Gas Mileage

"Chris D'Agnolo" sez:

Sounds pretty normal to me. My '94 Toyota pickup with the 22RE 4-banger got

15-16 mpg around town and 17-18 mpg highway. My 3.0 liter V-6 '92 Mitsubishi Montero got about the same and my 4.7 liter '04 Tundra gets 12-13 mpg in town and 15-17 mpg highway and so did my '97 Suburban. That's just the typical range of mileage you get with a 4x4/SUV class of vehicle.

Short of removing the grill emblem and rolling a Honda Civic under it, nope.

VLJ

Yep ... something's amiss. Taco DC, 4x4, 6 cyl auto. Just did a 5200 mile trip with a couple hundred miles of real 4x4, 1/4 city, moderate country and I-5 run both ways at 70 ish ... 20.9 for the entire trip. Saw a few fill-ups at 24+, the worst OR was 13.4.

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 04:02:09 GMT, "scott and barb" found these unused words floating about:

Dang. I would love to see that.

'93 P/U 4x4 V6 5 speed with manual hubs. I see 15 city, 18 freeway (75+). I have seen 20mpg once, but I really had to work on it.

Last week I got 11mpg, but that was all in town plus miles of muddy road.

Chris: The 3.0L V6 is not a power house engine. I have seen figures that say it runs 150hp stock. I am guessing a bit less for my CA version. And the auto will suck the HP down too. However, if this is your teenage daughter, it's a good choice since it has all the power you need for normal driving and not drag racing. (Not to say I don't try, but that guy in the Geo Metro still beats me off the line.)

"Vacuum recovery system" usually 'adds' to the tank reading after running a few miles.

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 05:28:28 -0500, "PCK" found these unused words floating about:

I had a '90 22RE 4 Rnr with 5 spd -- it got 16 around town and maybe 24 on a trip. My daughter now has in WV and says it barely makes it over some of the mountains there without a lot of gear stirring. Ya gotta turn the AC off to accelerate. The V6 with auto was terrible on gas until about '95 --- something to do about a change in torque converter design.

Air up the tires a bit (avoid agressive tread and oversize tires), replace the ADD hubs with Warn manual and add headers with slightly larger exhaust/cat converter to boost power and mpg.

I drive an '85 Toyota pickup 4wd, 22r with carb and I get about 16.8 mpg city. Probably close to twenty on the freeway. The thing is that I have 31" tires on the truck and i havent re-geared so it has less torque at lower rpm's. This means i need more gas to accelerate and climb hills. With the original tires that were 3 inches shorter I got close to 21 mpg in town. The orginal poster might check his tire size to see if he has the stock tires (stock for a 1991 4 runner is about

28.3 inches). If not a larger tire could be killing your mileage, although, it might not be as bad on the v6 which has a lot more torque than my little 4 cylinder.

If you want good gas mileage go with the 4 x 2 and 4 cylinders and manual 5 speed w/Overdrive. My '89 with 119,000 on it gets from 22 to 28 depending on highway or around town driving and I do not have the fifth gear overdrive...only a 4 speed manual.

I've typically heard and read that the 4 x 4 w/V6 get poor mileage in comparison, but lots of power,especially for hauling and towing.

I don't tow anything, but I do load fire wood now and then.