'inst' ?

[ProfHall 0]

What exactly is the INST varying yellow strip on the speedo display telling me?

Presumably the more yellow that's kept on show the better the fuel economy?

[FROSTYBALLS 2,355]

Topic moved to Rav 4 club.

Presumably this is showing you the instantaneous fuel consumption - which is the consumption at that moment in time, and this will vary by quite a margin. A more useful measurement is the average fuel consumption.

[ProfHall 0]

So... the longer I can keep a bigger strip of yellow on screen the more the overall average consumption improves.

[ProfHall 0]

...the trick is to find the best gear at any given speed showing the greatest band of yellow when cruising.

This will of course fluctuate wildly on acceleration, changing gear and on hilly terrain. But with care on the flat (and easily downhill) I've found the best results by trial and error.

Presumably this is why Toyota added the feature - to help driving efficiency for best consumption? What else??

It's not clear in the handbook, or did I miss a page?

[firemac 135]

I find the inst reading on the 4.3 pretty useless, to be honest. On the 4.2 you could toggle between inst & overall avrg but the really nice thing about the system on the 4.2 was that the inst result was displayed in numbers instead of the bar graph - much more user-friendly IMHO.

[ProfHall 0]

I must say I find the average consumption figure a total con! Mine can give a reasonable 42+ but when I do an accurate calculation the truth is always in the region of 4 or 5 less.

[Awebb180 18]

I must say I find the average consumption figure a total con! Mine can give a reasonable 42+ but when I do an accurate calculation the truth is always in the region of 4 or 5 less.

Same with most manufactures my current non toyota is 1.7mpg down on actual mpg but my miles to empty is surprisingly accurate and a better indication

Alex

[firemac 135]

I must say I find the average consumption figure a total con! Mine can give a reasonable 42+ but when I do an accurate calculation the truth is always in the region of 4 or 5 less.

Same with most manufactures my current non toyota is 1.7mpg down on actual mpg but my miles to empty is surprisingly accurate and a better indication

Alex

It does vary. We had two 4.2's, one was bang-on with brim-to-brim calcs the other was about 10% optimistic. Our current 4.3 under-reads about 2% compared to b2b calc.

[ProfHall 0]

Just rechecked, recent average figures are in fact higher by approx 2mpg (44+) against the actual of 37+.