Our big 2008 Land Cruiser is an awesome vehicle. It rides great, the interior comfort is off the hook, and the power is great whether you’re towing, or just cruising the highways or back roads. Unfortunately it’s not cheap to drive.
For example this morning I was headed to the shop and one of the multitudes of chimes, bells and lights went off on the dash, “Low Fuel”, it seems this light has been coming on a lot recently. So I dropped into the right lane, eased off the throttle and drafted in behind a big street sweeper that was lagging along on the highway. This is where I should always drive, but sometimes having a 5.7L V-8 under the hood makes it hard to drive slow. I tapped the display button and it said I had 12 miles to go before empty, too bad the fuel pump was about 14 miles away. I remembered some lessons about saving fuel and I put them all into effect. Slow down, draft, no sudden accelerations, stay in a high or overdrive gear (luckily the Land Cruiser has a manual trans mode that allows me to up shift at will), and use every part of the Jedi mind games I know to make the truck lighter and more efficient. Luckily I rolled into the pump about a mile after the 0 miles of driving range had passed and fueled up. What was odd is that even though the computer told me I had 0 miles to go the pump could only fit 20.8 gallons in the tank, and Toyota claims the tank is good for 25.4 gallons. That would mean I had about 40some miles to go before I was stranded, of course with 20.8 gallons costing me $81.18 I’m glad I didn’t need to fill it any more.