you should try premium non ethanol gas....like from the good ole days. My GX LOVES real gas.

 

You can put a total of approx 24.6 gallons consistently in a GX when your range hits zero. The pump typically stops anywhere between 19-22 gal but with patience u can put up to 24.6 gal. I've had my GX for 3 years and have done that many times.

BTW, MY GX does not require premium fuel. It rarely gets anything other than 87 octane. I've noticed zero difference in performance between filling up with 87 octane and 93 octane (premium). I will say however, that the engine runs much quieter on premium fuel. Zero difference Powerwise, or mpgwise.

Source: Mechanical Engineer BS, MS + 3-year owner of a GX470.

 

I've owned a GX for 3 years and you can put 24.6 gal. See other reply i just wrote.

Fuel quality has an enormous impact on GX mpg.

Find a gas station with non-ethanol fuel and you'll soon see your range hit the 400's. I've seen it with 24.6 gal (from fully empty with zero range).

With regular 10% ethanol fuel I typically get 14mpg city wich it's hard to improve, as somehow it seems independent of how you drive it. Therefore in the city you might as well drive it hard, or as you wish, and you wont notice a significant difference. In highway however, it's totally dependent on how fast you go. If you drive at about 55-65mph highway, you'll see your mpg go to the 20's (and it really does, calculator in hand). If however you opt to drive at 70-80, your mpg will drop to 17-18. If u accelerate and hit 90-100+ a couple of times in your trip, you wont see a difference. If you do 80-90 mpg consistently, you'll see 16-17 mpg.

I remember from a thermodynamics course in mechanical engineering that engines function more efficiently at higher rpm. More efficiently does not mean that they'll use less fuel. It just means that they convert the fuel to power "better". I don't exactly remember the theory behind this, but that may explain these trends in fuel economy in the GX.

Source: 3-year (and current) owner of a GX

 

I'd love to find a local station that sells non-ethanol fuel here in the Chicagoland area but I have never seen one. Everyone uses the blend now for as long as I can remember. At least 15-20+ years.

Where do you live that they still sell it like this?

 

It's just in the last 3 years or so that ethanol became mandated to be in our fuel here in Canada, prior to that only Husky/Mohawk had ethanol blends. You can still find some ethanol-free 91 octane gas at Shell and some other stations, but it's getting pretty rare.

On another note, I got 16.7mpg on a highway trip this weekend, the best tank since we picked our GX up a few month ago! Cruise set at 110km/h, and about 60km city driving. I have yet to do any maintenance on the truck, should be ordering a new air filter this week, along with crush washers for the diffs/TC so I can get those fluids swapped out.

 

You can find a source of ethanol free gas in your area from here http://pure-gas.org/
The closest one to me is over 100 miles away

 

This utility is only as good as the info contained in the database, and a quick peek tells me the data is FAR from complete in my part of the world. Not one station listed in Winnipeg, the capital of the province, and I know that's not accurate.

 

I have run three tanks of gas (premium 93 from Exxon) since we got the GX, averaging out 15.9 mpg with mixed 60/40 city, highway driving.

 

Not 100% sure if this applies to the gx, but be very carefull about over filling your tank. Many vehicles can overflow into the charcoal canister causing damage to your emissions system.

 

FWIW, just got home from a R/T to Denver. Averaged over 19 over and 20.4 on the way back.

 

I've been waiting for 5 weeks to have rear shocks delivered for gx470.....where do I go now???

 

Probably not to the fuel economy thread, lol.

 

Correct. Mine does too. Fuel economy improves significantly with real gas. Although filling up with real gas is financially neutral (better fuel economy but more expensive gas: evens out) I like the benefit of the extended range. Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to find in Orlando FL.

 

I am in central Florida. There are two gas stations in town that sell non-ethanol, but it's expensive, so it's financially neutral. During a trip, by chance I stopped in a non-ethanol fuel gas station in NC at some exit on I-95. This is when I noticed the biggest difference that real fuel makes since my trip was all in highway.

For those interested, there is one gas station in Dtown Orlando and one in east Orlando that sell non-ethanol fuel. I am never close to them when my tank is empty, but at least it's good to know where they are. They can be googled.

Cheers.

 

Yeah, We got 1 mpg better on non ethanol which wasnt enough to justify spending the extra 40 cents a gallon. Our ethanol mpg was 15-15.5 and it would have had to get 17+ mpg for it to pay off....which i did not.

But then again, I am carrying around an extra 1000lbs of armor, recovery gear, and tires which dropped our mpg from 18 to 15 to begin with. Eh.....oh well. Its not that big enough of a mpg gallon jump or drop to overly concern yourself with it all.

Just drive your GX and enjoy it!!!