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Sudden drop in mpg

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bosip

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hello all!

I have a 2020 RAV4 hybrid limited for about 2 months now and I have been averaging 41-43 mpg in all around driving. Yesterday on my 15 minute drive to work which is mostly city driving my mpg suddenly started a downward spiral ending at 30 mpg. For my trip home I reset the mpg and drove as conservatively as possible but nothing I did seemed to make a difference and again the mpg dropped to that level. I had the AC in eco mode and on just for the driver.
Has anyone else had this happen?

Thanks!
Bob
 
#2 ·
Did you recently fill your tank? I’ve also had mine for a couple months and I average 39 mpg. A couple weeks ago I filled up from empty at a Meijer gas station for the first time and started getting <34 mpg. I drove it until empty again and filled it at a different gas station, and my mpg went back up to ~39. So I don’t fill up at Meijer anymore.
(Meijer is a Walmart-like superstore, if you don’t have those in your region.)
 
#4 ·
MPG means a lot when averaged over multiple tanks of gas with the variability of tank fills. Given that many of the Rav4s have a bad fuel level sensor, I'll trust a spreadsheet or fuelly to give me the computation based on the amount of gas in and miles driven which I get from the odometer. I care less what an individual trip counts as need for HVAC, prior trip battery depletion, traffic and road grade could all negatively affect a single short trip.
 
#5 ·
bosip said:
Thanks buy I have not filled the tank in the past week and when I do I always use top tier gas.
Click to expand...
If by top tier you mean high octane, it's pretty much wasted money on a new RAV4 - Premium vs. Regular Gas Explained. Or do you just mean you fill up at BP instead of Walmart, as is now my policy?
 
#7 ·
ddox said:
If by top tier you mean high octane, it's pretty much wasted money on a new RAV4 - Premium vs. Regular Gas Explained. Or do you just mean you fill up at BP instead of Walmart, as is now my policy?
Click to expand...
Top Tier is a marketing slogan that a few of the major oil producers agreed to to attempt to differentiate their products from others. It means that there is a agreed upon amount of additives in their gas. Others joined later. For example, Costco and Kirkland both are Top Tier. MurphyMart (Walmart) isn't. Just because a gas station doesn't say it is Top Tier doesn't have to mean the gas doesn't have the exact same additives in the same amounts. Maybe they didn't want to pay for the use of the label.

Consider that all gas rides in the same big pipes from a few refineries to a local storage facility. The gas can then be supplemented either when going in the tanker truck or when being poured into the tank at the gas station. The additives provide "detergent" qualities to the raw gas.
 
#8 ·
Top tier and octane level are not the same thing, at all. Don't ever put a higher octane fuel in your car than it requires, it is 100% a waste of money. Some cars that are turbo'ed may benefit from it, but only during a wide open throttle acceleration. Top tier actually has good benefits for all vehicles as it keeps deposit levels to minimum on injectors and other parts of the engine.
 
#9 ·
Gotcha. I was unaware Top Tier was a specification; I thought it was being used as a synonym for premium. Good to know.
Anyway, I have no idea what would cause a drop in MPG like that, if not a shitty tank of gas.
 
#10 · (Edited)
CyprusCorner said:
...Don't ever put a higher octane fuel in your car than it requires, it is 100% a waste of money. ...
... Top tier actually has good benefits for all vehicles as it keeps deposit levels to minimum on injectors and other parts of the engine.
Click to expand...
Agreed. But: over here the only way to avoid E10 is to use higher octane Top Tier fuel... Using BP Ultimate RON98 or Shell VPower RON98 which are both max. E5. E10 is shitty and leads to much higher fuel consumption and a rougher engine run.
Doing no more than 40-42MPG on E10; now since 10K miles with BP E5 higher octane the car averages on 48-50MPG and provides a much smoother ride.
 
#11 ·
I can confirm that the Top Tier gas may have nothing to do with mpg efficiency.

I have been on Koger gas which are non-Top Tier certified all time with my 2019 RAV4H for 10k miles, my all time MPG is close to 45 miles per gallon. These are 50/50 city/highway number for about 1 year time frame.
 
#12 ·
bosip said:
Hello all!

I have a 2020 RAV4 hybrid limited for about 2 months now and I have been averaging 41-43 mpg in all around driving. Yesterday on my 15 minute drive to work which is mostly city driving my mpg suddenly started a downward spiral ending at 30 mpg. For my trip home I reset the mpg and drove as conservatively as possible but nothing I did seemed to make a difference and again the mpg dropped to that level. I had the AC in eco mode and on just for the driver.
Has anyone else had this happen?

Thanks!
Bob
Click to expand...
Have you checked the tire pressure to make sure they are at proper pressure?
 
#13 ·
harbin said:
I can confirm that the Top Tier gas may have nothing to do with mpg efficiency.

I have been on Koger gas which are non-Top Tier certified all time with my 2019 RAV4H for 10k miles, my all time MPG is close to 45 miles per gallon. These are 50/50 city/highway number for about 1 year time frame.
Click to expand...
I think the primary benefit of Top Tier fuels is when it is used over the long-term. Engines with say 100,000 miles that have been consistently running with TT fuel will be cleaner internally compared to using non-TT fuel. A cleaner engine should generally provide somewhat better MPG than a dirty engine.
 
Discussion starter · #15 ·
This discussion got hung up on what is Top Tier gas and are there benefits to using it but my original post was asking if anyone experienced a sudden extended decrease in gas mileage while driving in the city. I was wondering if this meant that for some reason the electric motor wasn't kicking in and I was running only on the gas engine?
 
#19 ·
After 8500 or so miles, I see a pattern but it is dependent on how the last fuel fill goes. I pay no attention to the trip MPG for short trips into town as they are so much influenced by traffic and HVAC need as well as my hurry factor. I have tracked my MPG over the car's entire history as you can see in my fuelly signature below. Given the hunker down mode of life now, I'm driving on less crowded streets at low traffic times mostly at 55 MPH on short trips and my last half dozen fill ups have hovered at around 40 MPG.

So no, no sudden drops that aren't explained by external causes.
 
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