Help with my horrific gas guzzler
 

Hey there guys, I have a 1992 toyota landcruiser and am looking for any available ideas to improve the fuel economy. Right now I drive as very grandma-like as possible and was just wondering if you guys have any suggestions to perhaps mabye even hit that 16mpg range.

Btw right now I'm pulling just under 14 from all city driving and the car has about 207k on it. Thank you very much for your help guys.

Engine off coasting should help you abundantly in the city. Are you in a manual or automatic? It is easier with a manual as you can bump start your engine when needed and don't have to worry about transmission lubrication not happening. I drive a 2 ton car from 1963 and just made it to 30 MPG last tank. So have heart! You can do it.

There are two basic driving styles I have observed for getting good gas-mileage. You can either drive like a granny and not go faster than needed, or accelerate quite briskly and then turn your engine off and coast as far as possible before turning it back on again. Using the former I managed 20-23MPG, on the latter I have hit 30 MPG. That is mostly highway driving at 55MPH.

There is a good sticky at the top of this forum, I suggest reading it for many more suggestions.

Glad to have you aboard!

Fourthbean

You don't want to be trying to steer that beast without power steering operating so keep the engine running. I would say to do a coasting test to see if you have a lot of rolling drag then if you do, go after drive train lubrication and brake drag.

What size tire do you have and what is the tread pattern?
You may want to look for a skinnier tire, with a smoother treat pattern, and u the tire pressure a bit.

1) Slow down!
2) check/change the air filter
3) check/get a tune-up
4) get a supermid (...wish I could on my 190!)
5) change your tires to sometime more suited to your actual driving

How fast do you go on average? if above 40/45mph, consider looking at aerodynamic improvements (delete luggage rack, smaller/aero mirrors, airdam, etc)

No matter what you do, you are not going to get significant gains on a Landcruiser. Hate to say it, depending on how many miles you drive and with how much gas is now, you could probably justify buying a small, used Geo with what you would save in gas and tires in a year.

What does it weigh?
Engine size?
Standard tranny?

We've already hit most of the main areas that will hurt FE on any vehicle:
Mechanical rolling resistance (incl. tire tread)
Engine size + rpms
Air drag is a big deal at highway speeds.

Reading the basics on the stickies should help.

With a boxy beast like a Land Cruiser I'd think that any improvements you can make to aero will help. Maybe an underbody treatment - smooth it out with a big belly pan. My guess that it would even help at 40 mph on a boxy vehicle like yours.

If it's geared very low consider a different rear end - but you have to deal with speedometer/odometer accuracy issues.

4WD adds its own mechanical drag to the system due to all the additional parts spinning. Whatever degree you can disable it should help.

As someone mentioned, tire tread and pressure are very important. I picked up 2 mpg by changing from snow tires to all seasons, in a car that was getting about 24 with snows.

Have you checked the tire pressure? Have you done a tune up? Is it idling too high? Combining all trips into one for city driving helps FE a great deal. That way you have more miles driven with the engine warm. If you do lots of short trips, the engine never reaches operating temp, and so is running rich and wasting fuel.

Might be best to sell it and get a toyota or honda...or any other sedan or wagon with a four cylinder engine and manual tranny. But perhaps you need the space/towing/off road ability? Landcruisers are great for durability, but will guzzle a lot of gas in city driving regardless. Another option is a pickup truck. my full size chevy 1500 with the 4.3l V6 and 5 spd manual can manage 22-23 in most conditions, though in slow city driving that would be down to about 20. Then again it is only a 2wd.

Get rid of that guzzler...don't even try to hypermilage it...it's like putting lipstick on a pig, seriously.

If you can swing it financially, get a new or near new small car.

Thank you very much guys, I'm going to try all those except the new car thing, don't quite have enough dough plus I get dumped on by snow in the winter. Thank you guys once again though:)