that's highway milage on mine, going home from farmington, new mexico, to lafayette colorado. last time i went home, i filled up leaving farmington. the trip was 390 miles, and i filled up just after getting back to my house. i put just under 15 gallons in. if my math is right, 390 miles/15 gallons=26 MPG. and i may be alot of things, but a liar isn't one of them. the xrunner has the spacer, along with a true cold air, and exhaust, with two of the four cats cut out. i personally believe him. he's an honest man. i live with the guy. i've got no reason to believe he's not telling the truth.

Edit-also, for comparison, i did the same drive with my younger brothers '94 x-cab 2wd p/u, 22RE 5spd, stock tires, and the only extras are a k&n cone filter, and a home built exhaust using the stock exhaust off my '90 3.0 4x4. i drove that thing home and got 31 mpg. same drive, 390 miles, filled up again just after gettin home, and put a little over 12.5 gallons in. 390 miles/ 12.5 gallons= 31 mpg.

You do know where im getting at that those are astronomically higher than what everyone else gets, right?
What speed were you running?

The only time I even got close to that was 23 MPG but that was all at altitude above 4000 ft going straight and flat. Othewise I am lucky to get 20 highway. Maybe that is what he has going for him. I wouldn't screw with ANYTHING. That kind of milage is excellent.

Well, my 3slo 93 T 4by weighs in at 4200 pounds and never has seen 15 mpg. I am a soft shoe, seldom haul weight and am amazed at these numbers. The best I had with my old 93 2wd was 16 and it weighed 3850. You simply can't haul that weight with a 180ci motor with an automatic and expect more. Even while we in the NE have 10% ethanol gas, the numbers still don't add up. What's the secret? And don't lean on tuneups, new ignition components etc. I even went to manual lock up Aisin hubs to see if that helped - didn't.

BTW - about 20 years ago I had a fellow working with me that claimed that he got 40 and 50 mpg out of his VW bug. He didn't know that his neighbor was putting a few gals of gas in every other day cause he was sick about hearing about how good the POS got on gas. Then he started siphoning out the same amount over a couple of weeks. Woe was him - dealer thought he was nuts until we told him....

Speeds are at 65-75, altitudes ranging from 5300 (farmington, NM) up to 11,000 feet (Summit of Wolf Creek Pass, Southern CO) back down to 5300 in lafayette, CO. I also run my tires up at 42 PSI while on highway, just under max for the tires. I just don't see why you can't understand that i am litterally keepin out of the gas as much as i can. I've shown everything i'm doing, and that's all i can say. I will say that i'm not seeing anywhere near those numbers hauling all of my stuff back and forth between home and this hell hole. These numbers are with an empty truck, that's well maintained, just taking it easy. I don't know what else to say.

My friends numbers are for runnin around here, in farmington, with a URD Cold air, Poweraid Throttle body spacer, Post o2 cats removed, and a magnaflow exhaust. His highway numbers are from here, down to Herford, Texas.

On another note, I ordered the Throttle body spacer today, and it should be here by wednesday or thursday, and installed asap. I'm leaving farmington (completely done with school, only gotta come back for graduation in may!) at the end of next week. I'll let ya'll know how it effects my milage around town, and on the trip home. the trip home won't be 100% accurate, because i'll be loaded down with all the stuff out of my apartment (no furniture, just living necessities for two months) so i'm not expecting anything better than at most 20.

I bet its the altitude, b/c even when I had my truck nd it was cherry it never got bettet than 16 in town.

Then again the camry I had never got better than 18/24. Drove like an ass got that, drove like a grandma got that, drove all highway got that, etc.

Wsquaredodie, you seriously never got more than 15mpg? While I don't have the same engine as you, and I'm not sure what maintenance you have done, I have some recent experience that improved my 3.4 performance and it may help for you too.

When I took my induction apart to do the valve adjustment, I did several other things that I am convinced helped a little.

I separated the Idle Control valve from the throttle body and cleaned all the goo off of both parts.

I adjusted the throttle cable so that it only had a hair of slack. This took two turns out of the cable mounting bushing. I may not have been getting full WOT enrichment before.

Another thing I have learned over the years is that a bad oxygen sensor won't always throw a code and cause the check engine light to come on. A colleague of mine had a poorly responsive engine and wouldn't pass emissions. If you have a voltmeter, stick the probes into the ECU connector from behind, (where the wires leave the connector) and you can see the voltage while the engine is running. You should see something that fluctuates between 0 and 1 volt. If it's steady or not crossing the 0.5 volt mark there is a problem and you are probably running rich.

If you are only making short trips with your truck, or driving around town, this might be normal fuel consumption.
On the flat highway I can get 400 miles out of a tank if I don't stop. Going to the village and back, hauling trash, etc. I get about 15.

Iceblue, have you noticed that your mileage changes depending on where you get gas? I believe the fuel sold in high altitude locations is formulated differently.

One thing I forgot to mention in my above post is that I also cleaned out the air passages for the PCV and breather on the valve covers.

Had to soak the valve covers in solvent and use picks, agitation, etc. to get the oil vapor sludge out of the tubes and baffles.

I was rather horrified to see the condition of the engine, since both of my cars have no more dirt under the valve cover than a light tan coating. I am sure the synthetic oil makes a difference - I've had one of the cars since it was new, changed oil every 15 to 20,000 miles.

Regardless of what kind of oil you use, you may wish to consider checking these air passages if you ever have the valve covers off. When looking around on the internet I saw plenty of people complaining about oil vapor sludge in their Toyotas. Most of those guys had other engines, but I did see some photos of 5VZ valve covers that appeared to be a solid mass of goo.

Dont forget eleet that he has the 3.0 V6 and not the 3.4L. Its not uncommon for that hunker to get 13mpg at best in anything be it our trucks or the minis/4runners.

I find 15mpg is probably right on for our trucks. I have the window sticker where it says 16/19, but that was using the old tests where they drove it like you could walk faster. Ratings today say 15/17 at best iirc according to fueleconomy.gov.

Most of the poor mpg comes from the fact we carry weight, the 4wd components alone add alot of weight. Then you got big tires, then you have gear you have, etc etc. I would not be surprised that combined with the 300lbs of gear I have stowed that my nice wheels and heavy tires arent helping either.

I will say tho that I have driven plenty of tacos and 4runners and some people drove my truck on the road. I dont know if its gearing but they claim my truck has more power than thiers do-perhaps the gearing helps since its geared very low and I get loads of lowend..dunno.

Followup - engine guts clean as a whistle at 167K. new o2 sensor, tuneup, exhaust. Most of my miles are 20 or so at a time, with 1500 foot ups and downs. Running 02 tundra 16" wheels on 265's. Bottom line is that is an overweight dog. No wonder they only made about 25000 of them in 93. Who bought a truck back then with a 6, much less a 4200 pound 4x4 with a 6?

So I have a rust free dog that has a low gear 4wd that seems not to be able to get stuck in anything, rear wheel abs that really works and and turns heads when I get the mud off it. I'm 62, should be my last truck, accidents not withstanding. It just sucks gas....I can live with that. Thanks for the input.

Bill