Hypermiling while on your expedition

I'm looking to see what your guys thoughts are when it comes to your MPG's

Is anyone concerned that making your expedition vehicle more off road capable will take a toll on your overall range and also your wallet at the pump?

have any of you come up with ideas to help alleviate this conundrum?

Nope, I take pride in making it rain!

Aux. tanks and pack fuel. Sometimes just 42 gallons, sometimes 200 gallons.

Sometimes you take $500 of extra fuel on board? That's a lot of money and weight! My Tacoma is not going to do well with 1200 extra lbs haha

I'm wondering about what people have found between skinny or wide tires
Does re gearing help with fuel economy enough to make it worth it?
Maybe putting your rtt below the roof line in the bed
All terrains vs mud

I feel like sometimes the reasons I don't go on a trip is because I pull out a calculator and the numbers easily say this is going to cost you x amount.

If the 1 MPG hit you get from putting your $1200 RTT above your roof instead of behind it is a concern, I think you're in the wrong hobby.

Yota4Runner said:

Sometimes you take $500 of extra fuel on board? That's a lot of money and weight! My Tacoma is not going to do well with 1200 extra lbs haha

I'm wondering about what people have found between skinny or wide tires
Does re gearing help with fuel economy enough to make it worth it?
Maybe putting your rtt below the roof line in the bed
All terrains vs mud

I feel like sometimes the reasons I don't go on a trip is because I pull out a calculator and the numbers easily say this is going to cost you x amount.

Click to expand...

$500 would be a cheap fuel stop with that much fuel. This was 3 trucks and the fuel drums I carried in truck I was driving. ~$12/gallon


This was on the Expeditions7 Australia adventure

We had a similar adventure a few weeks ago where we carried $5



I'm with Kevin, if the 1 mpg or even 2-3 mpg difference is going to make that big of a difference on a big trip, perhaps you need to rethink your vehicle, endeavors and wants/needs. If it's day-to-day consumption that you are worried about, get a cheap commuter and leave your Tacoma in the trim that works best for your trip needs.

Trying to save money on gas by making expensive changes to your vehicle is a waste of time, especially if you have a gas hog to start with. Regearing, buying new tires (retireing?) etc would all take forever to break even, especially with fuel prices the way they are. Do them if they help you with other things too - like better off roading, but don't do it to save money.

BUT, spending the money to gain some extra RANGE, could be worth it to you. In my 80, if I squeeze a couple extra miles per gallon, it gives me an extra 50 miles I can drive without running out. That might be the difference between making it to the gas station or being stranded. Of course the best bang for your buck to extend your range is carrying more fuel. But in general you are right. Smaller, skinnier tires, less aggressive tread, lower weight, lower lift, factory bumpers, no roof rack, will all increase fuel mileage to some degree. The better mileage your truck originally got, the bigger affect the mods could have. Your truck was optimized to get good MPG in stock form but some trucks you can do any off-road mods and they still get the same mileage. It's not really worth the headache to think about mileage too much. Make the mods you think are cool and/or necessary, and if you need to get further, take more fuel.

I find that driving style can affect my mileage more than anything and is almost free - it only costs a little extra time to get where I'm going.

Another way to put it:

Get better mileage:
-Keep your truck as stock as possible
-Lose weight
-Drive slow
-Spend more money than you will save (diesel conversion, regear, new tires, etc)

Get longer range:
-Any of the above
-Carry more fuel



Having fun is the ultimate goal, so I vote for: don't worry about mileage, build the fun truck you want/can afford, drive it fast, and carry lots of fuel.

Lots of good suggestions above.

I always budget for a cheap rig so I have enough money left over for all the gas I need. Mpg is important to me though; it always weighs in on my aftermarket decisions.

When calculating total cost, consider purchase price, repair prices, mpg, and resale to determine which will be the cheapest to own. People have been having fun camping offroad in honda civics, vw bugs, westaflias, old fords, etc. for decades. Some of my favorite camping trips were done in my miata. There's something to be said for a $5k beater that you can take wherever you want, whenever you want because the leftover money goes towards fuel.

Ride with Derek, and he will show you exactly how to burn as much fuel as possible. His throttle is actually just a toggle switch that he turns on and off. There isn't a median point. :freak:

MPG's are not going to be affected by parts and gears nearly the same as it will be by throttle and speed control.

Hitch a ride with someone else. Best fuel savings I have ever seen.

Well I'm already into a vehicle I don't plan on changing platforms anytime soon, I'm probably in the vehicles prime mpg already because its stock. I'm just noticing I will need to start planning for upgrades which will start to affect my fuel economy. I've been on a few trails that have been starting to test the vehicle in its stock form. Ground clearance being an issue.

So I was just curious I guess what everyone's thoughts were on the subject. What have you found that works or doesn't.
I'm considering getting a scan gauge to be able to monitor instant mpg and adjust driving habits accordingly.
Has anyone done this? From the sounds of it I'm hearing a no

I run an Edge computer with a fuel mileage monitor... I just don't let it change my habits

ill have to look into those. There's some things about the scanguage that are making me question it. Like imputing information at each fuel up. I read the obdII doesn't proved mpg information. But it takes throttle and maybe other gauges from the motor to simulate what your getting?

Is an edge computer similar? Do these systems read accurately with oversized tires?

Yes, it allows one to enter tire sizes for corrected speed.

I have the scanguage and it works for my needs, but I would not get it just to monitor mileage. It isn't worth the price. And honestly it is pretty outdated. I bought mine maybe seven years ago and they still sell the exact same one. I bought mine to monitor coolant temp more than anything. Watching mileage is kinda nice, and at first it really did keep me off the gas pedal quite a bit. But keeping on top of fueling up all the time, especially if not fully topping up can be tough. Now I got better things to do and worry about.

Not saying the scanguage isn't without it's merits. The small, simple design is nice and fits in places larger alternatives (ultraguage, etc) might not. If the features it has do what you need, by all means, go for it.

Might look at a phone app like Torq and a Bluetooth dongle. Does most of what Scanguage does. I think the MPG feature is similar, but I don't use it so not too sure.

- DAA

Is all this really worth the $5 extra per tank that it's going to cost you? It sounds like you are missing out on half of the adventure before it even begins.

It's pretty easy to calculate mileage by hand. At each fuel up, divide the number of miles on the trip meter by the number of gallons you used. If your tires are larger than stock, you'll have to figure out what % your speedo is off and calculate that in too (you'd have to do that anyway with a scangauge).

This doesn't help with real-time mpg in the moment you're accelerating, but it's a start.

One tip to improve full mileage: pretend that there is an egg between your foot and the gas pedal. Don't break the egg and you'll see higher mpgs.

I've been hand calculating MPG (in my head, it's stupid simple easy math) for every fill up since I bought my first car when I was 15. It's just ingrained habit, I do it every time, can't help it. Look at gallons on the pump, check trip odo, do math in head, reset trip odo.

When I'm out and about on a camping trip and fuel capacity is in question, I go by the odometer, not the gas gage. I KNOW how many miles I can safely expect to get out of a tank in my Jeep for just about any given driving condition. The number I generally use as "safe", for my Jeep, is 360 miles of range. It's usually going to be closer to 400, but figuring 360 as the limit builds in a bit of a safety margin, which has been dipped into a few times...

- DAA