CANT GET THE CORRECT MILES PER GALLON
- Thread starter cap2023
- Start date
Yea, I hear ya.
When taking many small trips over the first 3-4 months of ownership, starting with a full tank on the way out of town, and filling up at the other location, or immediately upon returning, the dash MPG display on Miss Daisy was within 0.5 mpg of the hand calculated value. Every. Single. Time. So I quit doing the calculation. 93 octane, ethanol free, almost every fill up. (Except the last vacation, I had to settle for 90 octane ethanol free on one fill up).
Like wise, on my last long term vehicle, a 2015 Transit 350 (long wheel base, extended body, tall roof), I religiously kept track of the fuel economy for 10 years. Every single fill up. Written down in a log kept in the driver side door, date, station brand (only top tier), odometer, miles driven, gallons put in the tank, computer MPG, and my calculated MPG. The computer displayed MPG, ALWAYS overestimated the calculated MPG by one MPG. Every single time.
Great. Small sample size though. If more people would do that they could eliminate one potential cause of poor indicted mpg.
I am basing my mileage on gallons of gas filled and miles driven during that period, so an honest & simple look at mpg... I now have 7,500 miles on the ODM and the best I have ever gotten is 19.5 mpg. An improvement, but far from advertised. I've tried different things, done all drive modes, cruise control, etc., and I still, at best, get 19.5 mpg. Using cruise control to and from Vegas on ECO mode got me to only 18 mpg. Most of the time, it's more like 17 mpg. Dealer said it's just the way it is and offered no other solution; they have been seeing the same issue on their other truck hybrids. I have given up in my search to get better gas mileage and resorted to just enjoying the vehicle for what it is. Hope you enjoy yours. We took ours on a muddy trail last weekend and had an absolute blast. Even with just stock everything, it handled the mud beautifully!
My mpg is calculated by miles driven and gallons of gas filled in tank...the old fashioned way of determining the mpg. At best, I've gotten 19.5 mpg, on the average, it's more like 17.5 mpg, so a far cry from the advertised 22 to 24 mpg. And mine is sufficiently broken in (ODM now at 7,500). I never pay attention to the dash display, it means nothing, especially when it only calculates the mpg per trip, and not per tank (that part is frustrating, but now I know why they did that...so you wouldn't really know the average mpg per tank).
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I've got the 20" wheels, 1850 ODO, and never broke 17.5mpg with stock Dunlops. I switched at about 800 miles to the Nokian Outpost P metric 275/ 60 R20 and took about a 1 mpg hit. Always 93 octane and a 50/50 mix of highway/city driving. As other's have mentioned, I didn't buy this with economy in mind... but this is much lower than expected.
I don't remember all the steps to make this change right now, but you can change that so it doesn't reset until you reset it. That was bugging me too, so it was one of the first things I figured out how to change.
I want to reset the Trip A and the fuel economy number at each fill up.
About 3k miles on my 1958 edition. Only way I can get close to 20-22 mpg is to be a traffic hazard. Otherwise I get 16-17 mpg on average.
I would describe the powertrain as… adequate. It often feels like the engine isn’t big enough to cruise at highway speeds efficiently. The electric motor is too weak or transmission interface is too weak to provide adequate power to do anything meaningful by itself (sometimes if the average speed is low and it feels it can turn off the engine it will do that and try to run electric only but isn’t strong enough to actually hold constant speed). And the battery is too small so the electric motor basically assists a couple times when I start driving and then it disappears from the face of the earth only to intermittently help provide power when accelerating on the highway seemingly at random.
So the sum of the parts on paper look good, but you only get the sum of the parts occasionally and not very predictably. And then to top it off, gas mileage is mediocre with a small gas tank…
My opinion is the Land Cruiser is a tool with design tradeoffs, and it’s not superior to any of its competitors. I’m whining a little, but I also think it’s important people wanting to spend 50k+ on a vehicle have more information than less in making their decision.
I would describe the powertrain as… adequate. It often feels like the engine isn’t big enough to cruise at highway speeds efficiently. The electric motor is too weak or transmission interface is too weak to provide adequate power to do anything meaningful by itself (sometimes if the average speed is low and it feels it can turn off the engine it will do that and try to run electric only but isn’t strong enough to actually hold constant speed). And the battery is too small so the electric motor basically assists a couple times when I start driving and then it disappears from the face of the earth only to intermittently help provide power when accelerating on the highway seemingly at random.
So the sum of the parts on paper look good, but you only get the sum of the parts occasionally and not very predictably. And then to top it off, gas mileage is mediocre with a small gas tank…
My opinion is the Land Cruiser is a tool with design tradeoffs, and it’s not superior to any of its competitors. I’m whining a little, but I also think it’s important people wanting to spend 50k+ on a vehicle have more information than less in making their decision.
You’ve misunderstood the design of the hybrid system as a fuel efficiency feature. It isn’t - it is designed to provide low end torque. Some minor improvement to fuel from previous Land Cruisers is just an extra bonus.
I would agree with you if I saw/felt it. Obviously the dashboard electric motor assist status is at a best a coarse information provider, but it’s also pretty clear feel wise when the electric motor is assisting or not. And my point is, it only assists intermittently and at random. You could do like 10 pulls from 55-75mph on the freeway and you can feel it kick in like maybe 5 times and it’s indeterminate whether it will. And it definitely doesn’t kick in from a dead stop. It will do it like twice when I first start driving and then it decides not to help anymore for the rest of the drive.
It definitely does kick in from a start. When you’re at 20° and floor the skinny pedal you feel the instant boost from the battery. Completely negates the turbo lag.
I’m not doing “pulls” at 75 so can’t really offer advice there. I would expect it to be pretty slow on a Land Cruiser.
I’m not doing “pulls” at 75 so can’t really offer advice there. I would expect it to be pretty slow on a Land Cruiser.
It definitely does it half the time and it feels great… and the other half when it doesn’t the power train feels mediocre. It makes me sad
And sure, maybe pull is a bad descriptor, but A. Never said I’m starting acceleration from 75mph and B. clearly I’m just giving a description of cases from 55-75mph where I know from experience the electric assist only assists some times.
Also seems disingenuous to reframe my statements yanu, really makes this forum feel like an open and honest place for discussion.
Main reason I’m putting this out there is so people don’t spend 50k+ on a vehicle expecting something else.
Main reason I’m putting this out there is so people don’t spend 50k+ on a vehicle expecting something else.
Hey sorry mate, I didn’t mean to reframe your statement! I think I do disagree with you but didn’t mean to misrepresent your position. I appreciate your perspective here.
I've got the larger instrument display and can put both the turbo and the battery gauges up at the same time which gives a good sense of the relative contribution of each during different driving situations. When the engine is warm and/or or the ambient temp is over 50 the electric motor is consistently there to break the inertia of a full stop or to sustain coasting under 35mph between stops but it does take some practice using the gauge as biofeedback to learn how use the pedal most efficiently - it's not as simple as just gas-go, brake-stop.
I have certainly noticed that at highway speeds or long uphills you will run through the battery's supply after a few passing attempts if you don't provide good stretches of coasting in between to recharge. Your assessment of getting 5 pulls before the electric stops helping seems about right. Once you're down to less than 1/3rd or so storage (so about 0.6kwh remaining) it's mostly on the ICE to keep you moving and your not feeling the e-motor kick in with each pedal push anymore. Same is generally true for EVs - full power is available only when state of charge is 85%+. As you eat through electrons HP and torque slowly trail off, your just less apt to notice the decline when your starting point is an instantaneous 400hp and 500ft/lbs.
Subjectively I still feel like there's more umph from the turbo at speed than I got from my normally aspirated FJ though the higher revs of the 4 banger vs 6 cylinders does make it feel like it's working harder at higher mph to be sure. IMO you'd need battery and electric motor specs 3x better than what the LC currently has to get that feeling sustained grunt on the interstate. Now you're into plug-in hybrid territory which is not what the LC is.
The alternative is out there - to get a GX. I'd never argue that that power train is not more pleasing - sounds better, feels smoother, more power on the top end - but even the premium trim I took on a test drive (no Overtrails available) delivered a whopping 9mpg over a semi-warmed up (had to wait my turn behind two other shoppers) 15 minute, 70/30, Hwy/City test drive - about half what the LC delivers on my very similar morning school drop-off run. So, compromises, yeah?
I have certainly noticed that at highway speeds or long uphills you will run through the battery's supply after a few passing attempts if you don't provide good stretches of coasting in between to recharge. Your assessment of getting 5 pulls before the electric stops helping seems about right. Once you're down to less than 1/3rd or so storage (so about 0.6kwh remaining) it's mostly on the ICE to keep you moving and your not feeling the e-motor kick in with each pedal push anymore. Same is generally true for EVs - full power is available only when state of charge is 85%+. As you eat through electrons HP and torque slowly trail off, your just less apt to notice the decline when your starting point is an instantaneous 400hp and 500ft/lbs.
Subjectively I still feel like there's more umph from the turbo at speed than I got from my normally aspirated FJ though the higher revs of the 4 banger vs 6 cylinders does make it feel like it's working harder at higher mph to be sure. IMO you'd need battery and electric motor specs 3x better than what the LC currently has to get that feeling sustained grunt on the interstate. Now you're into plug-in hybrid territory which is not what the LC is.
The alternative is out there - to get a GX. I'd never argue that that power train is not more pleasing - sounds better, feels smoother, more power on the top end - but even the premium trim I took on a test drive (no Overtrails available) delivered a whopping 9mpg over a semi-warmed up (had to wait my turn behind two other shoppers) 15 minute, 70/30, Hwy/City test drive - about half what the LC delivers on my very similar morning school drop-off run. So, compromises, yeah?
