Camry hybrid: how is DI working out?

[supton]

Wife is complaining about low mpg on her 2021 Camry hybrid. It has 116k on the clock, not quite 5 years old, but apparently it's in the mid 30's for mpg. I'm 99% sure it's because we've had a cold snap lately, and the Blizzaks I just put on are not helping. But I just went through the rear brakes so they would stop dragging and supposedly no change. I do 5k OCI's but have recently changed to Supertech 0w16 instead of Mobil 1. It is coming up on plugs etc for service but so far, I haven't touched anything else.

Car doesn't get driven that hard, typical commuter duties. Was aligned last year I think.

So my question is, how are these working out? Any chance that this needs an induction cleaning or other? I realize it has the dual injection setup, so it should avoid woes... but are they?

Again, I think it's weather and tires, but I'm in the doghouse all the same.

On a recent trip I thought it was getting low mpg that seemed to get better as time went by. Like, the first hour was low 30's and the third hour was upper 30's (one of us does not drive like the other). This was repeated on the return trip. Very subjective I know.

 

[02SE]

Every vehicles overall MPG dives in cold weather. If it's still the same in May, then I'd reconsider there could be a problem.

I think you're spot-on in that it's the weather and tires.

 

[JTK]

What type of MPGs has it seen in the past?

Any of the engine tear-down videos I've seen on GDI and port injected engines, the valves looked just as ugly as GDI only. I still think this is more of a problem us car guys worry about that is not really a problem- for the most part.

 

[Geekhead]

Wife is complaining about low mpg on her 2021 Camry hybrid. It has 116k on the clock, not quite 5 years old, but apparently it's in the mid 30's for mpg. I'm 99% sure it's because we've had a cold snap lately, and the Blizzaks I just put on are not helping. But I just went through the rear brakes so they would stop dragging and supposedly no change. I do 5k OCI's but have recently changed to Supertech 0w16 instead of Mobil 1. It is coming up on plugs etc for service but so far, I haven't touched anything else.

Car doesn't get driven that hard, typical commuter duties. Was aligned last year I think.

So my question is, how are these working out? Any chance that this needs an induction cleaning or other? I realize it has the dual injection setup, so it should avoid woes... but are they?

Again, I think it's weather and tires, but I'm in the doghouse all the same.

On a recent trip I thought it was getting low mpg that seemed to get better as time went by. Like, the first hour was low 30's and the third hour was upper 30's (one of us does not drive like the other). This was repeated on the return trip. Very subjective I know.

I find winter drops about 20-25% from summer

 

[Leo99]

My old non hybrid Camry is at 29.6 mpg on the dash with a lot of highway driving. My average speed for the past years is 39 mph.

 

[Oliveoil2]

Snow tires and the cold! Double whammy. Just keep the tire pumped up.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Mid 30s during really cold weather and with winter tires doesn't seem all that unusual to me. I'd wait for warmer weather before jumping into any other conclusions.

 

[M.F. Horn]

Winter tires that hug the road surface create a lot more drag. Even if they were just new all-season tires, they'd create more drag. Winter blend fuel. And then cold weather, meaning the engine runs a ton more to stay at temp.

I just did a little experiment (yes it's a bit crazy, but it was my first tire switch on my first hybrid) with my 2025 FWD Camry Hybrid LE (205/65/16) with 26,000 miles on the odometer. I took off the stock Goodyear Assurance Rangemax tires and put on new Goodyear Assurance Maxlife 2 tires. They had a plush ride and nice predictable handling, but MPGs dropped. So I took those off and put on Pirelli P4 Persist AS plus tires, and got way better handling, a firmer ride but still soft enough, and slightly improved rolling resistance over the Maxlife 2's. I then took those off and put on some Conti True Contact Tour 54 tires. Ride feel over bumps is similar to the Pirelli's, but handling is not as refined, especially around corners. However, the drag was not bad at all, similar to the original Rangemax tires with 26k miles on them. All 3 sets were fairly quiet and did well in the snow with the Maxlife 2's maybe doing the best. If I didn't care about maintaining that hybrid drive feel, I would have kept the Pirellis. I'll be keeping the Tour 54s, which do have a low rolling resistance designation, and from my experience with these 3 different tire sets in the course of less than 2 weeks, that designation makes a big difference.

With a hybrid, it doesn't take much to bring the MPGs down, and not just MPG's down but the drive FEEL. New tires give more drag, you hear and feel the engine kicking on and off a lot more, coasting to stops have shorter distances, accelerations from a stop feel more sluggish, more battery power is needed to keep it rolling in EV mode, the engine has to rev more to get up to speed, regen durations are shorter. Most people probably just drive them and don't think about the feel stuff. They may notice the MPG drop though.

Long story longer, I'm averaging around 42 MPGs right now. Last summer I was averaging 55mpg with mixed city and highway driving. On paved backroads I could get in the mid 60s consistently, sometimes in the 70s. It's just the free-rolling tires I had on there...it would coast forever. We'll see what the Tour 54s can deliver next summer.

 

[brages]

On a recent trip I thought it was getting low mpg that seemed to get better as time went by. Like, the first hour was low 30's and the third hour was upper 30's (one of us does not drive like the other). This was repeated on the return trip. Very subjective I know.

Possibly - rich at startup, then engine had to run more in the first 20 minutes or so in order to provide heat. After that, the average rose steadily because you were running a warmed up car with warmed up cabin. Also, car was using the batteries less in the cold before they warmed up, and possibly diverting power to electric heat.

If you warmed up the car before leaving, that's a bunch of zeros that are getting averaged into the mpg, but as you drive more, the initial zeros become a lower proportion of the total gallons consumed and drag down the average less.

 

[supton]

Car isn't allowed to warm up, regardless of weather. Get in and drive.

Sorry for the delay, wife said she'd enter in the logbook, 'cept I had to this morning. 220 fillups, fun typing. So for 2021 through almost all of 2025... pretty decent mpg.

There's an anomaly at the end of each of those years... that's my fault. One of drives faster than the other, and it's my job to drive for the holidays. So a blip can be ignored, especially since it's Jan that gets the real cold.

 

[supton]

2025 is a mess.

Looks like the rear brakes froze up at one point, and doing a brake job fixed that.

I did work on the rear brakes again, but she's insisting that it's still low on mpg. I still think it's tires plus temps, but to be honest, I need another tank or two to see the trend. Edit: Oh, dummy me. She started a job in August, more highway than backroads. I think she's getting hit with highway mpg too, she started that in August, so maybe a couple mpg from that?

 

[ATex7239]

Our Sienna Hybrid takes a big MPG hit during freezing weather. Batteries don’t function optimally in extreme heat or cold especially as they age. That said I’d change the spark plugs and start running Gumout with Top Tier fuel. Do y'all using Top Tier fuel regularly?

 

[supton]

Car is garaged, not heated but usually above freezing. Is seeing more cold starts at end of shift though, so that is a variable. If so, ouch, its quite an extreme change.

Top Tier typically.

 

[rijndael]

Snow tires and the cold! Double whammy. Just keep the tire pumped up.

Triple, if you count winter blend fuels.

 

[Hermann]

So far this late fall and early winter my mileage has improved. Its not been particularly cold or warm for long stretches. Mostly my increase is probably due to reducing my interstate driving by 70%. Another thought line is my Frankenbrew . The Maverick Hybrid transitions between ICE and EV mode is super smooth. Best its been since new. Yes it is thicker. Yes it's a Euro blend mixed with a half quart Castrol 0W-16 and Mobil 1 0W-16.

On my current tank, one trip of 80 miles only netted 36 mpg 20° out at 55-65 mph. We will see how this one comes out. Winter is just beginning we'll see.

 

[ATex7239]

Welp probably the Supertech then

 

[M.F. Horn]

Triple, if you count winter blend fuels.

Quadruple if they snuck in a higher percentage of corn in to the gas.