Hello, new guy here

[raybliu]

Hello, just joined. Hope to learn from you all!
I recently bought a preowned 2012 Toyota Highlander with a V6 engine. It had leas than 22,000 miles and I've only driven 1000 miles in 45 days. The car's MPG is performing well below manufacturer's and other owners MPG average which is 17 to 22. My car is averaging between 10 to 13 mpg. It went as low as below 9 in snow while never even above 14 on highway. My average seems the lowest I have seen from what's published. I see many of you publish your MPG records. How do you access this info which I presume comes from your car's PC?
I'm obviously concerned with the low MPG performance but more importantly I'm more concerned with there are other issues that produce such poor performance. I would like to take care of it while it's still under warranty.
Any advice is most appreciated. Thanks.

[Draigflag]

His welcome. A lot of people have the same problem this time of year. The cold weather combined with short city trips uses huge amounts of Fuel. I'm assuming you've checked tyre pressures and all engine fluids?

[trollbait]

The MPG in the records is simply calculated from the fuel added to fill the tank and the distance traveled.

[raybliu]

Originally Posted by trollbait

The MPG in the records is simply calculated from the fuel added to fill the tank and the distance traveled.

Thanks. I was looking for some form of record to show the dealer of the car's performance.
The car display screen actually shows a chart of the 5 previous fuel up average. It ranges from below 9 to barely above 12 mpg, abysmal averages! I took a pict and will show them in my next visit. I presume the dealer should be able to download the info from the computer if he chooses to. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

[Draigflag]

There is a chance there could be a fault, but it's far more probable that it's the weather, type of driving you do, trip distance and driving style that affect your fuel consumption over anything else.

[trollbait]

If you are in the North East, the cold can really drag down your fuel economy. So can short trips. Low tire pressure will hurt it.

Has there been any improvement with the warmer weather?

[trollbait]

Also, are the tires the OEM ones installed at the factory? An aggressive, off road tread will lower your fuel efficiency.

[raybliu]

Originally Posted by trollbait

Also, are the tires the OEM ones installed at the factory? An aggressive, off road tread will lower your fuel efficiency.

These are the original tires. They had some sidewall damage which I'm having dispute with the dealer.
The warmer weather has improved from 11 to around 12. I just checked the average from the car's graph image, the last 3 fill ups had been around 12, none reached 13. The current average is still less than 12 even though the weather has reached 60 today. I've had the car for just about 1000 miles in 50 days so the readings pretty much are all mine.
I can accept just a couple mpg below average but my readings are off the chart low.

[OliverGT]

ok, in order to try and help we need some further information.

Average trip distance? Short trip impact MPG, especailly for Petrol.
Average temperature? As mentioned low temperatures affect MPG.
Tyre Pressures? Low tyre pressure increases rolling resistance, which will reduce MPG.
Average speed? Schumacher was never praised for his MPG figures.
Altitude? This one might sound strange, but the higher you are the worse your MPG will be.

General MPG tips:
Dont use more than 2500 RPM in each gear.
Get into the highest gear as soon as possible, for petrol you want to be accelerating around 3/4 throttle, so quite quickly. But changing up quickly as well.
Keep the speed down.

Does the car have an instantaneous MPG guage as well as the average guage? You need to be monitoring the instantaneous guage most of the time, this will help you understand what works well for your car.

Hope this helps.

Oliver.

[raybliu]

Yes the car does have instant feed back from the computer. Here is a picture of the display of the averages from my car. As you can see the car ranges from 8 to a little above 12 for the last 5 fill ups.
In this Highlander, so far no check lights indicate any of the problems you mentioned.
I have been driving over 40 years so while I can't claim to be a great driver, I'm aware of the impact of driving habit could cause mpg averages. My last car was a 2000 4 runner and the milage was no where near to the ones I'm getting! In that car I even use it off road, on sandy beaches etc. I consistently get mid to high teens average.
As this is a certified preowned car, which under the Toyota Certified program is supposed to be delivered in top running and physical conditions. Judging from the gas milage performance, I'm afraid it's anything but that. Any insight and advice in how to handle this is most appreciated. Thanks.