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bags

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Alright,

I have read and heard so many different stories about gas mileage on the Titans it's not even funny anymore. I have had my Titan which I absolutely love since the 1st of November and already have almost 3000 miles on her. I drive basically all highway and rarely go above 75mph. Most of the time I use cruise control but I am no speed deamon. I run a tire and battery business and know to make sure that the alignment, tire pressure, balancing and the such is in good working order so that the vehicle may last longer, run more efficeintly and treat me right but the gas mileage is killing me. I am averaging 10.5-11.5 miles a gallon. I cannot stand it!!! It is driving me crazy!!!.. Is there someone out there that has had the same problem and has seemed to fix it. I am not expecting 20 mile a gallon but to get it up to at least 15mpg would be a dramatic improvement. If someone could help I would be more than happy to buy the beers at the next show.

Sincerely,

bags
bagtire@aol.com
 
#2 · (Edited)
MPG's???

What kind of Titan are you driving????? MPG's do seem very low.
What's your altitude????? What kind of petrol are you using???
How do calculate the mpg's???? Do you have the stock air filter in?? and rotatate it 180° each month????
:computern
 
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#5 ·
bags said:
Alright,

I have read and heard so many different stories about gas mileage on the Titans it's not even funny anymore. I have had my Titan which I absolutely love since the 1st of November and already have almost 3000 miles on her. I drive basically all highway and rarely go above 75mph. Most of the time I use cruise control but I am no speed deamon. I run a tire and battery business and know to make sure that the alignment, tire pressure, balancing and the such is in good working order so that the vehicle may last longer, run more efficeintly and treat me right but the gas mileage is killing me. I am averaging 10.5-11.5 miles a gallon. I cannot stand it!!! It is driving me crazy!!!.. Is there someone out there that has had the same problem and has seemed to fix it. I am not expecting 20 mile a gallon but to get it up to at least 15mpg would be a dramatic improvement. If someone could help I would be more than happy to buy the beers at the next show.

Sincerely,

bags
bagtire@aol.com
Click to expand...
I usually get about 11 in city when i am not rodding around :evillaugh :evillaugh . when on the highway i get about 14-15, cruise set between 70-75. I live in sw missouri and the evevation is about 750ft. i also have a leer shell which might help my mileage. dunno.
04 cc 4x4 LE, no big tow or off road
 
#6 ·
4000 miles and overall about 12.0 mpg all city. 1 or 2 mpg less than I had hoped...oh well.
 
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#7 ·
Bags; I completely agree. IMHO, it's ridiculous that this truck gets this bad of mileage. I average 11.2 city and 14.5 highway, hand calculated. And i do NOT drive agressively, I try to keep the RPM's under 2k at all times. I've tried higher and lower octane gas, letting it warm up, getting up to speed faster (vs. slower), etc. It doesn't matter.

Also, in one of their new ATV magazines they towed thier trailer 3500 miles; and averages *7* MPG. UUUGH.

And to those who say 'it's a truck, it should get bad mileage' - that's a nice saying to justify your purchase of the truck. But it's simply unacceptable.

My good friends LWB ex-cab chevy 1500 v8, 4wd - 17 mpg city, 21 mpg highway, hand calculated by ME while I was driving it.

My last dodge 3500 V10 4wd LWB ex cab SRW (with a 14k pound towing capacity) - 12.2 mpg city average, 14 mpg highway. Note the towing capacity, size of motor, and curb weight (about 7k#).

My 1973 Bronco (with the aerodynamics of a brick), 4wd, dual transfer case (more parastic loss, curb weight of 5447#, 6" of lift, 35" tires, and a 450 hp 426ci stroker engine - 14 mpg city, and 15.5 mpg highway at 70mph.

Do you see a trend here?

I theorize that the problem lies in the torque converter. The engine should be quite efficient and the rear end and tcase should not have excessive parasitic loss. But the TC seems to spend a LOT of time unlocked in driving conditions where it should lock up. This would most definitely cause bad mileage.

If I were to speculate, I would say they either did this to increase power (the torque multiplication of the TC acts like additional gearing for the trans, at the expense of efficiency); or to limit the torque that can go into the trans (i.e. the trans probably can't take the full torque of the engine, so they leave it unlocked except at low torque situations).

Anyway, just MHO. I've built many vehicles of my own, and built a whole lot of drivetrains and engines for others. And there is simply NO reason why a modern vehicle with a decent OD trans and EFI cannot get better mileage than this.

Do I love my truck? Yes. I hate the problems though; and I do not like paying a manufacturer to be their beta tester. Would I buy it again? Probably not, although time will tell. If a year from now I've had even more problems than I've had so far, and the mileage has not improved, this will be traded in on a new Tundra.
 
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#8 ·
wow seems like im not the only one who is having second thoughts about buying the titan, my gas gauge doesnt work, and it seems i cant drop a plow on the truck b/c its front springs arent stiff enuff, also the gas mileage i cant even calculate b/c of the fuel gauge, etc. i dont like how nissan just seemed to put a truck together w/o any testing or concrete evidence behind it, its like building a plane saying "it looks good on paper" - filling it up w/ passengers and then watching it crash and burn in the sky, it cracks me up that a manufacterer, ESPECIALLY on with a history of reliability, like the (im sry for including diff. classes of cars but) 200sx, 240sx, skyline (LEGEND) etc. its amazing to me how they could stake their rep on such stunt. Anyway its late, and i should stop raving and go work out.
 
#10 ·
The gas mileage on my 4x2 with tow package is suppose to be 14-19. You will get these numbers only if you never drive over 55 mph, and you hardly ever get the rpm over2500. This is how they test vehicles now a days. It sounds stupid but that is it. They dont go state to state to get the over all MPH. They do it at 55 mph.
 
#11 ·
gas tank size has nothing to do with it, if you have a 2 gallon gas tank and go 20 miles you get.........10mpg same goes for a larger tank.



-Shane
 
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#12 ·
this has been said before, but if you are calculating fuel economy by saying "well, the fuel level indicator is at 1/2 so I've burned 14 gallons and I've driven 200 miles, that's 14.29 mpg" you are doing it wrong. when the fuel level indicator says 1/2 you really have like 18-20 gallons left in the tank. the indicator is set up to make it very hard to run out of gas. as-a-matter-of-fact, when my low level warning light comes on, I still have eight gallons left, that's almost 1/3 of the tank. just in case anyone was doing it that way. my $.02
 
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#13 ·
SmokeTitn3144 said:
wow seems like im not the only one who is having second thoughts about buying the titan, my gas gauge doesnt work, and it seems i cant drop a plow on the truck b/c its front springs arent stiff enuff, also the gas mileage i cant even calculate b/c of the fuel gauge, etc. i dont like how nissan just seemed to put a truck together w/o any testing or concrete evidence behind it, its like building a plane saying "it looks good on paper" - filling it up w/ passengers and then watching it crash and burn in the sky, it cracks me up that a manufacterer, ESPECIALLY on with a history of reliability, like the (im sry for including diff. classes of cars but) 200sx, 240sx, skyline (LEGEND) etc. its amazing to me how they could stake their rep on such stunt. Anyway its late, and i should stop raving and go work out.
Click to expand...
You dont need a gas gauge to calculate your gas mileage btw
 
#14 ·
kincade said:
Bags; I theorize that the problem lies in the torque converter. The engine should be quite efficient and the rear end and tcase should not have excessive parasitic loss. But the TC seems to spend a LOT of time unlocked in driving conditions where it should lock up. This would most definitely cause bad mileage.
Click to expand...
I don't think this is the reason for folks with bad gas mileage. There are plenty of us that are averaging 18-19mpg on the highway (70mph) and I average 14-15 in the city. If it was a mechanical reason to why some folks were getting bad gas mileage, then you would think everyone would get bad gas mileage if indeed it was a torque converter. I can't offer any good advice as to why you’re getting bad mileage. Seems like you drive conservatively, I would just have to guess it a computer or sensor problem?
 
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#15 · (Edited)
I would agree with Titanaholic as "we don't drive 55 either" as you would get run over on a California freeway doing that.....

Over 6k miles now and our avg is 15.878 w/70% freeway 70+ and 30% stop and go...This is with the Big Tow pkg and the truck turns ~1950rpm at 70mph and not a whole lot more above that.


Also smoke- the gas guage is not the way to calculate mileage on these trucks...the first 1/4 of the guage drops quickly and is at the 3/4 mark normally between 60 and 70 miles or so...calculate actual mileage vs gas when you fill up and fill up the same way every time..if you top...top every time...


Chris
 
#16 ·
Titanoholic said:
I don't think this is the reason for folks with bad gas mileage. There are plenty of us that are averaging 18-19mpg on the highway (70mph) and I average 14-15 in the city. If it was a mechanical reason to why some folks were getting bad gas mileage, then you would think everyone would get bad gas mileage if indeed it was a torque converter. I can't offer any good advice as to why you’re getting bad mileage. Seems like you drive conservatively, I would just have to guess it a computer or sensor problem?
Click to expand...
I don't know; maybe it's an anomoly. I can say definitively that my TC does NOT lock up very often. I have paid close attention to this as I did a lot of programming on my last vehicle and the lockup function in regards to load. In fact, it only locks up at very light loads at higher gears.

I can't vouch for others mileage; but I do know how I drive (like an old man), and I hand calculate the mileage based on miles driven since last fillup divided by gallons filled (filled to the neck every time). And for a 5k# truck to get 11mpg when driven conservatively is insane. To say "it's a 300hp truck, what did you expect" is completely off topic; it should only use that amount of fuel when GENERATING 300hp. When I'm using 115 hp it should use the fuel accordingly.

To boot, it seems like there are a lot of people here that are getting the same mileage. As to what percentage of those make up the total, who knows???

I do know that my experience with service at Nissan is 2nd rate at best. My old man owns a CTD dodge (2003). When he took it in for bad mileage, they didn't tell him "that's normal." They took it for a day, gave hima loaner, flashed his computer, and viola, +4mpg. They had a problem, they fixed it. He HAS had problems with his truck, but every single one of them has been remedied on the first visit to the service department.

When I've taken mine in, I'm told "that's normal" for my mileage or "we can't duplicate the problem" in regards to my sticking window, ticking CANp solenoid, crappy FM reception, and a laundry list of other problems.

I guess what I'm really pissed about is this - I don't call paying $30k to be a beta tester very fair; If Nissan wants us to beta their new truck, we should be informed as to what we are buying - an experiment. They are not a new motor company and are certainly not immune to critisism. And whatever problems they've had with their plants, assembly lines, and other things; did they not have ANY of these problems in the last 25 years and how many millions of cars they have turned out?

That's what makes this website great. It allows a consumer to make their own decisions based on other consumers experiences, and NOT what the salesmen or literature want them to believe. At this point, I believe I made a horrible mistake buying this, and if I had a do it over card I'd be driving a Tundra for $30 more dollars a month. Hopefully in 6 months I will feel differently. YMMV.
 
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#17 ·
I'm averaging 16.5mpg overall, thats 60% highway 40% local. I'm happy with the mileage. If I was averaging 11 mpg I would assume something to be wrong and make the somebody run it with an exhaust gas analyzer, or just check out the 02sensor output on a scanner. I had an old carburated extended chevy van with a 350 and a 3 speed that got 11mpg and I expect this truck to do a lot better. I dont drive slow either.
 
#18 ·
Has anyone noticed that most of the people getting bad milage say they drive it slow? I noticed that during the cold times I get less gas milage. I also accelerate very slow so that is can warm up first when it's cold. I normally get 16mpg and during cold I get 15mpg. I know that is way higher that what most here are claiming but I still think it is relevant. I normally accelerate pretty fast. I don't slam it down, but I do like the acceleration. I am driving 80% city when I get 15 to 16mpg and hwy @ 75mph I get 18-19mpg. I think when you drive it slow it uses more gas b/c you are driving for a longer time to go the same distance thus more idle time and more time supplying all 8 cylindersd with gas. I acctually only go the speed limit or 5 over all the time but I like to get to the speed limit fast. Anyway, the slow drivers should try having some fun with it and see if it helps milage.
 
#19 ·
It would be great to find the root cause of everybody's unacceptable mileage.

I have a KC 4X4 BT OR with a little over 5700 miles. I am averaging between 15 and 16 mpg with about a 60/40 to 70/30 highway/city driving. On the highway I drive between 75 to 80 most of the time. I only go slower when the speed limit drops say to 65 and then drive 70. In the city I usually drive 5 to 10 over and do a lot of jack rabbit starts. If I am getting this good of a mileage with a 4X4, I would expect the rest of you to get at least similar mileage.

I wonder how much altitude and quality of gas has to do with it? I purchase whatever gas is the cheapest and am situated about 2500 feet above sea level.
 
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