Actual Scion tC MPG

[navylife59]

Your Baby felt sorry for you and wanted to make up for running dry on ya.

[Professional20]

Can't wait to post what my tC's mpg is!!! lol

[Phreak0402]

I have a 2009 tC with a manual Transmission. Driving around Tallahassee where I live I get around 25 mpg and on the highway I when I have checked it gets between 29 and 30mpg

[justplayxtragic]

So my tC is broken yet again. Now I get to drive my dad's Camry and it bothers me how much more fuel efficient this boat is. It's an auto and I just went 400 miles before the stupid yellow light came on. Lately, with the tC, I had been around 300 when the yellow light comes on. I haven't started driving any different and it's all a mixture of city and highway. So I don't know why my tC hates me. Hopefully once she's fixed up again and I do the 30k maintenance, she will go longer distances.

[Phreak0402]

well one reason for the difference in fuel range on a tank of gas is probably that the camry depending on the year holds atleast 17 gallons of fuel where as the tC holds only 14.5. However getting 300 on a tank in the tC seems kind of low. that averages to about 20mpg. If you are getting 400 in the camry (lets say hypothetically speaking its a 17 gal tank) then its only doing about 3mpg better.

[navylife59]

2007-up Camry is 18gallons.

[justplayxtragic]

It's an '06, 2.4L and this Camry is 14.7 gallons ... I have literally the same engine in the tC and the Camry. I just think my tC hates me.

[navylife59]

Injectors and/or air cleaner could be dirty. You have an auto trans right? If so, that should put the gearing and final drive ratio the same. Below are the specs on a2006 Camry with the 2.4L 2AZ-FE engine. Notice the 3 things that I have highlighted. The engine is detuned, the tank is 18.5 gallons (according to source), the drag coefficient is far less, and the weight is only about 100lbs more than auto trans tC.

2006 Toyota Camry Performance

- 2,362 cc 2.4 liters in-line 4 front engine with 88.4 mm bore, 96 mm stroke, 9.6 compression ratio, double overhead cam, variable valve timing/camshaft and four valves per cylinder 2AZ-FE
- Unleaded fuel 87
- Fuel economy EPA highway (mpg): 33 and EPA city (mpg): 24
- Multi-point injection fuel system
- 18.5 gallon main unleaded fuel tank
- Power: 115 kW , 154 HP SAE @ 5,700 rpm; 160 ft lb , 217 Nm @ 4,000 rpm
- Coefficient of drag: 0.28
- Weights: curb weight (lbs) 3,108

[justplayxtragic]

Injectors and/or air cleaner could be dirty. You have an auto trans right? If so, that should put the gearing and final drive ratio the same. Below are the specs on a2006 Camry with the 2.4L 2AZ-FE engine. Notice the 3 things that I have highlighted. The engine is detuned, the tank is 18.5 gallons (according to source), the drag coefficient is far less, and the weight is only about 100lbs more than auto trans tC.

2006 Toyota Camry Performance

- 2,362 cc 2.4 liters in-line 4 front engine with 88.4 mm bore, 96 mm stroke, 9.6 compression ratio, double overhead cam, variable valve timing/camshaft and four valves per cylinder 2AZ-FE
- Unleaded fuel 87
- Fuel economy EPA highway (mpg): 33 and EPA city (mpg): 24
- Multi-point injection fuel system
- 18.5 gallon main unleaded fuel tank
- Power: 115 kW , 154 HP SAE @ 5,700 rpm; 160 ft lb , 217 Nm @ 4,000 rpm
- Coefficient of drag: 0.28
- Weights: curb weight (lbs) 3,108

Hmm, very interesting. Yes, it is an auto. It's my dad's car so I don't particularly know he maintains it to be honest. I was pretty sure that when we bought his Camry, he had a 14.7 gallon tank. He has the non V6. Oh well. I have my tC back so I'm not worried. He can mess with it and have it be his problem. I still think my tC hates me because I've been getting crap for mileage still.

[navylife59]

Must be one of your Mods,

[tannerhughes]

what?? i just drove from Salt lake to seattle, i got 416 miles out of my tank, i've done nothing to it, its bone stock, everything. im not sure how you guys are getting in the low 3's

[navylife59]

It is all a matter of variables. When mine was new before I modded it, I could get over 400 miles to the tank on a long trip easily. Staying at 65-70MPH, instead of, 80-85MPH makes a huge difference. You just have to find the sweet spot.

[univision]

My car is slightly modded and I haven't done a lot of driving with it yet because I'm still a fresh owner. Less than 3 weeks.
Worst mileage on 1 tank of gas 364 miles, driving a bit aggresively. Flooring it a few times and launching with a bit of tire screech ocassionally.
Best mileage on 1 tank of gas 414 miles, shifting at 2k RPM, and overtook an ******* once or twice that would pass me up real hard on the left and then procede to cut me off even though the left lane was completely open for blocks ahead.

[navylife59]

I hate knuckleheads like that.

[univision]

As long as my horn setup scares him/her when they do it next time I'll be content.
Heh... they wont be expecting it.

[navylife59]

A trick that I used with my car horn on another car was to hook the horn relay to a 3-stage (2-stage w/o an alarm) microwave sensor. It had 2 stages of activation externally and 1 internally. The 1st external zone would would give a quick but sharp honk of the horn. If you stayed in this zone it would give a second blurp. If you persisted or ever entered zone 2 (just next to the car, it would lay on the horn until the zone was cleared. Enter the internal zone and a world of audible hurt (2 super loud external sirens and 2 ear piercing piezoelectric sirens. Couple the honking horn with dark tinted windows and people think that the driver is in the car. Saved my car from getting backed into once and some old cowboy who was deciding to use my bumper to rest his foot whilst he whittled the time away chatting it up with others.
His boot did not make it more than 6 inches close to that bumper before the sensor layed on the horn (he directly entered zone 2). Scared the living daylights out of that pardner. I laughed my arse off.
Just imagine a train horn hooked up to that sensor.

[CadenceScion]

2006 Scion tC (Auto) 21,800 miles to date

I actually have no idea what I get to a full tank of gas. On average I'm getting 30 miles to the gallon on the highway and approx 26 miles to the gallon in town. The majority of my driving consists of town anyhow, I live so close to work and other places. I was never a believer in running my fuel tank down to empty, too easy to suck up sediment from the bottom of the tank. I would rather not clog up my fuel system, then have to spend money to have it fixed.

I will agree w/ NavyLife that Ethenol/E85 Fuel is horrible for gas mileage, plus not to mention the loss in HP as well. I work for a full service gas station (Kwik Fill) and ever since we had to switch over to the E85/Ethenol last December, it has a more sweetier smell to it. Due to the all the new evironmental standards being passed, everyone sooner or later is going to have to use ethenol. For those that don't know where ethenol comes from its made from corn. There are other downsides to ethenol, can cause seals and gaskets to fail, and attracts moisture. I do know that people that are in the lawncare business are fuming over the new fuel, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and weedeaters, and even chain swas run like crap on ethenol/E85. Those people have gotten smarter and are running 89 or 93 octane and cutting the fuel w/ an ethenol remover. Come to find out that Sta-Bil will remove the ethenol as well as clean your fuel system: Deprecated Browser Error

I am going to pick up a bottle and try it to see how much better my mpg is.

Since ethenol attracts more moisture, come winter people will be buying drygas, I personally won't use drygas, over useage can cause valve seals to dry out, and many mechanics I have spoken to have told me that fuel injected vehicles really don't need it. As long as you have a well sealed fuel system, mositure shouldn't be an issue. Now if you are one of those people that parks inside a heated garage, going from a warmer environment to a cooler one can cause moisture problems as well. If you do use drygas, make sure its either methyl or ethyl drygas, one of those is not recommended. I would rather buy a bottle of fuel injection cleaner w/ water remover already in it. Drygas doesn't clean out your fuel system where a fuel system cleaner does, which I use on a regular basis every 2000-4000 miles or more so if I am going to be doing highway driving. I look at drygas w/ this analogy, when we were younger, we used acne medication to treat break outs. The acne medication has alcohol in it and dried out our face, same as what it can do to your valve seals, most are rubber. Now we all know that fuel system cleaners clean our engines/fuel systems, but what is it that is doing the cleaning? Come to find out its kerosene, or on the bottle it will read petroleum distiliates.

Most people know that there is a summer blend fuel and a winter blend fuel, what is it? The difference is simply a variable in the flash point, hotter climates the flash point is lower, cooler/colder climates the flash point is higher. If at all possible, buy your fuel from top-tier and stay away from no name fuels/mom&pop stores.

To further conclude, not every tC out there on the road is going to perform, or get the same exact gas mileage. There are so many factors to take into consideration: how each person drives, fuel being used, oil being used, how well they maintain their tC's, elevation above/below sea level, using the A/C, access drag, widows open/closed on the highway, maintaining proper air pressure in the tires, cold-air intake, Forced Induction, Naturally Aspirated, vehicle weight as well as other factors.

[univision]

NavyLife
Hahaha that sounds amazing man, train horn might give some people a heartattack xD. I'm definitely intrigued by this microwave sensor buisness.

Cadence
Other factors include, but are not limited to:
Surface friction from scratches or good waxes
Frequency of cop speed traps (brake or not to brake, is the question)
Frequency of hot women being visable on the street and in cars (they have a direct metaphysical ability to decrease MPG)
Drag race challenges (ego > MPG)
Moisture in air
Puddles
Pedestrians hit

All joking aside, I've never had a problem with fuel injection and I've never used fuel injector cleaners. In the mitsu 250K+ miles, champ car or in the tC. I thought that the fuel had addictives that already dealt with things like this.

[CadenceScion]

I do believe that you are correct that gasoline does have additives in them to aid in cleaning your engine. I can recall so many times I have recommended fuel injection cleaners to my customers, because they're having problems with hard starts, poor fuel mileage, pinging/knocking and those customers came back and thanked me for my advice. Everyones beliefs will differ, but I don't rely solely on the fuel I'm burning to clean my engine/fuel system.

[univision]

those customers came back and thanked me for my advice. Everyones beliefs will differ, but I don't rely solely on the fuel I'm burning to clean my engine/fuel system.

You've gotten me curious enough to try it out. I'm interested to see if it'll improve anything. Gonna use the Chevron Techtron stuff.