New daily...mpg is depressing (2006 3.3L V6 Toyota Highlander limited AWD)
 

Bought an 06 3.3v6 highlander limited awd to haul my daughter around in lavish luxury and room for stuff

First tank...16.86mpg...thats mostly short trip, ac use.

My yaris with pretty much same exact driving would get 39-41.

Yeesh. This is going to be an adjustment

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That's not that bad. I am sure you can get better mpg than me with some work. I get 22 mpg in my lifted 4wd jeep cherokee.

Yeah lots of room for improvement!

Squeezing her into a mere sedan would be impossible.

What kind of gearing does it have? The Sienna with the same engine has decently tall gearing (2000 RPM @ 70 MPH) and a good drag coefficient (0.30) and can get close to 30 on the highway, and low-mid 20s around town with no mods and without any extreme hypermiling. Bumping those FE numbers up shouldn't be too terribly difficult with a few mods.

My main commute is hilly terrain with many stop lights. So im up on the converter alot.

Speaking of...i dont seem to get lock up in 5th gear.

This tank so far is looking like 19s bit we will see on the next fill up

Scratch that...5th gear lock up occurs around 54mph which I am not at often.

The HL has new Firestone "fuel fighter" tires. I dunno how good they are. I might run a little more PSI eventually. I used to run stupid high PSI in my other cars when I cared to get every last bit (63psi in one instance). But this needs to ride nice.

Calls for 30 FnR. Ill try 36 next to see how it feels.

Hilly terrain and stop and go is going to be a challenge with an auto. AC can be a MPG killer, but "necessary" for family. Modulating the ac (e.g. turning it off and on) is a bit of work but if you run it downhill and turn it off uphill you can save fuel and keep the cabin cool. Keep the temp control on "cold" if you turn it warm it just uses the blend door to heat the cooled air with the heater core.

I don't know the weight distribution in the highlander, but I usually run a few psi less in the rear as it is lighter to get the tires to wear evenly.

I got scooted around on a 125 trail bike half the time and other times in the front seat of a Yugo,

When I was pretty young (but not as young as your child) my dad got a 2000 Lexus RX300 which uses the same v6 engine as the Highlander. It didn't do any better on gas than what you're describing. But you should take those tires up to whatever the sidewall max says, they probably say 44, the rest of the suspension, the sound deadening, and the cushy seats should be more than enough to keep the NVH down.