"lucky" Toyota truck update
 

Hi all, I filled up today and registered 33.5 on the truck after a tank with skirts, duct tape, and driving very nicely. No acetone. ( a litle engine-off coasting on the county roads). I think I'll concentrate on an under panel for the front of it next week......:D

Nice! Impressive fill up for a truck indeed, :)

Excuse me for stating the obvious, but what is the point of having a truck if you can't use it as a truck?
I mean, if you're only after gas mileage and need only to seat yourself and one more passenger, there are a lot of cars out there that will do much better than 33.5 MPG...

Just my humble opinion,

Moti

Everyone in Indiana drives a truck ;)

thanks for asking:)
Actually, I have some plans in the works to make the back half of the cap hinge up with some hood props... A "trunk" of sorts. I too, do not like the unusability of it, and the reason I did this was

A) The truck was given to me for free

B) I was inspired by high gas prices, Phil Knox, and ecomodder.com

C) It's oh so fun! :D

D) I have a Z71 when I need a truck

Just as an aside, I read that toyota was buying back rusted Tacomas ... here is a snippet of the article; I don't know if yours falls into this category but if it does .. then free money I guess.

In a program that covers 813,000 trucks and could cost almost $100 million, Toyota is offering to buy back 1995-2000 Tacoma pickups with frames so badly rusted that they cannot be repaired.

The automaker is also extending the warranty on those frames from the normal three years or 36,000 miles to 15 years (from the time they were new) and unlimited mileage.

On the buybacks, Toyota will pay 1.5 times the suggested retail price for a vehicle in excellent condition as calculated by Kelley Blue Book.

unfortunately for me, mine's pre-Tacoma by about a year or two. Funny thing about those toy trucks, it used to be, the bodies would fall off the frames. Now it seems to be the other way around!

Love what your doing my next project after my CRX wil be my 05 colorado 2wd pickup.. gets a decent 24mpg now with standard driving.. should be able to get 35-40 with it..

I wish GM would do that for us Metro owners. Too damn bad that a car less than 10 years old rots away so fast. I would not want a "Buy-back" from them but a replacement shell.

shouldn't chevy have an offer like that for all (and I mean all) truck cab corners? :eek:

Johnny M, how do you manage almost 54 MPG on the metro? nice accomplishment!
Would that be possible on a tercel? I don't seem to see a lot of high MPG tercels here. Might sweet talk the kid into selling me his. :D

First off, the car got about 45 MPG stock since it's a 1.0L 5 speed. Here are the steps I used to achieve well over 50MPG..............

Weight reduction (removed any and all un-needed weight)
Driving habits (I use a lot of those posted here on Ecomodder)
Slight aeromods (Radio antenna, rh mirror, partial grill-block)
Engine tweaks (Timing, air intake, etc)
Tire pressures (all set to 44 PSI)
Transmission (older Higher Ratio trans from a 92 installed by previous owner)

I would have to say most of my savings come from driving habits (I do not turn engine off "EOC" though) and the weight reduction comes in second and tire pressures third. I have not been able to warm the wife up enough to go extreme on the Aeromods like fender skirts, larger grill block, smooth wheel covers, etc. I am on the hunt for a "Project Metro" that I can put in my garage and tear it down to nothing and make it new again. After it's done, the current Metro will get redone also.

If my calculations are right, Aeromods like I mentioned above would get me over 60MPG easily.