Shell premium gas and better gas mileage?

Just drove about 190miles on whatever gas the dealer filled up with (likely regular cheapo gas) and averaged about 16mpg. Filled up with Shell premium and on a 30 mile trip averaged 20.5! I’ll be making the same 190 mile trip tomorrow see we will see. For both trips I had it set on cruise control. Anyone else see this? I also had the pedal commander on Sport 4.

 

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https://www.toptiergas.com/licensed-brands/
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Shit I just came back from Utah and I got 11.5mpg all the way from Dallas to Albuquerque. Those headwinds were close to 40mph. In Utah I got 19mpg. I really wish Toyota would make a hybrid 4R.

 

Were you going the same speed on the 190 mile trip? 4runner fuel economy tanks (no pun intended) rapidly at higher speeds. I have gotten 21+ with a loaded roof rack at 65 MPH with regular gas.

 

No. Energy available in a gallon of gas is the same , no matter the brand or grade. The only difference is the ability to not auto ignite under pressure. Higher octane will take higher pressure before ignition. Turbo/supercharged engines need that. Your regular v6 has zero benefits. You just making other people richer.

 

I'll bet it was just the difference in wind speed/direction. I made a short 20 mile round trip recently and saw 18 mpg out and 25 mpg back. This was at 70 mph both ways, the difference being I drove into an 8 mph wind on the way out and had the tailwind on the way back.

The environment plays a big role in mpg, and it's not just a 4Runner specific issue.

 

30 mile trip way too small of a sample size. Speed, grade, wind conditions etc etc etc etc etc etc all impact results.

I doubt anyone here really thinks they'd get noticeably better MPG from higher octane or Top Tier gas. But if someone wants to prove otherwise they'd need much, much more controlled conditions than this.

I tend to use Top Tier because it's supposed to have more/better cleaning agents (though I'm not convinced it matters much). And I use regular octane cause it's way cheaper and the engine is designed for it.

In any case, 20 MPG is certainly achievable over long periods of time IF the conditions are right. As others have noted, speed is a huge factor. In my experience, there's a very big difference in MPG between, say, 65 MPH and 75 MPH. More so than in many other cars, presumably because of the extra wind resistance produced by this big block of a truck. If the national speed limit went back to 55 (ugh) and the EPA tested on that basis, I'd guess our trucks would be rated for about 22 MPG highway. I've seen around that and better for extended periods at speeds of 50-55.

 

OP, if you're basing your mpg on the dash display, you're not getting accurate information. Also, as was stated above, that's too small of a sample. You'd need at least a couple of full tanks used, and manual calculation of miles driven divided by gallons used.

 

IMO buying premium octane for a 4Runner is a waste of money or any other vehicle that doesn’t require premium. I’d stick to regular octane. The only time I will use premium is when the manufacturer states premium is required for the engine.

 

This is a good point. There's no substitute for calculating by hand during fillups at the pump, and also averaging over a number of tankfulls to account for variables such as temperature (gas density) and whether the tank was topped off (ie adding more fuel after the pump's auto shutoff off).

That said, and somewhat surprisingly to me, I've found my hand calculations at the pump to very closely match the MPG number produced by the computer. This was surprising to me because some of my recent cars produced a pretty optimistic (ie big fat lying) number, always showing me 1-2 MPG better than I was getting at the pump. But that hasn't been my experience at all with the 4Runner.

Another caveat: The speedometer runs a bit fast (as is common to most cars), say about 2-3 MPH at highway speeds. Presumably, this also slightly inflates the miles shown on the odo. If so, when calculating by hand, one would assume that you've actually driven a bit less than the miles you're putting into the calculation.

Don't know for sure if that impacts the computer's calculation or not, but one would think so. I think these systems tend to measure the actual amount of fuel metered by fuel injectors, but to get an average it's got to have some kind of input on miles driven. Presumably that input is whatever's shown on the odo.

 

I have an equally small sample size, relied on the dash display, etc., but with el cheapo knockoff brand gas of regular grade, I was getting 20.4MPG with radar cruise yesterday by the end of my trip. I don't remember the last time I saw my MPG go that high, so cruise control must have been a big part of that. I see you were using cruise control, too.

 

Top Tier is a performance standard for gasoline.

The Environmental Protection Agency requires a minimum level of detergent for all gas sold in the United States.

To be - Top Tier the gasoline must have a higher concentration of detergent added to it.

Using any octane level above regular unleaded in a a vehicle designed for its use is throwing money away.

Much the same as using a non Top Tier gas is.

Long term use of a Non Top Tier fuel, over time, will be a costly decision too.

With that - we're still free to choose.

 

I read on a Tacoma forum many years ago keeping the 4.0 under 2,000 RPM’s was key to good gas mileage which is around 70 MPH assuming perfect conditions

 

An easy way to prove this would be for someone with oem tires to reset the trip odometer to zero, drive a route with a known distance, and then compare distances afterward. GPS could be used if you don't have a route with a known distance. I would think a 25 mile distance would be long enough. The trip odometer on oem tires should read between 25.9 and 26.1 miles on an actual 25 mile route, if your assumption is correct.

I wish I had tested this with my oem tires. The speedometer was 1 to 2 mph too high at 40 mph, based on radar speed signs I drive past every day. Once I switched to 33" tires, the speedometer matches the radar signs exactly.

 

Yes, I'm sure gearing is part of it. But wind resistance is a big factor. It increases exponentially with speed.

 

This is true, but we all calculate based on the odometer. So, we're all probably getting about 3% lower fuel economy than we think. Except those on oversized tires.

Either way, 3% isn't that significant. If the OP is getting 20.5 MPG by odometer calculation, it only drops to 19.9 if you correct for the odometer being inaccurate.

 

There is nothing about higher octane fuel that is going to increase your gas mileage in a N/A v6 4Runner. Period. Dot. End of argument. It's science. Top tier? sure. Why not put the best grade of gasoline in your car? There is a distinct difference between top tier and high octane. 70mph is your cutoff. 50-70 is a sweet spot with the gearing. 71 or above and you're going to drop.

 

while growing up my dad alway filled up with chevron and used 89 octane.. like father like son, ever since I started driving and from my 1st car to current (4R). 37 years young, I'm still using chevron 89 octane.. if it helps who knows..

 

Made the same trip back , but the opposite direction ( 190miles, south to north) and mainly had it in CC at about 70-73mph. 16.8mpg average, was fun while it lasted ‍♂️

 

It's not just the gearing, it's wind resistance. I have kept mine in S4 in hilly areas at ~65 MPH and still gotten good fuel economy (for a 4runner ).

 

^ This. Drag increases with the square of velocity. The cross sectional area of your truck and it's drag coefficient are constants. Engine efficiency and gearing certainly plays a part in your overall fuel economy, as does rolling resistance, but the biggest factor is velocity.

An easy way to demonstrate is to set your cruise control at 35 mph, roll down the window and stick your arm out with your open palm facing in the direction of travel. Make a mental note of how much force is pushing back at you at 35 mph. Then repeat the same procedure at 70 mph. Huge difference.

 

Well this is kind of surprising. I had to run an errand across town, but before I left, I checked the specific route miles on Google Earth. They listed the round-trip distance as 27.1 miles. My trip odometer measured it as 25.5 miles, a roughly 6% shorter distance. It looks like the odometer may be more or less accurate with oem tires, even though the speedometer is accurate with 33" tires.

 

Just drove 3300 miles on a road trip. The Odometer and onboard fuel mileage calculator are pretty darn close to GPS and hand calculations. With 285s...

Averaged 15.7 mpg. Got a bit better when I ran premium. Got a bad tank of gas once on the trip. Got 14.5 mpg on that tank. Best gas I got was from my sister's farm. Ethanol free and 88 octane. Got almost 17 mpg from that.

Been driving and building cars for 40 years. I know what affects gas mileage. These days, the biggest factors affecting gas mileage are speed, wind conditions, topography, tire pressure, air temperature, and presence of ethanol in the fuel.

Ethanol is absolutely awful crap and the fact that the government put it in our fuel is one of the biggest attacks on the welfare of the American consumer in the history of our country. Billions of dollars lost in fuel costs and damage to fuel systems.

 

This seems a bit over the top. I know the stuff sucks in small engines, but I've never had a fuel related issue in any of my vehicles due to ethanol.

I've also ran E10, E15, and ethanol free and never seen a measurable difference in fuel economy. Maybe an old car would be affected, but nothing I've driven in the last 20+ years seemed to notice a difference.

 

https://www.cars.com/articles/anoth...may-vary-for-the-worse-ethanol-1420663037150/

"That means E10 gas fractionally lowers real-world gas mileage. How much? Try about 3 percent compared to non-ethanol gas, said Toyota Senior Energy Researcher Mike McCarthy and Ford powertrain spokesman Paul Seredynski. AAA’s Green and the EPA both pegged the E10 loss between 3 and 4 percent."

https://fee.org/articles/ethanol-is-bad-for-cars-the-environment-and-america/

"The claim that biofuels reduce greenhouse gas emissions is one of the biggest fibs of the modern age. The EPA’s own data shows that corn ethanol is worse for the environment than conventional gasoline.

In 2010, the agency published a 1,100-page document that detailed the environmental and economic effects of the Renewable Fuel Standard, which is the federal mandate that requires retailers to blend ethanol into the fuel they sell to the public. The EPA found that ethanol-blended fuel increases “emissions of hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and other pollutants” and that will “lead to increases in population-weighted annual average ambient PM [particulate matter] and ozone concentrations, which in turn are anticipated to lead to up to 245 cases of adult premature mortality.”

Or look at the work published last summer by John DeCicco, a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Energy Institute. DiCicco, who has been studying automobile fuels for more than two decades, found that greenhouse gas emissions from corn ethanol are up to 70% higher than those from standard gasoline."

 

I never said that I liked it, or that it was good for the environment. But, 3% is negligible compared to how much fuel we could save by lowering speed limits (not that I want that either).

I agree that ethanol probably does more harm than good. I just haven't had any issues with it personally. And, your statement about how harmful it is to the American consumer just seemed over the top.

 

Coincidentally, just before reading the above discussion on ethanol I saw something at a local gas station that I've never seen before -- or at least have never noticed before.

Local Amoco. The 93 octane stuff, which they brand as Ultimate, said "Ethanol Free." Around here, every pump says "Contains up to 10% Ethanol." I've never noticed a brand or a particular octane advertising no ethanol at all.

I was near empty and filled up with it cause I was in a car that requires at least 91 (a tiny, turbo and direct injection motor). Was it a coincidence that this motor soon started running smoother? Maybe, but it was very noticeable. This engine is super sweet when revving but rough at idle. After the ethanol-free stuff it was purring at idle. I'll def experiment more with this gas to see if there's a lasting effect, and this wasn't just a weird aberration.

But would I put this ethanol-free 93 in my Runner? Not for 35 cents more per gallon.......

 

Some gas stations in Wisconsin are like that, but usually not in the city.

If ethanol free regular was an option at all gas stations, I'm sure most folks would probably use it rather than E10. I would. It would be interesting to see how much difference it would make.

 

2nd half of round trip to have bumper and winch installed today. Freeway construction limited speed to 60MPH and the typical California stop and go traffic is in there too.



Not bad.........eh!

 

i’ll take that any day with a 4R!