So what's the secret on the 34.3 MPG on the Hybrid? Do you live on a hill that is downhill both ways?

so far we're only seeing low 20s on the first few tanks. Just trying to see what I can tell my wife to do to get that high.

Is it a lot of highway driving? she mostly drives around town.

A significant portion of our driving in the Highlander so far has been suburban driving. With the right effort, good fuel economy can be had. I did a 39 mile round trip over the weekend at 45 mpg. For this, I took a favorable route with moderate speed limits (mostly 35 to 45). I took advantage of the mild hills to do lots of gliding on the downhill sections. I do whatever I can within reason to achieve good fuel economy.


Now that I'm back into my daily commuting and shorter trips, that tank is down to about 40 mpg and still dropping.

We did have one interstate trip of about 500 miles, and our fuel economy for that trip was around 31 mpg.

As I believe is the case with all of the Toyota hybrids, the warm up period in the Highlander is a real fuel economy killer. If your commutes are always short and spaced apart, fuel economy will suffer.

My little trick I've been trying out lately is to increase pressure on the fun pedal while going downhill to take advantage of gravity and push it to about 10 over the speed limit, and then just barely touch the pedal when going uphill, losing the extra speed and increasing pressure as I crest the hill.

It's fun for me, drives my wife crazy.

I just got my handheld GPS delivered. I just took it out on a quick test run in the Highlander. I had WAAS enabled. It was a short trip and I'll need a longer trip to get a more accurate number. The Highlander's odometer was at 10.1 miles and the GPS was at 10.5 miles.