Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives 2022 toyota tacoma terrible gas mileage with any extra load

I need advice how I'm going to talk to the delarship about a fuel economy issue with my 2022 Toyot tacoma 4x4 3.5L Vs pickup with 21,000 miles.

The situation is this is my cuty truck to go to the farm or recreation where I live. I gets little towing or heavy loading like my old 1/2 ton.

One trip down the interstate with a small utility trailer had no fuel issues, but a month later it dropped down to 10 MPG and I was almost going to run out of fuel between long rural highway runs. The trailer is 4.5 x 10 foot and doesn't catch much wind outside of the pickup body profile. It weighedmaybe 2000 pounds.
The mileage returned back to the same 18ish (per screen display) when I came back without the trailer so I forgot about the issue.

Last night, we strapped a bed spring and matrress on top of my Thule bars and that added roughly 2 foot by 5 foot of air it was pushing at interstate speed. Mileage dropped to 10 MPG again. There were times the engine was going up to 5K rpm trying to maintain speed. Taking it out of cruis helped, but this thing need 2700 RPM to maintain 62 MPH on side roads.

I'll see what the mileage does when the top load is removed, but this concerns me that this thing will never pull my boat and struggles even with a light load.

So what do you think it is? Transmission issue?

Have you experienced this?
What should I tell the dealer when I aske them to look at this.

Not uncommon. MY 2019 Chevy Duramax gets 22-33 mpg empty on the highway doing 75-80. It gets 12-14mpg with 18,000 pounds of camper and trailer. Those smaller trucks get their mpg from not weighing much, so don't work as hard. Then when you put a load in them they are constantly in a lower gear.

Yea,it's a transmission issue. It is always in a lower gear when the truck is loaded.That is what happens with a small engine

When towing or loaded you should not be using cruise control

I have an '07 Tacoma and a '14 F150. The Tacoma is a great truck for getting where you need to go and you'll spend very little keeping it running for 300,000 miles but they aren't intended for towing or hauling. With the same trailers my F150 gets BETTER fuel mileage because it isn't working as hard. To be honest the Tacoma is only 1-2 mpg better when unloaded. But I still like the Tacoma a lot. I just don't pull heavy trailers, around 4000 max.

The older Tacoma's like mine with the 4.0 are a little better. Everybody trashes the transmission on the newer trucks, but the 3.5L engine is really the problem. That is a mini-van engine, not a truck engine. It needs 4600 rpm to get max torque. Needing almost 5000 rpm isn't unusual for this engine. To keep the engine speed in the power band the transmission has to constantly shift and spend a lot more time in lower gears than most drivers are used to.

The other issue is limited payload. Most 4X4 crew cab Tacoma's only have 900-1100 lbs of payload. A 4X2 or the Access Cab will have a little more but almost none are over 1200 lbs. They are rated to PULL 6400 lbs, but with that payload you'll overload the truck with just the tongue weight. Most 1/2 tons are 1800-2000 lbs and a 3/4 ton truck can be closer to 3000+.

For 2024 Tacoma is putting a 2.7L turbo charged engine in the Tacoma. I'm interested in how it performs. I'll be needing a new/newer truck in a year or 2 and the Tacoma is a good size for me. I'm hoping the new engine will make a big difference. And I'm hoping to get a little better payload. The new Ranger are coming with 1500-1700 lbs of payload and the small turbo engines are powerful. I'll have to give Ranger a look too.

I get 16.5 pulling 2400 lbs with my taco. Standard trans tho.

I would talk to the dealer and see if there's an updated ECU/TCU tune available. Otherwise, aftermarket tunes are also available to help, OVT Tune is the one most recommend for an auto trans Taco.

What's the trim on the taco? That is what are your rear gears?

Weak driveline not much torque

Tacomas get crap mileage on a good day. Love my Tacoma, but not for it's fuel efficiency. Try towing in a lower gear.

Next time you tow, try some higher octane fuel. Your engine may be retarding the ignition to prevent knock under load to the point of wasting a LOT of fuel.

They topped out in 2015 with the end of the 4.0. After that, they went downhill in a hurry. Sorry you guys have to deal with these issues, as my first gen Tundra gets better mileage than the Taco's do, and has more power to boot.

One of my guys at my shop has one (4X4 V6) and gets similar mileage. I’ve driven it on the highway and can see why. It will drop a gear at the hint of a grade when riding light, and feels gutless in overdrive. Not sure what the final drive gear is, or if there are different options, but it sure doesn’t feel like a working vehicle at all.

Put a roof top tent on it, use the word "overland" every other sentence, put a Patagonia bumper sticker on it, and make an Instagram video every time you flex the suspension on a city curb.

This will help you realize that the adventure is more important than the function.

Quit using cruise when loaded or pulling.

What do pen and paper say about fuel mileage over 3/4 tank worth of fuel? Not the automatic display on the dash.

How long is this "long rural run"?

Can you run it in 5th gear at highway speeds and stay around 2500 rpm or less?

Truck is built/designed to haul itself and you down the road. Light weight combined with aerodynamics. You mess either of those 2 things up and your little engine is having to work way too hard. You think the trailer isn't creating that much drag because it is within the trucky body profile. But that is not correct. The air passing over the truck doesn't just sail off into the clouds. It comes back and down and smacks the front of the trailer.

What happens when you try and use a little tacoma that is really a car with an open trunk to do much more than be a car with and open trunk.

You’re not wrong, but occasionally towing with a little motor is fine, as long as you realize that’s what you are doing. There’s whole continents devoid of pickups with big V-8’s, and they get the job done just fine, anyway.

Even the “big trucks” have problems towing at their weight ratings. Lots of half ton trucks pulling large campers or toy haulers down the interstate at 75-80 end up with cooked transmissions or rear ends as soon as they start pulling some decent hills.

With my trucklet, I just slow down a little, use premium fuel, and I don’t look at the fuel economy gauge. I get there just fine.

Mine (2022) actually gets better mileage with a load depending on how much.

At my 15k service I told them it “hunted for gears and was sluggish” per something I read on a tacoma website. When I left the dealer it barked the tires and was a different animal. I suspect since they are in the 4th gen truck now they can unofficially do something to the previous gens in the computers?

I did not have to get it tuned for $400 but I did anyway. The guy that tuned it says the dealer reset something in there but I don’t remember all of the techno jargon he used.

I have found this truck to run in my harsh conditions three times faster than any outfitted truck I’ve had and maybe 1/2 the speeds I can achieve with my UTV over the same terrain. Big difference between 2mph and 8-12mph getting to where I have to go. I run metric AT’s at 24lbs, no lift, 32” 255/75-17 tires, Rancho RS7MT rear, and Bilstien 5100 up front.

Most everything negative in its performance that I’ve found is all programming because it has capabilities once you change the programming.

I have found the tacoma is sensitive as heck to diff octane.

Long rural runs for me are 50 miles with no gas stations.

The display drops to 10 MPG and I see the gas gauge dropping as I push it. The "distance to empty" clicks off real fast.

I'm not sure how I would get it to stay in 5th other than S-shifting which limits the top end gear. I can't tell what gear I am in with standard auto trans mode and need to research it.

This thing is gutless enough my wife told me we can trade it before I go into retirment. Normally we drive vehicles 15 years, but this one won't be around that long. We need a full size again.

The best mileage is at 1500 and keeping under 2000 is key to any fuel economy. It plummets at 3K.

I'm going to see what the dealer says tomorrow.

The truck isn’t gutless, the programming is

This - Taco programming for the auto loves to hunt around that top gear and kill mpg. Known issue. Get the tune reset by the dealer or go aftermarket and be happy.

As to the motor being too small and gutless - it's more hp than the old 350 TBI that was in Chevys from 87 to 95. Within 35 ft lbs of torque too - yet no one said that was tiny back in the day on a full sized truck.

Gear hunting is a transmission killer too.

Worst I' ve ever got was 17mpg and that was pulling my 17' Sylvan runabout boat. But then it's a 5spd manual 2.7 4cyl and I never run anything but std tire size either..mb

Well I went to the dealership for my 21,000 mile oil change under toyota car and asked them about the fuel consumption issue. I'm standing there showing the head mechanic and service writer pictures of the fuel consumption displays at 20 MPG un-loaded and 10 MPG loaded. They we questioning it reading right and I told them I emptied a tank in 125 miles versus making it the full 250 mile run without fear of running out of gas. The looked for transmission updates and didnt see any and didn't offer any solutions. I was told I could contact Toyota to see what they say.

This is my first and last Tacoma at this point. The wife told me we'll be upgrading before retirment or when my chevy on my farm dies (its at 250,000 miles now...)

Got any other suggestions or things I can contact toyota corporate with?

The tacoma is under factory warranty now so I need to let that run out before I do aftermarket options.