Geoff_C

I have done 19,000 in my Prado, and almost since the first service I have complained about a smell that was not exactly rubber or brake pads, but was very obvious after parking the car. In all cases I would have just been 3 km to the shops and back, and certainly no hard driving. They could find nothing wrong, and the last service the advisor confidently told me it was the exhaust burning off particulates. Now that made me feel happy till I spoke to a few people who knew more than I did, and clearly more than the Toyota Service advisor. Thing is that routine to clear particulates is only triggered at highway driving, and certainly not during a short trip to the shops, and most of all not three times in one day. So this week a good friend of mine put the car up on his hydraulic jack, and proceeded to inspect it the way Toyota should have. And yes he found the cause. Turns out the rear drive shaft out of the transfer case has a sliding joint. And its spewing grease everywhere and of course some lands on the exhaust. We can install a shield to prevent this, but I am wondering if anyone else has grease spewing out of this joint. My friend said its caused by over enthusiastic greasing, but why am I the only victim? Geoff

Hi Jprad, It might be a Prado thing, or even simply that you have a newer release of the software. But mine is a dynamic instant reading, and really not much use at all. Geoff

Well those figures are not dissimilar to mine. Its very seriously affected by both hills and traffic. Get a flat road, steady speed its pretty good on consumption. However I did not have to go to all the trouble you did after re-fueling for the range to reset on the bar chart in the App. It did not reset immediately, leading me to conclude it only recalculates about every 3 to 5 minutes, but it did recalculate automatically. But if you are talking about the average consumption figure displayed on the dash with the bar of whether you are in "eco" range or not, that will reset any time on my car, even while driving, by just holding the selector button down for a second or two. It will fluctuate wildly initially because its an average since you zeroed it, which is why after 5000 km mine never changed. So I have no issue with needing the low fuel indicator to be on, and I have never seen it anyway, as I typically refuel at about 60 to 70 litres used. I don't see the point in having a long range tank that is empty. My vehicle has only done 6000 km, and I concede it may improve as the engine loosens up.

I have a theory that with the smaller 2.8l motor, this vehicle may be economical on the flat, but give it a hill and its game over? I have a lot of hills around my home, and maybe thats why I cant get a lower fuel figure?

It took me six months to realise the dashboard fuel consumption average is an average since last zeroed, and in my case that was 6000 km, so it was not changing at all and was 10.6. However this weekend I drove 35 km from the Northern Beaches to Breakfast Point, in heavy Friday afternoon traffic, but driving as carefully as possible and got 12.6 average for that trip only. I had a short freeway drive today, maybe 5 to 10 km, and with the reading reset at the beginning of the freeway, saw that when driving at a steady state at around 80km/h it is around 7l/100 or even slightly under. That is the very first time I have had that sort of insight. Then returning the 35 km this afternoon, with much less traffic and in this case going basically downhill, I got 8.2 l/100 for that trip. So the difference of traffic plus some "uphill" driving gave 12.6. I can now see how my average of 10.6 for 6000 km came about. But its a world of a difference from the Toyota claim of 8l/100 for the city cycle. I still have not increased my tyre pressure from 36.

No that is not what I mean, and not what they (Euro cars) display. There is a technique called exponential smoothing, and if you feed an instantaneous consumption figure into it, depending on the value of the smoothing constant in the formula, you either get a very responsive "average" or a slowly changing "average". And that is what Euro cars all display, well the ones I owned, and I assumed it was what I was looking at. It is a very usable meaningful figure. You never have to reset it, it just works. The Prado also has an instantaneous figure that can be shown on the dash, but its of almost no use, as you pointed out, because it is well, too responsive. And of course over the first several hundred kms of my new Prado the straight average was ok, but over 6000 km, its no wonder it did not change. As I got more and more annoyed.

Well I cant guess what cars you have owned/driven, but I currently have a Porsche, previously had a Merc and before that a VW Eos. All of them had a short-term fuel usage figure shown on the dash that was responsive enough to reflect your current driving style. Sort of what you would get off the ECO bar chart if it actually showed one figure for the entire display. But if this is how it works, I know what to do to get what I want out of it.

My son recommended I zeroise the average fuel usage reading, and I have. Then I suddenly came to the conclusion that my reading of 10.6 did not change, because it is an average of 6000 km. Woah!!! So its not an as you go average, which every other car I have had in the last ten years has had. Geez!! How stupid is that? Even the eco app does not give an average, although its continuous using one to calculate the range. THATS the figure I need. Thanks for that link, I will get that item. Geoff

Hi Cudestir, Can you give me either some info or a link to "scan gauge" so I can get one of these. Because my average fuel reading is not usable, as i will explain below. I guess when you say "cruising" at 100, you mean on the speedo, because its not accurate. I have two GPS in my car, and thats what i use all the time. I just looked up the Toyota Press release for my vehicle: I have just completed my second tank refill against a measured trip distance. For much of this tank I was really trying to save fuel. I achieved 10.71l/100 against the previous tank which was 11.1l/100. Now to the interesting thing. I did not use the full tank, so my distance was 612 km, but at NO TIME during these 600km did the average fuel consumption shown on the dash change from 10.6. In other words, I achieved a fuel consumption change of of 0.6l/100 yet the reading did not change, although it should now be closer to 10.0. In fact in 6000 km it has never varied by more than 0.1 - only 10.5 and 10.6 have been shown on the dash. It would appear that my vehicle is well over the advertised fuel consumption figure of 8.0 for an auto. I would personally be happy with 9.0, but some owners tell me they have seen 7.5. I checked my tires with a very accurate gauge, and cold. They are 36 psi. I will pump them up to 40 and see if there is any change. I will have to take my car in for service next week, but I am not expecting any sympathy from the dealer. But they may change the tyre pressures if they think 40 is too high. Geoff

I will check my tire pressures too, and on the next tankful make sure I am also at 40psi. However I thought I should probably show an image of the "fuel consumption" that I use, as there are 3 such on the Prado. One is shown above, the Eco App bar chart, and two are on the dash. I always have my dash set to this setting. Now as I had to take the photo while stationary, the horizontal bar with the eco range markings is missing. I ALWAYS drive with ECO on, and try to keep inside the "ECO" range. But this figure of 10.6 is virtually unchanged in 6000 km. The only other figure I saw here was 10.5 after 400 km of motorway driving. I also have TWO GPS on my car, and never use the speed reading, as its inaccurate. MY GPS speed reading never vary from each other by more than 1 km/hr

Hi JPrad, It seems you experience is much the same as mine. However it does seem that "some" people see a different average fuel figure in what I would say are quite short distances. My reading that is currently on 10.6 (which is really 11.1) will not change by much in 400 km of driving. But we also see others get VERY much better fuel economy, and I REALLY don't think this is driving style. I am thinking of putting a notice on the back of my Prado to apologise for my slow driving!!!

No I don't have that. My Prado was literally the first few weeks of the new version. My rego date is 10th Sept.

Just had a look in the glove box. No I don't have that kit. As a software developer of many years I would not pay any attention to a trivial detail like a reference to a disc when you need a micro-sd card. If you actually have a disc, copy all the data to the sd, and load it. If the software is programmed correctly, it will update, or give you a message if it cant. It looks like a legal challenge will be needed to shake up Toyota. But my solution is to use my Tom Tom. Of course if you have that kit, you can simply ask Toyota to apply it at your next service. QED. I have now started simply asking other owners of Prados that I see in car parks with diesel engines what fuel consumption they get, and I am more and more convinced my engine has an issue. The last guy claimed 8.5 lt/100 vs my 11.1 Geoff

I would entirely agree that all the so-called "New Model" Prados released in mid 2015 have this issue. It would be fine if we all get a free GPS update at out first service. Its rather hard to "notice" because map software is never perfect, and even if you got a 2016 release, it would have things both wrong, and missing. And I have to admire they depths to which you went in following the maybe 8 level menu to discover the map versions. I doubt anyone else would have done so.

That is correct. My 2015 Prado Diesel GLX (latest smaller engine) has that map. I recall you saying elsewhere that Toyota have an updated map at $300 but you don't believe it will work? Because its a "WHEREIS" and the original is "HERE"? Maybe I got that wrong, but all it needs to run different maps, is software that recognises the map. And that can be achieved via an update, if the original software does not do already do so.

It looks like you are getting a royal run-around. I would be thinking your state equivalent of our "Fair Trading" department.

Hi John, So the only real difference between our vehicles is mine is auto? And even with towing, you get 9.3 (as displayed, although based on my experience that is not accurate) I took a photo of my last 30 minutes driving when I was being very cautious, and one really would think it was running at under 10 l/100 and maybe it is, but the fuel reading did not change, and as I explained it takes some hours of driving to register a change. I can of course switch to manual, but to be honest the modern autos are very efficient, and I doubt that is the difference. If I got 9.3 I would be very happy. My map is exactly the same as yours. HERE 2013 Q4. Rather ridiculous for a 2015 model? Have you ever calculated the fuel consumption using the amount you put in the tank and the distance since last filling? Just wondering on what you base the feeling that you are very happy with the consumption since you did not seem to be aware of that 9.3 average?

Hi John, Thank you for your response. Its good to know there is at least one other Prado owner on here. I am not sure how you know that you drive slower than I do, but be that as it may. I just did 45 minutes across Sydney, 35 km or so, and I drove as slowly as it is feasible to do without annoying all other road users. My dash display is still 10.6. Unchanged. As you say there is another dash display of the "instant" consumption, but I tried it and cant get any sense of the average from it. It goes all over the place, and very fast too. If you were to temporarily look at the display on your own car that I am talking about, what does it read? I would very much appreciate knowing that. I have experimented driving gently, normally, and very hard. In my case driving relatively hard seems to offer the best consumption, but its hard to know unless you work it out yourself tank fill by tank fill. The damping on that indicator is really far too much. I think it may take 200 km to change. Regarding the GPS, I have never used that, and don't plan to. With my previous car, a late model Mercedes, I was extremely annoyed at the supposed traffic reports that never ever told me of upcoming traffic, but almost always told me of traffic when I was already stuck in it. I eventually came to the conclusion that it was my own car updating the traffic reports. Mercedes Benz do take a satellite feed from every single one of their cars back to Germany, and thats how they create traffic reports. As I was planning on doing about 4000 km in France in a hire car a year back, I bought a Tom Tom. I have had experience of hiring these GPS, and its cheaper to buy your own if you are going to be driving more than 10 days. I needed to use it to familiarise myself, so I used it in the Merc here in Aus. It took about a week and I was sold. Completely sold, even over the moon. It knew routes I did not know, had magic traffic reports even telling me how many minutes delay were ahead, and offered alternative routes telling me how much time I could recover. I don't ever intend to use an in-car GPS system again. The map updates is one way they line their pockets, and all of them are doing that, but their map guidance software is not in the same universe as the professionals. I did note in France one car I hired had the Tom Tom software installed (Renault) but mine had better options. Regards, Geoff

Its extremely disappointing how quiet this forum is. I will have to find my answer elsewhere. I cant keep on coming back to see nothing going on.

I have had this vehicle about 6000 km. During this time I have done a double roundtrip Sydney-Hunter Valley (back to back) and the best fuel consumption displayed on the dash was 10.5 l/100km. I have noticed this is heavily damped (That means in case you don't know it does not change fast) I also have never had any different consumption around town. Always either 10.6 or 10.5. I rather expected this vehicle to do better on freeway driving, but that has not proved the case. Then a friend said I should check if the displayed reading is accurate. Its not. It should be 11.08, not 10.6. That was over 560 kms. I wonder if anyone else has a different experience. I was told this engine is more efficient than the old one. I have never owned another Toyota, but a friend tells me he gets significantly better consumption on the freeway, even while towing a light van, but he has the old engine. Geoff