Small 4x4 truck with best fuel economy?

Muskeez

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My current work van will be dead soon, and I'm thinking of getting a small pickup with 4 wd to use for work/highway miles, that can double as local deer hunting and ice fishing rig. This would save a lot of miles on my 3/4 ton diesel and make it last longer. I'm open to Chevy colorado/ford ranger/ tacoma/ almost any brand actually. It has to have 4x4 and my biggest concern is fuel economy after that. Anyone want to share thier experiences, likes, dislikes? I've found that some of these small trucks don't get any better fuel mileage than a half ton.
 
FWIW my F150 gets similar mileage to the current line of Tacomas. It may be 1 or 2mpg behind the Taco (EDIT based on examples below my F150 gets better mileage ~20 unless on interstate which is ~18.8) AND I get the advantage of having room in my truck. I feel like if you're over 5'10" the tacos physically make you hurt the way you sit. Truck box space is epic compared to the taco also.

A guy at my gym has the Colorado with the diesel and it gets great mileage but fuel is almost 20% higher so it's probably a wash.
 
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I would avoid the tacoma. My Silverado 1/2 ton had way better gas mileage and was way more comfortable to drive .The tacoma was a blast to drive off road, but was otherwise not worth it. It's also not a very comfortable cab.
 
FWIW my F150 gets similar mileage to the current line of Tacomas. It may be 1 or 2mpg behind the Taco BUT I get the advantage of having room in my truck. I feel like if you're over 5'10" the tacos physically make you hurt the way you sit. Truck box space is epic compared to the taco also.

A guy at my gym has the Colorado with the diesel and it gets great mileage but fuel is almost 20% higher so it's probably a wash.
all of this ^
 
Bingo.

Given your requirements I'd at least consider getting a AWD SUV, a lot of the new ones will get 2X the gas mileage of any 4wd vehicle on the market.
We got a RAV4 hybrid, awd and gets 39 mpg on average. The real winner is that it gets over 500 miles to a 12 gal tank. Toyota says it’s rated at towing somewhere around 1700lbs, though I haven’t tried that at all.
 
I was uber interested in those until i saw the 10k dealer markup. Simply pissed me off so I said to hell with those.
It seems that any new vehicle in demand is experience the same issues with markup.


For simply running around in I think they would work quite well. My guess is based on the huge demand for them we see other small pickups enter the market. I want to drive a front wheel drive model as I suspect that would be great in most situations and when the snow gets really deep I could drive my 3/4 ton. Truthfully I really like the idea of a smaller vehicle as parking my megacab is a PITA sometimes and a small truck would be a lot easier to get into spots.


I'm also curious how long until they have an electric maverick, shouldn't' be more than a year or 2.
 

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