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Toyota Sienna Gas Mileage
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I wish I can trade it for a FWD, but the dealer wants to rob me for the previlige to trade to an FWD. I would end up paying $5000 more for a car that's $3000 less in book value; that's a $8000 difference. Only a car dealer can come up with math like that!
My 2008 Sienna has a total of 200 miles on it, so those are very expensive miles given the depreciation
55K seems like a long way to go on the assumption that the AWD is unnecessary and that the first 200 miles is a good measure of fuel consumption. Compared to your T&C, how does the Sienna do for acceleration? Are you happy with the van aside from the economy?
Aside from that, thanks for the warning about the AWD economy. The available AWD is one of the biggest arguments for the Sienna in my book. I have a Subaru and love the AWD... and now I really hate :mad: FWD. The Subaru is 3 years old and the gas mileage is still improving.
The Legacy was a fantastic bargain for the quality, features and options and I could also get a station wagon with a manual transmission- the best of all worlds. The one thing I look forward to about getting a minivan is that my old Ford ZX2 gets the boot and I get the Subaru for my daily driver.
The power on this new sienna is much better than my old T&C. At the same time, even with my family of seven in the old T&C, I never had a problem merging into busy NJ highways going from near standstill to 40-50 in a short stretch. The Sienna's power is good, but probably much more than I'll need.
I too like the AWD option for messy snow days as well as the benefit of going onto beaches and dirt when I'm camping. However, not at the fuel efficiency cost that the Toyota requires. My old T&C average 19mpg in mixed driving and 22+ on highways. I was just not expecting with all the new technology that the Toyota would do that much worst. I have a full size Chevy Express conversion van that does 14mpg local and 18 mpg hwy and that's a 5.7litre V8...
Overall mileage for 19,869 miles is now 23.6 MPG which is slightly better than my 02 T&C 22.3 MPG at 19,943 miles. By comparison, my daughter's 1999 GC SE w/3.3L V6 had overall gas mileage of 23.8 MPG at just over 20,000 miles.
Thanks!
On the road fuel economy
Interesting data on the Sienna:
The 3.3L on the Toyota Sienna of previous years was at 20 mpg with FWD and a bit more that 18MPG with AWD. The 2007 results for the new 3.5L FWD were 1.5mpg better than the 3.3L at 21.5, and indicating the Sienna with the 3.5L is the most efficient minivan of recent years.
One 2006 Sienna had a pathetic 14.5 MPG overall average for 70 % stop and go driving while the lowest 2007 had a 50 % overall average with only 50 % stop and go.
The ONLY reliable comparison would be for long round trip HIGHWAY mileage ONLY and even then the vehicles would have to be driven on the same trip at the same time and switch drivers at the half way point.
Stop and go driving average is completely unreliable since one person's stop and go can be very different from another one.
My 2006 Sienna LE had an OVERALL average of 23.6 MPG at 19,869 miles. That included the dismal 10.9 MPG for one refill for January driving this year and the 34.9 MPG on one tank during a long road trip in April 2007 when the overall round trip mileage was 29.2 MPG.
I agree that it is remarkable that the new, more powerful 3.5L V6 in the 2007 Sienna has the same EPA rating 19/26 that the 3.3L V6 had but I seriously doubt that real world mileage would be 1.5 MPG higher in the 2007 than 2006. :shades:
While the data on the 3.5L is limited to a small number of 2007 vans, the 3.3L mileage I posted is the weighted average for years2004 to 2006. It remains to be seen if the 3.5L mileage advantage holds up as more data rolls in, but I think it is safe to say it is as good as the previous engine's economy, and that makes it better than the Odyssey with or w/o VCM.
I've observed the same thing from mileage reports in other forums as well - the 3.5l engine tends to do a little bit better than the 3.3l.
10 is a good starting sample, but we cannot say with statistical certainty that the 3.5L has better mileage than the 3.3L. With the range of data available, the raw mean could be as low as 19.6. A quick statistical model on the city vs highway data provided on the 3.5L suggests that the highway average is 25mpg and the city is 18mpg (error range about +/-3mpg). These are 1mpg better than the EPA estimates going back to my caveats about self selecting samples.
I'm an engineer so I almost compulsively do these kinds of calculations. Knowing myself, I will create the same models for the data on the 3.3L and the Odyssey... but not right now as my real job is calling.
Based on information I can personally verify, the 2006 Sienna gets better gas mileage than the 2007 Sienna in the real world where we live. :shades:
I'm averaging better than your 3.3l did, but it's just not relevant.
Since the carefully controlled EPA testing got the same 19/26 EPA ratings for the 2006 w/ 3.3L and the 2007 w/3.5L, the truth is that each will deliver the same gas mileage if they are driven on the same course by the same driver with same conditions. The 2007 will NOT get better gas mileage than the 2006 even though the 2007 has more power when desired.
I think it is remarkable that Toyota increased the power for 2007 while still having the same fuel economy when driven in the same manner. :shades:
The EPA uses a dynomometer, they're not even out on real roads. Plus the Canadian EPA rates the new Sienna higher than the Ody, while the US EPA rates them the same.
If you want to know the mileage you have do it the 'old fashioned' way. . .with math!
In the real world this means that comparisons between your friend's economy and yours are anecdotal and meaningless. Your experience is single combinations of variables so the best you can conclude is that you get better economy driving your van than he gets driving his and cannot extrapolate that across the general population of drivers and vans. Now if you switched vans for a period and tracked economy through a few tanks you might be able to draw two more conclusions: which individual's driving style gets the best economy and which individual van gets the best economy- but again you couldn't extrapolate to the larger population of driving styles or vans.
The EPA site data on the other hand is meaningful because they are a sampling of vans and drivers. Though I would not expect the average of the whole driving population to match the contributers to the EPA site because of the biasing that occurs with self selection, I would expect that populations within the EPA site to be similar. While it is possible that the 10 drivers contributing data for the 3.5L would have more economical habits than the 48 drivers contributing to the 3.3L data, I see no obvious reason to assume so. With variability of driving habits squelched and with multiple samples of each design represented, we can begin to make meaningful conclusions about how the vans perform relative to each other.
From this I conclude that if I were to have my choice of picking from two otherwise similar Toyota vans at random (not knowing anything about the van' performance other than what engine is installed), I will probably get better economy if I choose one with the 3.5L engine. Can individual vans vary so that a particular 3.3L gets better economy than a particular 3.5L? Certainly, there is more than enough variability in the data and that that can happen a fair percentage of the time. But if I can pick only one the probability is that I will do better with the 3.5L.
Thus concludes this session of basic statistics.
What is not disputed is that the 3.5L will also move me along faster, which makes the economy a bonus.
Quote: " Gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph...."
I wrote that your gas mileage will decrease significantly because of this sentence in an earlier posting. I should have included "Your 2007 Sienna will probably get lower mileage than my 2006 Sienna IF you move along faster because you will LOSE your bonus by driving faster."
According to the graph, a vehicle which gets almost 30 MPG at 50 MPH will get only 22 MPG at 75 MPH (and the most rapid decline in fuel economy occurs at a speed of about 60 MPH when it drops from 27 MPG to 24 mpg very quickly).
By the way our 04 Limited AWD gets 16mpg in town and 20-21mpg highway.
The new 07 LE FWD we had for a couple of days got 21-22 mpg in city driving and up to 27mpg on the highway!
I really wish my van got the kind of mileage that you got with that 07. My window sticker stated 20-23 or something like that.
My uncle has had his 07 Limited Double Cab 4X2 in Nautical Blue(5.7L V8) for 6 months and now has about 9,000 miles on it. He loves it and it averages 17 mpg.
No problems at all.
RAV4 uses same engine (3.5 L) but rated 19/27. The gross weight of RAV4 is 4720 lbs. I am ready to buy new Sienna and trying to figure out how to keep Gross weight minimum. Most importantly, will there be any impact of this low weight on MPG ?
20 - 22 Hwy at 70 - 85 miles per hour.
WARNING - These numbers are a little off as my GPS reads about 2 to 3 mph less at 75. (GPS = 73 and Van says 75; GPS says 77 and van is at 80) This translate into about 2.6%to 3% less. So the numbers are about 0.5 mpg too many, best case.
My Garmin 650 GPS and my Pontiac Vibe are dead on.
Wheels are original wheels with the XLE.
Can anyone share GPS mph experience?
A few post before notes a slight diff.
This also affects odometer reading for selling the van, or your lease values....100K miles is really closer to 97,000 miles.....
This was not the intent when I started writing this post, but can anyone say "class action suit?"
Basically a mid-level model.
The Limited are heavier, and I have seen a tendency for the lighter models (CE, LE) to get better gas mileage.
This is purely empirical data. EPA says they're the same.
Thanks
I will weigh mine (tires and all) next time I rotate my tires. I have the alloys. We'll have to ask someone else to weigh their steelies.
For reference, the 15" steelies on my Forester weighed 44 lbs with tires mounted, and the 16" alloys that replaced them weighed the same. The alloys were an inch bigger, of course, so more metal was offset by the lighter weight of the metal.
I get great fuel efficiency with my LE, and it has package 3. I get 22-24 around town, and 27-30+ on trips.
RAV4 has the same engine (3.5 L) as Sienna and curb weight of base model (3.5 L) RAV4 is 3527 lbs - about 15% less than base model of Sienna.
Based upon EPA estimates, RAV4 is estimated as 19/27 MPG - about 17-18% better fuel efficiency as compared to Sienna.
My objective is to get MPG as close to RAV4 as practically possible. To achieve this, I am trying to get the curb weight of Sienna as low as possible.
Toyota lists curb weight for the 2007 CE and LE as the same - 4270 lbs. Wonder if it really is the same?
Some add-ons are indeed lighter - for instance the CE has an antennae while the LE models with the JBL sound have an in-glass antennae. Not only does it weigh less, it would also produce no drag at all.
You also want the most narrow tires, so stick with the 215mm section width on the 16" rims, which models you're considering all have.
Remove roof rack cross bars if you get those. My LE has them.
There may be other trade-offs to consider. You could remove the antennae from the CE model while the radio is not in use, but to me that's too inconvenient.
The XLE is 4310, so 40 lbs worth of options. I don't think that's very significant given the RAV4 drops some 700 lbs. So you'll only see 6% of the fuel savings the RAV4 would give you.
Congrats and good luck with the Civic!
I read that Honda may increase production to keep up with demand for the fuel efficient sedan.
Think about it - in neutral, it needs fuel to idle and not stall.
Coasting to a stop, it can cut off fuel completely and coast, yet the alternator is still spinning so it will not stall.
I forgot to add, that AC was used for about half of the trip. AC was used every day while in Cooperstown, city driving and most of the second half of the drive back to Columbus. All in all, I'm very impressed with Sienna's performance. It delivers a quiet ride , lots of room for "stuff", entertainment for the kids, (never heard a peep out of them, well except for the laughter while watching movies), just a very balanced vehicle and I'm glad this one is mine.