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:)

Geta Rabbit. Or any fwd car with weight over the fronts and jack up the suspension.
https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...4e9c770793.jpg

This is my first post, though I've been lurking for quite some time...

Don't loose heart on the ability of your SUV to attain better gas mileage. I am currently rebuilding a '96 Nissan Pathfinder which I intend to get 30 MPG in once complete. This mileage won't be the result of engine-off coasting, and the truck in question will be driven in a 40k mile expedition across the US, Canada, Alaska, and Central America.

Many of the modifications I'm in the middle of are not off the shelf items. Some of the technology can only be considered "Fringe" at this point, though testing has proved that all revisions will be highly beneficial toward fuel efficiency.

I don't know how mechanically inclined you are, but there are a number of things you can do which will help your situation. Some will cost some money, others won't. If you want to keep the truck and want to get better mileage, than you're going to have to spend some money....

#1 - Toyota Landcruisers are most often shift on the fly 4WD. This means your front hubs are always "locked" into the front differential and transfer case. A set of manual hubs can be used to replace your full time units. These are the ones that have the knob at each wheel that are turned "on" or "off". The nice thing about this is that in the summer, and when its dry in the winter, you can unlock the wheels and significantly reduce the rolling resistance of your vehicle. When there is snow, lock the hubs up, and run in either 4WD, or 2WD....running in 2WD with the hubs locked in will be just like running in 2WD without the locking hub option. This will improve your mileage significantly, and will probably cost $250-300 to have a set installed at a shop.

#2 - Electric cooling fan. The cooling fan in SUV's are huge and drain up to 15hp from the engine....this is 15hp (12kW, 40950 btu/hr) worth of gas usage. You can replace the mechanical fan with an electric unit which can be controlled by a thermoelectric switch, and also a piggy-back relay for the A/C. The fan will only come on when needed instead of being a constant drain on the system.

#3 - Change your tires. Anything aggressive will eat your gas mileage right up. Look for a tire with a 40psi+ max tire inflation and something with a hard rubber compound....typically a tire advertised as a high mileage tire (wear-wise) will be hard. Don't stray far from the stock recommended tire size either...

#4 - If the motor wasn't quite as high with the mileage, synthetic oil would be a must-do. However...207k miles is a little too elderly to be starting that regimen.

#5 - Get those injectors cleaned. I'm not talking about the stuff you put in the tank...have the injectors removed and ultrasonically cleaned by a professional shop. With that many miles on the engine, your spray pattern is undoubtedly off a bit...the more you can atomize the fuel, the better you'll be.

Unfortunately, all of these mods won't get you up to 30 MPG. Modern engine management (OBD1 qualifies for this) has built-in controls to maintain predetermined air-fuel ratios. You can make the engine work less to maintain a set A/F ratio, but you won't get any mileage miracles until you revise the parameters which the management is using to run the engine. There are various methods for doing this....some involve having the computer reprogrammed, others involve piggy-back systems, and oxygen sensor interrupters. If you want REALLY good mileage, you'll need to utilize one of these systems. Once you have one, the mixture can be leaned out (the biggest gas savings), and you can use water mist injection to control the otherwise resulting detonation.

Don't let people tell you that the truck is always going to be a pig. Yes...we need to work harder to get our SUV's green, but it can be done.

Spence

I was pulling 15-16 in the city with my car before finding this site. Last tank was 30. I believe that any car can have significant gains in MPG.

Safety should be primary on your concern list, with that said power steering may not be a big deal when the vehicle is rolling at 30-40MPH. Would need to be tested in a safe area by the person who will be driving to determine agility without the engine running.

That VW looks like a fun car!

I don't want to start a big argument, but according to my last gas tank my car gets 68 percent of the mileage your car gets, weighs almost twice as much, cost 4000 dollars, and is a classic to boot.

As much as I love the Yaris (most attractive I saw at the state fair) when put up against my car at 10,000 miles a year it would take 30 years for a yaris to break even in cost of ownership. Granted that is all other things equal, I am sure that in 30 years there will be more maintenance on my car than yours. But even if I spent another 4000 over the 30 years it would cut it down to 17 years before breaking even.

Unless I am missing something. Please let me know if I am.

Yes, you are missing something, driving the yaris the same way your driving your "classic" EOC, style you would be getting 50 ? or better mpg in the yaris?
so there would still be a significant difference in mpg.
You are doing a great job with your classic though :thumbup:

beaters==fun :thumbup:
Just get an older car that gets decent mileage. A $1k car should only take ~7k miles to break even compared to the Bel-Air, assuming it gets ~40mpg.

ELF, you are right. I would get more like 60 in a yaris if I drove it like I do my current car. Which would put my 8000 dollar car (including repairs down the road) at being caught up with price wise in 8 years. It would be a nicer ride in a Yaris :).

I want one of those junkers that will pay for itself in 7k miles! My numbers show a difference of 599 dollars per 10,000 miles from 30MPG to 60. That is with gas at $4 a us gallon.

My previous calculations were at $2.83 a gallon of gas. Which is not very accurate considering summer is just now getting here. I moved my spreadsheet numbers to 4 dollars per gallon for these calculations.

Heh, I dunno where I got 7k from, it should be *10k, assuming you get what you currently get in your boat, pull 40mpg in the $1k beater, and pay $4/gal.

*(miles/current mpg)ga$-(miles/new mpg)ga$=$1000

Oh I see. I was using 30MPG as my car's number. As that is what I got last tank. Your math works great, was wondering how my numbers were so far off from yours :).

If you can pull 30mpg consistently use that. All I know is, if I had a car that nice, I'd definitely want something more expendable for a daily. :D

Need more info on the vehicle.
I assume it is an FJ80 series in which case you're lumbered, and I really do mean lumbered, with the 3F gasoline engine and constant 4wd, not sure if you guys got the manual.
The biggest improvement will be seen with a replacement engine. IF you can legally go diesel I would recommend the current 4.2 24 valve intercooled turbo diesel, or better still the new 4.7 V8 turbo diesel. With an eye on budget, and alot easier, I would swap in something like an LT1 Chevy small block. More power, lighter engine and much better on fuel. A pretty common swap here actually.

This is a gas saving site. One could assume the prime directive is to save gas. Ok, I share that directive, therefore I drive a Yaris and get 45+ MPG on average.

Perhaps the real question you need to ask yourself is this: Do I need a Truck; the type of vehicle that is your old LandCruiser? If you need the utility, and need what it offers often, then go for it! The Yaris is not going to give you the utility that your LandCruiser will.

Not about you, but lets face it: Most truck/suv owners do not need the capacity of their vehicles. For these folks, it would be better to rent such vehicles for the few times they need that capacity/performance.

So if you really need the capacity, and use it often and in such a frequency that renting such a vehicle would cost more, then go for it...otherwise, you're putting lipstick on a pig. ;-)

By the way, it is not unreasonable to expect 250,000 miles from the Yaris, stock, with no mods, 87 gas, 45+ MPG, and with nearly power everything it costs just $13,100, and the maintenence of this car is very low in cost, so are tires, etc.......but it's not a truck of course. And if I drove the Yaris like you drive your LandCruiser to get 30 MPG, then I should get around 55-60 MPG.

Suggestion from my past uses
 

When in college, I had a 1966 Suburban that I bought for $100. Granted, gas was about $1.40 / gallon then...and I never really checked what it got...but I took a lesson from Star Trek: I had a shuttle craft parked in back. I would drive to a central location in Bloomington, IN...park the truck, get the bike out and ride. This avoided dying on the highways (big concern), biking up the large hills (good use of gasoline, IMHO), made for easier parking and got some exercise. Thought about putting a small moped or bike in back, and cut some of your running around?