Fuel Economy Toyota Land Crusier 100-ser

Hello Leith,

Have had both, although the diesel I had was an after market turbo and manual gearbox. Towing a fully equpped 18ft Bushtracker on a 5,600km trip we averaged
20.7 litres per 100km (ranging from 18.2 to 22.5 depending on terrain and wind).
The V8 petrol auto, on a 14,900 trip averaged 27.1 with a range of 22.1 to 33.3.
My choice would be the turbo diesel (factory turbo) with a manual gearbox. Reason for manual? ......better control of engine revs and much better compression braking going downhill. The BT pushes the V8, even in first gear on a 15% downgrade, and that means more wear on caravan brakes to maintain control.

I am now waiting for Toyota to release the twin turbo V8 Diesel with 220kw and 570 Nm of torque with a 6 speed gearbox. Reports are claiming 12 litres/100 and 16 whilst towing. The latest I've heard is late this year or early 2007.

By the way, Leith is an unusual name, and possibly a coincidence that we have a Steve and Leith Harry in the Bushtracker Owners Group. We were camping neighbours at Copeton, and I believe they are still travelling the eastern states somewhere.They have a 100series V8 as well.

Cheers.............Rob

Hello Leith,
Very good solid answer from Rob....
The average I would hear from the hundreds, would be about 3-3.5 km/litre with the V-8 petrol... And about 5 towing with the Turbo Diesel....

I go along with Rob, but would add one more thing that I think is actually more important and I would stress SAFETY.. In the desert, long range tanks of petrol? Those vapours that distort you vision in wavy lines are explosive... An accident? Parking how close to the fire? Where do you carry extra fuel? In jerry cans? Driving out through a grass or brush fire? Look, there are three important things in the bush, diesel, diesel, and diesel.. I would stress that for safety, as petrol is OK, but diesel is just plain better for safety and the pocketbook, and even availability on remote stations for buying a lttle fuel... Some might swear by the petrol, but they would be the 1 in 100.

Kind Regards, from Last Ranger ............Ha! Heck, don't listen to me, I travel with horses.

hi leith
we have a 2002 4.2 lc factory turbo 4 speed auto plus a 20 ft bt we are based in syd
kunda park to syd last june not much off road & not fully stocked 1500 km consumption 5.6 to 5.9 km /litre
christmas sydney to kosciuosko & back so lots a hilly stuff but again little off road
2000km 5.8 to 6.1
we cruise on h,way around 85-95 km/hr on back roads 75-80

thesec are just towing figures with very little non towing litres

we are seriously thinking of rechipping as this will deliver better consumption especially if this p box from towoomba diesel delivers the good
cheers

Leith,
Having a thought, and if you have progressed in your mind to diesel, here is a possible breakthough particularly for the Automatic in the IFS Turbo Cruiser... I have taken the liberty of copying this from the Owners Forum.. I have promised in the past that if I thought someone would benefit I would copy over... Here you go and it is relevant:

Here is a report done to me by a recent Client, no names given as I have not gotten their permission. I think the technical reprint is OK>.. As there are no names or personal details involved.... I have made it a TIP (# 89 Owners Forum), so we can find it again in the future. These people were very interested in the previous Thread ongoing on the Cruiser chip upgrade, and took the plunge based on my updates so far.. Here is their test results:
START
We picked up our van on the 11 January and just arrived home a couple of days ago..Van all OK travelled well and very comfortable to live in. Did about 5000 klms towing in pretty much all conditions, and had a P-Box fitted by diesel care in Toowoomba on the way through. There is no doubt about the power increase, i noticed it within a few minutes of leaving toowoomba and it does make an appreciable difference to the cruisers towing ability. I did do a fuel useage check and i wanted to report those findings to you since great interest has been associated with reports of power increases and increaes in fuel economy.

Over a distance of 1231 Klms we used 201.3 litres of diesel. I filled both tanks to absolute full at start, topped up with 82 litres on route and did a final fill to absolute full in both tanks at finish.. I made a point of running both tanks down before topping up and final fill. we left toowoomba and headed to pottsville on NSW /QLD border then on toward Sydney..Travelled at 80 to 90 Klms/Hr and i always manually select gears when necessary , cruiser is auto. I consider myself to be a easy on the accelorator driver, and the roads we travelled during the trial were all sealed and we travelled through what i would consider to be a fairly indicative range of conditions.

So the findings: 1231 Klms and 201.3 litres of fuel equates to 6.12 klms /litre or 17.32 MPG.

I am happy with that economy hard to see how we can achieve an increase in power and have a marked increase in economy, however i accept that each of us drive differently and tow different weights therefore some may expect better economy than others..I should think my van was somewhere around 2900 to 3000Kgs loaded. Just wanted to share this info with you since you were kind enough to give me the info at the factory about the P-Box. I have passed this info on to Diesel Care.

By the way i had an on/off switch fitted so when not towing i turn the unit off..I also did not do a proper check on economy towing the van before P-Box. I will do that at some time but i would estimate not much if any difference to fuel economy at all. The real bonus for me was the power difference generated which i believe makes towing so much easier.

Would you be kind enough to pass on our appreciation to your people on the factory floor, all credit to them we are very impressed with the standard of finsh on the van and the obvious care and pride they take in producing a fine product, we are very proud tracker owners and i must say that it certainly attracts plenty of attention wherever we travel.

END (exact copy and paste reprint)

Now I cannot verify the results, but have no reason to doubt the Source as anything but sound and reliable "Real People".... They took the plunge, my ongoing R & D passed on to you..

Kind Regards from the ever researching Ranger...
Semper Fidelis...

I have a L/C100TD 2005. Brand new and unloaded I got 11 litres/100Kms. When I added various extras e.g. drawer syatem, towbar,bullbar,UHFetc I got 12,5L/100Kms. On the first trip towing 20ft B/T 19 - 21/100Kms . Since that trip I have had a Steinbauer P-Box fitted. I now get 17.6 (5.7Kms/Litre) towing and 12.5 - 13 (7.64 Kms/Litre) unhitched around town. I now have lots more tools, compressor, Rhino rack etc so weight is around 2,9 tonne for the L/C. My 20ft B/T is 3.2 tonne loaded up.It's early days for the proper evaluation for the P-Box and I intend to post figures on here when available. There is a nice power / torque improvement. I had a snorkel fitted recently. It should help a tiny bit. I have been reliably informed that another 10% improvement in power and economy is achieved when the standard exhaust is replaced with a more efficient system approx $900. I have decided to procrastinate on that until the standard is older. Diesel repairers have advised that beeing fussy where one buys diesel i.e. fresh is best is important and carrying a spare fuel filter in case plus use the "sub-tank" diesel regularly. It will be less likely to grow "fungus". Check and clean air filter regularly if dusty roads traversed. They are the golden rules. T D's are more expensive however I shopped around and got a very good deal with a few extras thrown in. hope this is useful, happy test driving.

I would like to take this opportuntity to thank all those people for the time taken in responding to my question. I always thought it would have to be a diesel, the 430nm at 18oo rev is hard to beat.
The cost factor thanks to your input has been extreamly helpful.
With Toyota asking an additional $10,000 for a diesel 100 ser over a petrol & fuel in Syd
$l.36L dis ULP is $1.19 makes it a difficult pill to swallow as it would take many Hundreds of thousands of K's to brake even.
It will be a diesel, I just need a larger glass of scotch to swallow the pill.

Thanks again,

Leith

A word of advise. Don't buy cheap whisky to off-set the price of diesel. When you have had a few "drams" write a letter to whom you feel could get some
answers why diesel (which is supposedly cheaper to make than ULP) is more expensive. I have never heard a reason yet. cheers loch heim ( or what the Scots say)

I had a whinge recently to Shell about the difference in price of ULP and Diesel ( in my area ULP was 27 cents cheaper).
The reply I received is copied below FYI.

Thank you for contacting Tell Shell Australia.

In regards to your enquiry, both the price of unleaded and the price of diesel are a function of world crude benchmark prices, which as you know have been increasing over time. Last year's average Asian light sweet crude benchmark price was $30.08USD/bbl compared to the 2004 year to date average of $39.35USD/bbl.

Generally you can expect both unleaded and diesel prices to be a premium above the crude price. This is called the refining crack. The size of the crack does depend upon a number of factors such as crude demand/supply, product demand/supply, freight rates, general economic conditions etc. You can therefore expect volatility during the year of the size of the refining crack across the barrel including petrol and diesel, as well as the spread between petrol and diesel.

Over the last few months, we have seen some movement in the differential between the petrol and diesel crack. During August 04, the petrol and diesel crack increased to around $6 above the crude price however the petrol crack was under pressure and averaged a $0.20 premium above crude. The reason for the movement in the petrol/diesel differential is that a weakness in naphtha prices has been putting pressure on petrol prices - so it is actually a petrol story rather than a diesel story.

Retail fuel prices are driven by three things: Import parity price for petrol, Tax and Oil company, distributor and service station dealers share. The total amount shared between the oil company, distributor and the service station dealer must cover: the costs of running oil terminals; costs involved in delivering petrol to service stations; administration and marketing costs; and the costs involved in running the service station such as labour, rent and electricity. Import parity price is essentially the cost of importing, including freight and wharfage, finished product (as opposed to crude oil) to Australia.

The wholesale prices for NSW on Wednesday 11 January 2005 are compared in the table below.

Diesel Unleaded petrol
Wholesale price 97.02 89.61
Import parity price 44.64 40.97
Tax 49.19 46.28
Costs and margin. 3.19 2.36

Note that the costs allocated to fuels with lower sales volumes such as diesel are often slightly higher than costs allocated to fuels that sell higher volumes in the market place, like unleaded petrol. Shell does not set retail prices, which will of course be higher than the wholesale prices and will vary by location.

Why do we use import parity price? The key point is that Australian refineries compete with the Asian region when it comes to oil and fuel. Both oil and finished products (such as petrol and diesel) can be purchased at competitive prices from a number of locations in the region. Prices of fuel types such as diesel or petrol in this regional market are driven by supply and demand of each individual fuel type, resulting in fluctuations of the prices relative to each other. Australian refineries not only compete with imports of finished product in Australia, but also export product to the regional market.

In Asia generally, diesel is a much more common fuel than petrol, so many asian refineries are geared up to produce diesel. This tends to make diesel prices reflect changes in crude prices more closely than petrol prices. It also means that at times there may be "excess" or more supply of petrol than demand across the region, resulting in a dropping of petrol prices relative to crude and the more consistently demanded diesel. Thus we seem to be experiencing the case where petrol prices in Australia are generally lower than diesel prices.

As Shell is a wholesaler of fuels and oils we do not set the pricing of retail fuel at the bowser, this is set either by the franchise holder or by the independent owner and as such if you have further concerns about the pricing at the pump please contact the them regarding your enquiry.

We entrust this assists.

Kind regards,

Tell Shell Australia

end

regards,
Chris