New member Corolla and RAV4

[Crotalus]

Just joined. I drive a '99 Corolla that's about to hit 295K miles. I typically get in the mid 30's or better. My sweetie just picked up a used 2010 RAV4 and that's the vehicle I'm most curious about.

It's a 4 cyl (I'm pretty sure) with less than 40K on the odo. She just calculated the mileage between fill-ups for the first time and only got about 15. Pretty disappointing. She does mostly city (and suburban) driving in the Upper Midwest.

Any comments to kick things off? I'm sure she needs to adjust to the vehicle, but she was pretty discouraged. Anybody got any words of encouragement for her? Words of warning?

Thanks!

[Jay2TheRescue]

There's Rav 4's here at Fuelly that get as low as 14 MPG. Being a City and suburban driver, you're going to experience economy on the low end for the model. On top of that its been extremely cold lately which also hurts mileage, especially coupled with short trips and stop and go driving. Its entirely possible that nothing is wrong with the vehicle.

[Draigflag]

Should have gone for RAV4 diesel, they do up to 56 MPG, although that's the 2013 Model. The 2010 Model does around 46 MPG, not great but better than 15!

[hypermarquis]

Welcome Crotalus,

EPA ratings from fueleconomy.gov for a 2010 Rav4 4 cyl (assuming the worst as a 4 wheel drive) are 21 city, 27 hwy and 24 combined. Check the hypermile link here or search hypermiling techniques with you favorite web browser. Just employing a few techniques should get her into the 20's if there is nothing wrong with the vehicle. First to check are tire pressures and air filter. Good Luck

[Crotalus]

marquis

Thanks for the reminder about tire pressure. Always a good place to start. We saw the EPA numbers and that's one of the reasons she was so disappointed with 15 (ONE of the reasons; obviously 15 mpg is disappointing for many reasons).

Definitely a lot of stop and go driving as Jay2 observed, but you expect the city mpg rating to capture that. The unusually cold weather is another consideration.

She and I are long distance right now, so it's a little more challenging for me to participate and contribute. I'll do what I can from here, but will gladly accept any other useful observations and suggestions.

Thanks folks!

[trollbait]

Unfortunately, Toyota doesn't offer a diesel in the US.

Was this the first fill up, or just the first calculated? If the latter was the fill at the same station and pump? Unless she is filling it until gas is visible in the filler tube, the amount of fuel dispensed before auto shut off of the pump can vary between pumps and stations for numerous reasons.

The previous fill up could have been short, less than full, or this pump simply added more. Which means more gallons than actually consumed were used for the calculation. A recommendation is to get least three tanks calculated to level out any dips and spikes caused by filling variances. She shouldn't worry too much about one tank. Still check the little things like tire pressure, but get a couple more tanks in before fearing the worse.

[Crotalus]

Trollbait

Thanks for that reminder. One is a pretty small sample size; not statistically significant. She's a researcher, she should appreciate that.