

 

Lol

 

Why are you guys chirping each other over which trim levels you decided to buy? It is entertaining though. I’m not discouraging it haha

 

I'm finding it pretty entertaining myself. You can see the origin of it in post #135 above. He decided to dis a fellow forum member and ride, totally unprovoked. No one said anything about him or his ride. He just decided to be a prick. And it's not the first time he's done it. He seems to revisit this theme from time to time in various threads. Maybe he's insecure. So I decided to point out that he's also a poser. Simple.

 

Did you guys know the 4runner gets worse gas mileage when cruising through water?

 

It's because we don't have a 4Runner wave...