ryland

2007 Tacoma, Double Cab, SR5, Long Bed, 4X4, Shell, V6 Automatic, 750 miles

I have been driving like a grandma because I am breaking it in and I cannot get up over 15MPG (90% City/10% Hwy). I was hoping for better and have talked to people with the same truck and have read posts online of people getting much better fuel economy than this. The dealership says "oh well". My only hope is that things will improve as the vehicle breaks in and loosens up. I realize it could be worse than 15, just wanted to get some feed back......thanks in advance.

Does anyone know if things change after break in?

If you have this truck what is your MPG?

(I am figuring the MPG correctly and have stock tires)

jbhowat

It gets a bit better with more miles in the motor. I'm at 60xx and I'm near the EPA estimates for City and Highway. The fact is though, its a truck. City mileage isn't going to be very good and highway mileage isn't either. Weight is high for stop and go, and the aerodynamics suck on the highway. You bought a truck, don't complain about mileage.

William

Yes, it's a truck. But it would be nice to get what the window sticker says.

I'm interested in this subject myself, since I just bought an '06 Tacoma TRD 4wd 4 door last Thursday.

If his doesn't get as many MPG as is normal for this truck, then that is a good indication that something may be wrong. If so, and if the dealer doesn't seem to want to help, then he does have a reason to complain (although I didn't consider his post complaining).

X-AWDriver

Give it another 1000 miles.

Jacket

15 mpg is way too low, but as others have said, you need to give it more time. Mine got alot better after 1200 miles or so. Most of my driving is city as well, I don't drive like a teenager, and I have a few aftermarket upgrades that hurt my mileage. I still get around 18 mpg.

MrTom

The vehicle manufacturers are required to post the projected mileage per the EPA rating system. EPA has realized that the 20+ year old rating system is a bit antiquated and not realistic. Probably because they have received a lot of complaints about the difference between the posted and real world mileage.
They have revised it for 2008.
Per their site at:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
"EPA has changed the way it estimates MPG.
Starting in model year 2008, estimates will reflect the effects of
* Faster Speeds & Acceleration
* Air Conditioner Use
* Colder Outside Temperatures"
Using the 2008 system the ratings for a
2007 Toyota Tacoma 4WD
Automatic (5 speed)
6 Cylinders
4 Liters
Regular Gasoline
The current and new ratings are:
2007: 18 City 21 Hwy
2008: 16 City 20 Hwy
So it looks like your mileage is close to the new EPA standards...

BT17R

Well, you have the biggest, heaviest Tacoma in production with the added weight of the shell and whatever else is inside.

The 1GR is a new-tech engine with low-tension rings that take over 5K miles to break in. Others have reported a mileage bump then and again at 10K.

ryland

Thanks for the feed back, I appreciate it.

merace19

You can look up the post I done on air filter mods and if you have the same set up you can gain a little by doing that. But my wifes 4runner has gotten better after it rolled over 15000. I figure the longer it takes to break in the longer it will last. I have a chevy truck and it gets better mileage than i was expected. When its driven 90 % on the interstate its about 17 mpg. And i drive 75. In town it sucks 14-15mpg. But in highway driving 60 and less it goes all the way to 19. I got over 40k miles on it and drive those routes all the time. Its a crew cab 4x4 with 5.3 and 3.73 gears. Ford is suppost to come out with Hybrid F150 thats getting over 30mpg. I need a truck to work out of so thats what I hope all trucks start getting.

SRB

Just thinking about this, I cant see what "break in" is going to accomplish in terms of improving mileage. The amount of material removal on any internal engine component is going to be so small that "loosening up" can't be measured with mpg. Your engine has a known volume, injector size, timing, etc. It requires a specified amount of fuel to have the right a/f ratio for combustion. These specs and design parameter do not change. They take temp, load, air density, etc. into account but the fuel and timing tables are what they are. How is break in going to significantly improve this?

If the fuel consumption is too low, then I would want to see exactly how you are calculating it first, then start looking at mechanical possibilities on the truck like rolling resistance. Can you push your truck easily in neutral on flat ground or is it dragging? Is the a/f ratio too rich for some reason like crud on the maf element or too much fuel pressure?

I'll tell you this much from my engine builder of race engines is that one should drive the engine exactly how they intend to and just change the oil for break in, the rings require pressure to seat in and if you baby it too much they will take a long time to seat. This is in regards to having good compression not economy btw. Economy is controlled by factors I mentioned above among other things... my .02

isaac338

holy can of worms. i've rebuilt a few small (dirt bike) motors using the dry assembly and hard breakin method and it worked out very well. they burn no oil and pull very strong. according to what i've read (this is pretty logical) if you baby it too much during breakin you get too much oil film between the rings and crosshatch and they don't seat properly. your window of opportunity is pretty small. here's a lot of good info:

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

no idea how much of this applies to a larger engine like what is in our rigs but the theory is all the same. either way it's an interesting read. there's a few guys on ThumperTalk (kelstr, burned) who build 60+HP CRF race bikes using dry assembly and hard breakin, fwiw.

ryland

I calculate my mileage by dividing miles per tank by gallons put in. Truck has 900 miles on it, so no crud on the MAF. Break in seems to be a subject with many different takes. I suppose each truck is different so one guy might get 18 or 19 while another (me) gets 15. I also am running the stock 245/75/R16 tires and do not have TRD both of which I would think contribute to better mileage. As far as break in I guess when there are many different schools of thought I gotta go with the owners manual. I bought the truck with 275 miles on it after the dealer delivered it to my house so the window for me to drive it hard in the beginning was gone. For me it is even the mileage that bugs me so much as I just wish the gas tank was little bigger!

SRB

Do you know the gearing? Could it have a numerically higher gearset for some reason? Many variables to check..... Typically, with new vehicles, it is driving style that makes the biggest difference btw. just throwing ideas out...

ryland

I dont know about gearing, but I have been driving with a feather foot.

William

The best way to break in an engine is to do it the way the manufacturer says to do it.

Why? The manufacturer wants it broke in using the method that will cause the least amount of warranty claims, recalls, and TSBs. Why would they suggest a way that would cost them more money? They wouldn't. And the engineers that designed the engine know better than anyone the best way to break it in. That's 2 reasons why you need to follow the manufacturers instructions.

My first motorcycle was a '98 Kawasaki KLR250 dual sport (street legal dirt bike). The manufacturer's instructions stated that for the first 500 miles the rpm be kept at or below 4000 (with an oil change and valve adjustment check at 500 miles), and from 500 to 1000 miles for the RPM to be kept at or below 6000.

Most Kawasakis had this requirement. I know this because most Kawasakis had a sticker on the tachometer (or the speedometer telling the max speed in each gear if there was no speedometer). To this day most still do, as far as I know.

There was one problem doing this with my KLR250: At 4000 RPM, it would only do 40MPH in 6th gear. At 6000 RPM, it would only do 60 miles per hour (had a 9500 RPM redline). This was too slow (the max speed limit on the way to work was 65 miles per hour with the typical speed of traffic being higher), so I basically ignored the RPM limits during break in.

By about 6000 miles, it was using alot of oil, and had excess valvetrain noise. I had to have it rebuilt. The piston/rings, one camshaft (I think it was the exhaust cam), and the rocker arm for that cam needed replaced.

Had I broke it in according to Kawasaki's instructions, the motorcycle probably would have ran many thousands of miles with no problems.

Now as far as fuel economy during break in goes, many people haf reported both more MPG and more power after break in. It makes sense, since friction surfaces of the vehicle tend to loosen up during break in. Less friction makes for more power/more MPG, plain and simple.

And if the piston rings seal better against the cylinder walls after break in, that would also explain it.

BlackSR5

I have 3k on my 07 tacoma and it feels stronger with the more mileage I put on it and I am getting almost 300 miles on a tank with mixed city and highway driving. Its a 4x4 doublecab automatic longbed. I drive pretty hard...take a look at the other vehicles I own

Merlin

i would tend to agree with those that say mileage increases as the motor breaks in (to a certain degree). my wife's 06 4R 4WD started off getting 9.x mpg. (!?!?!?) according to the computer.

after a year, and about 2,000 miles (we hardly ever drive it) it's been holding steady at 15.1 for the past couple of months.

i realize that the computer may not be entirely accurate, but if it's consistently off by the same amount, then, on average, our fuel economy increased. this is on a bone-stock 4R (not even an aftermarket exhaust).

86tuning

Well, if you drove it like you stole it when you first got it, you'd likely get into an accident and wreck the machine or hurt yourself. NO manufacturer wants their customer to die using their product, it's bad for business because you won't be able to buy another one, and tell your friends how good it is.

In reality, once the engine reaches operating temperature, driving it hard, full throttle, and perhaps shifting at a lower rpm than the rev limit (say, 70-80%) is GOOD for seating the rings. Vary the rpms that you'd cruise at. Don't drive at a constant speed.

The sooner the rings seat, the better they seat, the more compression and power you'll make. With better compression, you'll have a longer lasting engine from less contaminants in the oil due to blowby.

FWIW, modern Toyota engines are so precisely machined that they're mostly broken in by the time you get it. If the technician doing the pre-delivery inspection does his job properly, he/she will take it for a good road test, which includes full-throttle driving. And that would be a good thing.

/2cents/

As for the mpg, getting within 10% of the EPA estimates is very good. The actual mpg you get depends on your driving style, the temperatures, a/c use, vehicle load, fuel octane, and the terrain you drive. The EPA rating is a laboratory test number... the test driver is very well practiced on the closed course. There are no pedestrians, people turning left in front of you, etc on the test course.

William

If they were concerned enough about liability to tell you the wrong way to break in the vehicle (as you imply), then the speed limiter would be set to 80 miles per hour instead of 110 (and yes, I found out where the speed limiter is set).

The fact still stands that they will tell you the best way. They don't want to spend money on warranty claims, TSBs, and recalls, or lose potential business due to unsatisfied customers and a bad reputation.

Toyota has some good engineers. They know better than anybody how the engine needs to be broke in.

Paul H.

Have you checked your tires pressure? Low tire pressure can reduce milage significantly.