New CRD owner needing base for reference.

TxBxSx · **Joined:** Mon Mar 24, 2014 6:22 pm **Posts:** 10

I'll start with an introduction. My name is Justin and have been a long time loyal Toyota fan. I still have my 1996 4Runner that just crested 290k last week, and it was certainly not my first. But, being the designer at a the 4wd parts company I work for (ShrockWorks) it has been loaded with all of our armor. Along with a lift and tires, it has dropped to about 13mpg.

So, with the poor fuel economy and high miles I decided to find something that would allow our daily commuter to maintain true 4wd for when it's needed, allow some provisions for future protection products (the bumpers saved the old rig countless times on and off road), and also get significantly better fuel economy. After reading about the crd liberty, it sounded like the perfect answer.

So we have owned our 2006 limited crd with 110k for about 2 months now, and I'm honestly a bit disappointed in the ACTUAL milage. The info center on our last road trip read 25mpg at the end of the first tank, which I was ok with considering I had a 14' canoe strapped to the top acting as a wind sail. But, when I calculated the actual milage using the tripometer and gallons used to top off, it came out to be and averaged 19.5 mpg!

I noticed yesterday when riding ebbing the CRD that the only time it wasn't producing some amount of carbon from the tail pipe (black smoke aka Rollin Coal) was once it got up to cruising speed. Even mild acceleration was puffing the black stuff.

Is this normal, and how many of you get such a difference from your actual milage vs the lie-o-meter for mpg?

I have yet to give it the once over cleaning the sensors and redirecting the ccv to atmosphere. I'm hoping that doing so greatly improves my milage.

dieselguy · **Posted:** Sat May 17, 2014 7:06 pm

well if this is your first diesel you gonna have to do so studying and tinkering and experimenting. another thing about engines are no two are alike. you may have 3 trucks exactly a like but all three perform different, handle different and shift different. small things you do on one that makes a noticeable difference may not even be noticed on the other. you also must remember 1mpg gain is not much nor is 1hp, but if you do multiple things that each gives you small gains, well as the old saying goes pennies make dollars. a good straight thru exhaust system to let it breath along with a good air intake system is a good place to start. some sort of lift pump to supply the common rail pump with an abundance of fuel, and I didn't mention but I hope you've already shut the EGR down. use the best quality 5-40 full synthetic motor you can get and for myself I also run a quart of full synthetic lucas oil treatment on every change. lucas is tried and proven, I use it in every part of every motorized thing I own from my garden tiller, lawn mower all way up to my big tractors. in my cummins truck I can actually document a 1-2 mpg difference fuel mileage just from using the fuel injector treatment and another 1-2 mpg difference when I add the oil treatment. now probably the biggest difference will be a good tune from green diesel or someone very familiar with this engine setup. another experience I had was better fuel mileage on hot tune rather than eco tune, but I don't have a problem keeping my foot out of it most of the time :wink:

. now if you plan on keeping it a while I would get a good convertor and shift kit for the tranny, if not youll regret it later. if you lift it, add mud tires and keep it full of junk that's gonna bring your mileage down. now, don't just listen to what I or any other one person says because theres so many variables that relate to fuel mileage, what altitude you drive, flat or hill, hot or cold, city or highway, single passenger or 5 ppl, weather conditions, driving habits, speed, towing, the list just goes on. but your very lucky to have found this site because theres some very knowledgeable courteous helpful ppl on here that have so much information posted you can spend weeks going through all of it. and personally I would try to read trough all of it over time because if you keep this thing long enough youll probably run across the same problems as everyone else at some point.
good luck and go enjoy you libby

DOC4444 · **Posted:** Sat May 17, 2014 7:22 pm

Welcome to the club! There are people with many years of KJ CRDexperience here. I would suggest immediate timing belt replacement if not recently done. A GDE engine tune will increase power and add 3-4 MPG.

The most important issue with these is rocker arm wear due to exceesive soot in the oil. A GDE tune will protect you going forward, but failure may be imminent. Do a seach for "MAF test" as to how to determine the relative health of your rockers.

DOC

jthomas999 · **Joined:** Mon Jan 16, 2012 11:51 pm **Posts:** 98

Step 1 go read Sam's Noob guide
Step 2 If it hasn't been done, install GDE tune.

My 2006 EVIC computer would read 34 - 37 MPG. When I calculated it, it usually got 26-27 MPG, but I have got as much as 29.5 MPG. Typically when pulling my utility trailers, I get 18 - 20 MPG.

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diesel_guy86 · **Posted:** Sun May 18, 2014 12:20 am

A couple quick notes,

1) hammer the crap out of it to blow all the soot out of the exhaust. It could be clogging up your exhaust. Mine used to leave a small cloud after driving it easy for a day or 2, then would blow out on a full throttle pull. I installed a cone filter to get it more air and it quit doing it.

2) the brakes are known to stick on these, dropping mpg of course.

3) these engines have what's called a viscous heater. Its driven by the engine serpentine belt and it heats the coolant under certain conditions. This will drop fuel economy if its on.

dieselguy · **Posted:** Sun May 18, 2014 12:26 am

diesel_guy86 wrote:

A couple quick notes,

1) hammer the crap out of it to blow all the soot out of the exhaust. It could be clogging up your exhaust. Mine used to leave a small cloud after driving it easy for a day or 2, then would blow out on a full throttle pull. I installed a cone filter to get it more air and it quit doing it.

2) the brakes are known to stick on these, dropping mpg of course.

3) these engines have what's called a viscous heater. Its driven by the engine serpentine belt and it heats the coolant under certain conditions. This will drop fuel economy if its on.

nicely stated,,,diesel engines are designed to be run,,if you don't have a load to pull it pretty hard get out somewhere and drive it like you mean it,lol

DOC4444 · **Posted:** Sun May 18, 2014 10:11 am

Remove the viscous heater relay and you should see a 2-3 mpg improvement. One of the many things you get with a GDE tune is limiting VH operation to just a few minutes after a cold start.

mass-hole · **Posted:** Sun May 18, 2014 5:28 pm

If you havent done any of the stuff in the NOOB Guide(stickied at the top), do that first. Things like checking the MAP sensor and cleaning if necessary.

Next is disabling your egr, this can be done with a Tune from GDE or you can just physically block it with a plate and deal with the check engine light. There is a dimensioned drawing for the block plate somewhere around here.

I can say that at best I would get to 28mpg, maybe 29 on a good highway ride before my GDE tune. When I would hand calculate it was showing a couple of MPG lower than that. Now that I have my GDE tune I have never drop below 27.5mpg, usually average in the 29's, and easily see 32.5 on a highway drive with it still going up. I have hand calculated it once and it showed that it was within .5mpg of the in-car display.

New CRD owner needing base for reference.

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