T180 Mpg

[foggo1]

I've recently purchased a 56 plate 2007 rav4 t180 and find the fuel economy very disappointing. 28 mpg on a 60 mile round trip on duel carriageway sitting at 65 mph yet I get 34 mpg round about town.

It's been back to Toyota who can't find anything wrong with it anyone else having this problem.

[Big Kev]

Hi Craig and welcome to ra club,

Are you taking these figures from your OBC (On Board Computer)?

If you are, desist forthwith......it talks mega widdle.....but in real terms you will do well to improve on the 28mpg at motorway speeds, 34mpg being warm weather not going over 70 on good fuel. There's a wee hint fur ye too....AVOID SUPERMARKET FUEL, and monitor any really poor fuel consumption, allied to oil usage or coolant loss (but not necessarily all together.)

Nice car....enjoy it but monitor as above.

Big Kev

[philip42h]

With an 09 plate SR180 - same engine as the T180 but without those heavy leather seats - I got 36 mpg through last winter (December through March) and 39 mpg through the preceding eight, non-winter, months (I don't think we had any summer in 2012) - pretty much all on good quality SUPERMARKET fuel. The average over the 50,000 miles I've now run the car is about 37.5 mpg.

At a steady 65 mph in sixth I'd expect to better 40 mpg; on journeys comprising longer 'relaxed' motorway drives I can get brim-to-brim results better than 40 mpg. (I'd never trust the OBC either!)

Obviously if you 'press-on' on the motorway or have a bit of fun on the back roads it burns a bit more fuel but I've never got worse the 30 mpg from a full tank ...

[CharlieFarlie]

Kev Im surprised at your comment that 28 MPG at motorway speeds will be unlikely to be bettered ???

My T180 does 42/43 sat at 70 on cruise control.. Or it did for well over 30.000 miles over two years or so...

If it did 28 it would have never done more than one trip from Scotland to the Midlands and back !

OK the car has the Lindop kit and has had the replacement engine.. Both of which I believe are major contributory factors on the T180 but even before those things were done it still was not that bad...

There is one huge factor though that we could discuss all day............... Driving style.. The T180 will do very good MPG if driven carefully.. And no I don't mean slow just with care ..

I was sat in a van with a mate yesterday and he tore away from every set of lights... Revved the knackers off the engine in every gear and came up to islands fast braking heavily at each one then accelerating out of them like the devil was chasing us !

I could not help but comment .... I always drive like that he said... MMmmmmm

The T180 does need quality fuel ! Time and time again I got far better economy on those repeated 360 mile trips from the north.. It genuinely went further on Vpower than on the odd occasion I resorted to supermarketpiss

The Lindop kit also helps..

Spot on maintenance with clean filters and brakes that do not drag plus all the usual things like spot on tyre pressures also benefit ... But none of the above matter if the driver is on speed................

[sonixtorm]

Kev Im surprised at your comment that 28 MPG at motorway speeds will be unlikely to be bettered ???

I have owned a lot of cars over the years and our T180 remains the only one that stubbornly refused to respond to careful driving with much better fuel consumption. Driven without too much concern on a mixture of roads, it delivered ~30mpg - with a featherlight touch on the motorway I'd be lucky to see 32mpg. Ours didn't have the replacement engine, which could have been a factor.

[4.1GX]

Ours is equally disappointing and even with the Lindop box and Shell v power it still never bettered more than 32 on a very steady long run with cruise etc etc. Based on further recent findings with our car I think there are more other things wrong like the dual mass flywheel, clutch and now the turbo blades are starting to very slightly score the housing due to the bearings wearing leading to oil bypassing and burning a bit more oil.

This is a car with full Toyota main dealer history, 1 replacement engine (or whatever they did do?!), 1 head gasket replacement, never run on supermarket fuel whilst in our ownership, correctly inflated tyres etc and still drives like a bag of spanners with naff fuel consumption.

Sorry but this engine cannot 'hide' behind the fuel debate and other factors for ever, look at how many people complain about this engine accross all of the Toyota range where it has been fitted - something is fundamentally wrong with the design that hasn't been fully resolved.

[CharlieFarlie]

Guys I'm genuinely surprised at your very poor MPG figures... Heavy consumption is for sure one of the pointers that all may not be well but the biggest factor must be driving style ?

I don't use my car often now but I did chalk up somewhere in the region of 35.000 miles in two years and I can assure you that 32MPG would have meant the car getting the sack very early in my ownership...

I have said several time that the 2.2 engine is not amongst the most frugal.. My Jaguar XFS with its 3.0 V6 Twin turbo engine producing 315 BHP will beat the Rav hands down on MPG.... And it is quite a heavy car as well...

But compare the Rav to say a CRV and there is little if any difference..

I am more than happy with the 42 MPG at 70 on cruise control on the motorway and the 36 ish I get round town....

[kanulondon]

Guys I'm genuinely surprised at your very poor MPG figures... Heavy consumption is for sure one of the pointers that all may not be well but the biggest factor must be driving style ?

I don't use my car often now but I did chalk up somewhere in the region of 35.000 miles in two years and I can assure you that 32MPG would have meant the car getting the sack very early in my ownership...

I have said several time that the 2.2 engine is not amongst the most frugal.. My Jaguar XFS with its 3.0 V6 Twin turbo engine producing 315 BHP will beat the Rav hands down on MPG.... And it is quite a heavy car as well...

But compare the Rav to say a CRV and there is little if any difference..

I am more than happy with the 42 MPG at 70 on cruise control on the motorway and the 36 ish I get round town....

Hi Charlie,

Hope you're well? I thought I'd just wade in with my 2c

My wife's T180 as you know had an engine swap, it used to have a Lindop Kit and with the kit it helped MPG up to your levels of 40+ mpg.

However the kit would send the car into LIMP mode every few weeks so it had to go. I've now got another simpler device and the performance seems improved. However when it comes to the MPG I just can't get this car to go anywhere near 40+ on a long run. On a trip to London a last year I did proper brim to brim tests and I think we achieved 37mpg, pretty much what the OBC indicated.

However with the cold winter weather and my wife's driving, she achieves about 29mpg. I had a bash with the car today driving about 80 miles, I reset the MPG and filled her up. I drove totally with a 'feather touch' and kept it on cruise 1-2mph below all national speed limits and the car averaged an indicated 33mpg. I will do a proper calculation when the car gets to about half tank but I have to agree that the MPG is just appalling at times.

However given the mileage (about 10k) we do on the car I am pretty sure it worked to a couple of hundred quid a year of excess fuel (if we got a VW for example that does 45+ mpg every time) and to be honest we really like the T180 and don't want to sell it right now.

So we keep it, even though I would love for the car to be more fuel efficient!

[CharlieFarlie]

Guys I'm genuinely surprised at your very poor MPG figures... Heavy consumption is for sure one of the pointers that all may not be well but the biggest factor must be driving style ?

I don't use my car often now but I did chalk up somewhere in the region of 35.000 miles in two years and I can assure you that 32MPG would have meant the car getting the sack very early in my ownership...

I have said several time that the 2.2 engine is not amongst the most frugal.. My Jaguar XFS with its 3.0 V6 Twin turbo engine producing 315 BHP will beat the Rav hands down on MPG.... And it is quite a heavy car as well...

But compare the Rav to say a CRV and there is little if any difference..

I am more than happy with the 42 MPG at 70 on cruise control on the motorway and the 36 ish I get round town....

Hi Charlie,

Hope you're well? I thought I'd just wade in with my 2c

My wife's T180 as you know had an engine swap, it used to have a Lindop Kit and with the kit it helped MPG up to your levels of 40+ mpg.

However the kit would send the car into LIMP mode every few weeks so it had to go. I've now got another simpler device and the performance seems improved. However when it comes to the MPG I just can't get this car to go anywhere near 40+ on a long run. On a trip to London a last year I did proper brim to brim tests and I think we achieved 37mpg, pretty much what the OBC indicated.

However with the cold winter weather and my wife's driving, she achieves about 29mpg. I had a bash with the car today driving about 80 miles, I reset the MPG and filled her up. I drove totally with a 'feather touch' and kept it on cruise 1-2mph below all national speed limits and the car averaged an indicated 33mpg. I will do a proper calculation when the car gets to about half tank but I have to agree that the MPG is just appalling at times.

However given the mileage (about 10k) we do on the car I am pretty sure it worked to a couple of hundred quid a year of excess fuel (if we got a VW for example that does 45+ mpg every time) and to be honest we really like the T180 and don't want to sell it right now.

So we keep it, even though I would love for the car to be more fuel efficient!

Alex.. Hope you are well !

To recap.. I use either Vpower or BP Ultimate diesel and hardly ever these days put anything else in the car.. I dont or at least haven't bothered to check the consumption for some while now as the car gets little use ...

There is quite some disparity in our collective figures but I can only repeat that if the T180 had turned in low figures as reported above I would not have kept it as my mileage at the time was quite high.

I like many of you am a little pedantic about how I maintain my cars.. I use only top quality fuel. I have the Lindop box fitted purely for the economy gains and after driving Big Kevs car and taking his advice it was as far as I'm concerned a sound investment.. I check things like tyre pressures and cleanliness of both air and fuel filters often.... Though if these things make any real difference In not absolutely sure but they cant do any harm eh ?.....

Nice to hear from you big fella !

[crustyclam]

Sadly i have one of the thirsty T180's, my brim to brim fuel consumption hardly changes between winter and summer, and that includes swapping to winter tyres. Its around 30 - 33 mpg, Did a trip on a full tank of fuel recently to the lakes, over 200 miles, mainly motorway, not much difference. The computer is acurate during winter, but boasts way to much when its warm outside.

[Big Kev]

Pre Lindop Kit.......28-32 mpg

Post Lindop Kit.......32-35 mpg

First figure colder temps.....second figure warmer climes.

These all from my records of my previous SR 180, and were brim to brims. The OBC fed me a lot of pee pee re. 38 to 40 mpg on occasion.

Big Kev

[voyager t180]

Sadly i have one of the thirsty T180's, my brim to brim fuel consumption hardly changes between winter and summer, and that includes swapping to winter tyres. Its around 30 - 33 mpg, Did a trip on a full tank of fuel recently to the lakes, over 200 miles, mainly motorway, not much difference. The computer is acurate during winter, but boasts way to much when its warm outside.

Same here..28-30 mpg urban,and thats never going above 2k rpm.

Motorway @ 65-70mph sees an improvement to 38-40mpg,again rarely going above 2k rpm.

Its definately improved since giving the EGR valve a meticulous cleaning and adding a can of BG244 fuel additive,and as said driving style has a big influence.

But none of the above will make much difference if your engine is goosed.

Charlie, your figures could be partly down to your new engine dont forget?

[foggo1]

Thanks for all the input. It seems you either get very poor mpg or pretty good mpg there doesn't seem to be much in between.

I'm planning on cleaning the egr valve to see if this makes a difference and I have been using supermarket fuel which I'll stop.

I also put in some of that redex additive.

I filled the car last week and have averaged 32 mpg on the obc but haven't used half a tank yet!

I also put the foot down just after filling it and blew some black smoke from it. It does seem to be slightly better I'll have to wait and see how it goes. I've mostly been doing short trips of 3 or 4 miles since I filled it as I've been using my dads Yaris diesel for my longer trips. I'm happy with 32 mpg on these short trips it's when I go on a longer trip that it disappoints. I'll keep trying and post my results.

[kanulondon]

Guys I'm genuinely surprised at your very poor MPG figures... Heavy consumption is for sure one of the pointers that all may not be well but the biggest factor must be driving style ?

I don't use my car often now but I did chalk up somewhere in the region of 35.000 miles in two years and I can assure you that 32MPG would have meant the car getting the sack very early in my ownership...

I have said several time that the 2.2 engine is not amongst the most frugal.. My Jaguar XFS with its 3.0 V6 Twin turbo engine producing 315 BHP will beat the Rav hands down on MPG.... And it is quite a heavy car as well...

But compare the Rav to say a CRV and there is little if any difference..

I am more than happy with the 42 MPG at 70 on cruise control on the motorway and the 36 ish I get round town....

Hi Charlie,

Hope you're well? I thought I'd just wade in with my 2c

My wife's T180 as you know had an engine swap, it used to have a Lindop Kit and with the kit it helped MPG up to your levels of 40+ mpg.

However the kit would send the car into LIMP mode every few weeks so it had to go. I've now got another simpler device and the performance seems improved. However when it comes to the MPG I just can't get this car to go anywhere near 40+ on a long run. On a trip to London a last year I did proper brim to brim tests and I think we achieved 37mpg, pretty much what the OBC indicated.

However with the cold winter weather and my wife's driving, she achieves about 29mpg. I had a bash with the car today driving about 80 miles, I reset the MPG and filled her up. I drove totally with a 'feather touch' and kept it on cruise 1-2mph below all national speed limits and the car averaged an indicated 33mpg. I will do a proper calculation when the car gets to about half tank but I have to agree that the MPG is just appalling at times.

However given the mileage (about 10k) we do on the car I am pretty sure it worked to a couple of hundred quid a year of excess fuel (if we got a VW for example that does 45+ mpg every time) and to be honest we really like the T180 and don't want to sell it right now.

So we keep it, even though I would love for the car to be more fuel efficient!

Alex.. Hope you are well !

To recap.. I use either Vpower or BP Ultimate diesel and hardly ever these days put anything else in the car.. I dont or at least haven't bothered to check the consumption for some while now as the car gets little use ...

There is quite some disparity in our collective figures but I can only repeat that if the T180 had turned in low figures as reported above I would not have kept it as my mileage at the time was quite high.

I like many of you am a little pedantic about how I maintain my cars.. I use only top quality fuel. I have the Lindop box fitted purely for the economy gains and after driving Big Kevs car and taking his advice it was as far as I'm concerned a sound investment.. I check things like tyre pressures and cleanliness of both air and fuel filters often.... Though if these things make any real difference In not absolutely sure but they cant do any harm eh ?.....

Nice to hear from you big fella !

:-) I only fill with V Power as well but I think the wife sneaks in some Supermarket trash every so often. Tyres are always correct don't check the state of filters though. Must try and do that, like you say I've got nowt to lose

Does seem as has been mentioned there is no middle ground with the car, either it's ok/good or down right bad

KL

[foggo1]

Does anyone know if this pool fuel economy problem is just the t180 or across the whole rav4 range as I'm thinking about changing to an xt5?

[CharlieFarlie]

Sadly i have one of the thirsty T180's, my brim to brim fuel consumption hardly changes between winter and summer, and that includes swapping to winter tyres. Its around 30 - 33 mpg, Did a trip on a full tank of fuel recently to the lakes, over 200 miles, mainly motorway, not much difference. The computer is acurate during winter, but boasts way to much when its warm outside.

Same here..28-30 mpg urban,and thats never going above 2k rpm.

Motorway @ 65-70mph sees an improvement to 38-40mpg,again rarely going above 2k rpm.

Its definately improved since giving the EGR valve a meticulous cleaning and adding a can of BG244 fuel additive,and as said driving style has a big influence.

But none of the above will make much difference if your engine is goosed.

Charlie, your figures could be partly down to your new engine dont forget?

Ive said all along that my cars MPG rose after its engine was replaced but not that much....

I dont use my car very much now and when I do its all local running around to the tip and such like as the car is now used basically as a van.... But it still does sensible MPG for a large estate car....

[CharlieFarlie]

Does anyone know if this pool fuel economy problem is just the t180 or across the whole rav4 range as I'm thinking about changing to an xt5?

The T180 obviously must use "slightly" more fuel than say an XT5 by way of its extra power but surely only if you use that extra power or more to the point right foot..

One thing is for sure there aint gonna be much in it and unless you can change without spending money it will be false economy as getting back outlay will take for ever.. Plus the T180 is the best specced Rav built......

[grasshopper]

My 2.0 petrol does 32mpg and range of 350 to a tank which costs circa £65-£70 to fill up, I understand the T180 is a flying machine compared to mine but if you pootle along and stick to 70 on the motorways then surely it's a no brainer having the diesel? I'd also bet that if the 2.0 vvti had a 6th gear then the economy would be much better as well.

But dont panic guys! My neighbour used to have a V6 TDI Twarreg and he struggled to get 20-25mpg out of that! Maaaddd for a diesel

[kanulondon]

Ours is equally disappointing and even with the Lindop box and shell v power it still never bettered more than 32 on a very steady long run with cruise etc etc. Based on further recent findings with our car I think there are more other things wrong like the dual mass flywheel, clutch and now the turbo blades are starting to very slightly score the housing due to the bearings wearing leading to oil bypassing and burning a bit more oil.

This is a car with full Toyota main dealer history, 1 replacement engine (or whatever they did do?!), 1 head gasket replacement, never run on supermarket fuel whilst in our ownership, correctly inflated tyres etc and still drives like a bag of spanners with naff fuel consumption.

Sorry but this engine cannot 'hide' behind the fuel debate and other factors for ever, look at how many people complain about this engine accross all of the Toyota range where it has been fitted - something is fundamentally wrong with the design that hasn't been fully resolved.

check my new posts... perhaps a proper brim to brim is needed here so we all know we are comparing in the same way

My OBC is off by over 15mpg!

KL

[4.1GX]

We have done the full brim to brim test many times, the OBC is out so I only use it as a guide. The engine design has some fundamental issues, we all know that. I think for ours it is becoming a tolerance stack up , I.e poor engine design + 2 engine fixes + clutch slipping + DMF rattling + turbo issue = v.poor driving experience and poor MPG.

We just don't know whether to spend the cash or trade it, either way we have to spend a similar amount of cash :(

[voyager t180]

Just to add my daughter in laws diesel Freelander only does 25-30mpg.
All the big 4x4's are similar mpg,(they're all heavy vehicles) its not just a Rav thing,and of the two I'd have a Rav anyday.

[philip42h]

Does anyone know if this pool fuel economy problem is just the t180 or across the whole rav4 range as I'm thinking about changing to an xt5?

Figures from the 2009 brochure:

SR180 D-CAT - Urban 33.6, Extra urban 46.3, Combined 40.4

XTx D4D 140 - Urban 34.9, Extra urban 50.4, Combined 42.8

If you allow ~10% to account for the fact that the official figures are test conducted under "ideal conditions", and accept that 'combined' figure is the best you are likely to get you should have a good idea of what to expect from a 4.3 diesel. But driving style and journey pattern are going to have a very significant influence on actual consumption.

Edit: Oh, and the SR180 is just a poor man's T180 - same engine and mechanicals; fewer toys and luxuries.

[anchorman]

The none D-CAT engines will do significantly better than those with. I could easily get 40mpg knocking around and even more on a run.

[kanulondon]

We have done the full brim to brim test many times, the OBC is out so I only use it as a guide. The engine design has some fundamental issues, we all know that. I think for ours it is becoming a tolerance stack up , I.e poor engine design + 2 engine fixes + clutch slipping + DMF rattling + turbo issue = v.poor driving experience and poor MPG.

We just don't know whether to spend the cash or trade it, either way we have to spend a similar amount of cash :(

Bit of a tea party of issues there. I hope you find a solution

[Big Kev]

Does anyone know if this pool fuel economy problem is just the t180 or across the whole rav4 range as I'm thinking about changing to an xt5?

Figures from the 2009 brochure:

SR180 D-CAT - Urban 33.6, Extra urban 46.3, Combined 40.4

XTx D4D 140 - Urban 34.9, Extra urban 50.4, Combined 42.8

If you allow ~10% to account for the fact that the official figures are test conducted under "ideal conditions", and accept that 'combined' figure is the best you are likely to get you should have a good idea of what to expect from a 4.3 diesel. But driving style and journey pattern are going to have a very significant influence on actual consumption.

Edit: Oh, and the SR180 is just a poor man's T180 - same engine and mechanicals; fewer toys and luxuries.

Or maybe the SR 180 was where the smart money went, coz we didnae have to update a Sat Nav system by applying for a bank loan....? Only other difference was shiny bum seats and smart entry wiff pushy button start........wowee.....