Gas mileage: report your real world numbers

[crewcabrob]

Hi all,

I just got our new LR4 on July 3rd. Since then, I have put almost 1,000 (926) miles on it. That is about double what I would normally put on my car in the same time frame. But we have used it more than I thought and we just got back from a local dealer sponsored event that put on about 320 miles.

Over the entire life of the truck, my poorest tank has been 16.3 MPG and the best so far has been 19.1mpg. Currious observation here: the truck registered 16.2MPG but after working the numbers manually it came out to 16.3. Like wise, the high end was 18.9 on the truck computer but figuring it manually I got 19.1mpg. I'm sure it works out to be different based on various factors, but I was really happy that it was that close and undershot what it really got for MPG.

Driving conditions: about 420 miles were on the hwy, 13 miles were on the truck when we got in it for the first time, 23 miles were part of our test drive and dealer demo for the off-road track. 25 miles of trail/ off-road with the dealer event and the remaining (445) was all in town driving. The truck has been fairly unloaded during the trips but the conditions here are hot and humid. We have been in the mid 90s almost every day and the humidity has been around 80%. I normally drive 2-6 miles an our over the limit on most roads.

Thursday we leave for Moab Utah. Its 842 from Lincoln Ne to Moab. We will be loaded down and using a hitch mounted hauler for coolers and over-flow luggage. I will report back on my mileage when I return but would love to hear what others are getting.

Rob

 

[crewcabrob]

Hi all,

Just reporting back from my recent trip to Moab from Lincoln. We put about 2000 miles on the truck over the last week. Most of it was interstate driving: 1,750 mils or so. The remaining 200 miles were a combination of offroad and in town driving.

The worst gas mileage on the road was about 14.8mpg. Conditions were a very congested interstae 80, (lots of truck traffic and campers) running fully loaded at 85mph into a 30+mph head-wind and the AC blasting front and rear.. Temps were about 90 degrees with very high humidity. We had a very large cooler and other items on the back of the truck via a hitch mounted hauler.

The best was from Glennwood Springs Colorado to Denver where I got 19.3mpg. Conditions were a fairly open Interstae 70 running even more loaded than the trip out. My daughters and wife love to shop. Temps were in the 70s for the trip with low humidity and high elevation. Lots of climbing followed by long runs down the mountain.

I found that anything over 80mph really kills the mileage. It is my guess that if you were running on flat ground at speeds 55-75 you could easily get 20mpg out of the LR4.

My trip computer was off quite a bit this time. The low tank of 14.8mpg regestered 16.5mpg. The trip computer read 19.6mpg for the high side of the trip.

There were a couple of tanks that were in the low 17s and one at 17.6. I didn't keep track of the tank that had all of the off-road and in town driving. Nor did I keep track of the over all trip but I suspect it was in the mid 17s somewhere.

Rob

 

[crewcabrob]

Black Hills bound

Hi all,

The family and I are squeezing in one more summer vacation. Today we leave for the Black Hills of SD. Not much of the trip is interstate, so I hope that my MPG numbers might actually climb as I plan to drive at a more pedestrian 65mph for much of the trip.

I will report back with my numbers as soon as we return next week.

Rob

 

[crewcabrob]

Hi all,

just a quick update from my phone: we covered 1187 miles on our trip. The best mileage was 19.49mpg. The worst was 16.4mpg. Over all it was 18.1mpg.
more details to follow.

Rob

 

[blackforestham]

I found that driving in Command Shift mode also increases fuel economy. You'll be surprised how often your transmission is in 5th gear for most hwy driving if you leave it in D. Use command and 6th gear and you may see a 1.5-2mpg gain. I've noticed about a 300rpm drop when doing this. Passing is tough, so remember to drop down to 5th or 4th. Long, straight, flat hwy cruising is where you will see the gain.

 

[crewcabrob]

Thanks for the advice.

I watched the RPMs quite a bit over the last few weeks to see exactally what the trans was doing. The only time I really used the command shift feature was in the mountians for engine braking. The rest of the time, my trans was upshifting appropriately if not early in most cases to 6th gear. Some of the backroads that had posted limits of 55mph, the RPMs would barely be above idle at 1100-1200.

For me, I doubt there will be much room for improvement. I had very high temps to deal with, running fully loaded with the 5 of us and all the luggage and coolers needed for a weeks vacation. Maybe I would see a small improvment if the temps were in the 70s instaed of 100 and another small gain if we weren't loaded down so much.

Still, this vehicle is amazing. This past weekend was the opening weekend for the Sturgis Bike Rally. There were so many bikes, trailer and campers out the speed on secondary roads were very slow. after following a group of vechicles at 10mph under the speed limit I finally found a long up-hill that I could see for miles. I ended up passing 11 motor cycles, a car, an SUV and a truck towing a 5th wheel all in one shot. The accleration is crazy even loaded going up hill. Still, I got excelent fuel mileage.

Rob

 

[bpm]

My wife mainly drives the LR4 in local city driving only and shes getting 8mpg. She doesn't drive fast at all. Has anyone else had similar results with city only driving?

 

[Slam]

My wife mainly drives the LR4 in local city driving only and shes getting 8mpg. She doesn't drive fast at all. Has anyone else had similar results with city only driving?

That is ridiculously bad. Have you confirmed this over and over again?

 

[Gregorio]

City driving after 7000 miles is averaging 12-13mpg. Highway trips with average speeds of 70mph are netting 17-18mpg.

 

[bpm]

Well I keep resetting trip A to see if it changes. I only have 1500 miles total on it. The average speed is about 8~10 miles also.