2005 fuel milage

[ChrisOlson]

Hello ALL

I have a friend that has a 2005 single cab 4 X 4 CTD

she says she only gets 14 mpg highway or city she has 30000 miles on the truck She drives very conservatly.



comments or advice would be greatly welcome.



chris.

 

[AMassaro]

Does she jack-rabbit red light to red light? How about mph on the highway. If you keep her under 65, preferably 60mph, I can get 19-20mpg highway. City is another story. Depends how much stop and go I see, but I get more than 14 in the city. How about the maintanance? Air filter, fuel filter, etc... Has she taken care of these things?

 

[donnier]

My 05 is basically stock and I get between 18-20 on the highway.

Keeping the speed under 75 which is around 2100 rpm is a good idea

Around town I usually get 15 or so. Depends on how much stopngo is involved.

I may get a little better mileage because I dont have the additional drag of the 4X equipment.

 

[DieselFiend]

I'm getting really poopy fuel mileage with mine. 13-15 MPG. Doesn't really matter if I'm in town or on the highway.

 

[ChrisOlson]

hello again



she has no mods or bombs



SHE does not race, she does not speed, does all her maintence. she is very unhappy

with her dodge she will probally go back to a ford she bought the dodge because she was unhappy with the service at the ford dealership. but her ford got way better fuel Mileage. I reccomended the dodge took her for a ride in mine. showed her my spread sheet on fuel mileage. she likes the dodge but the fuel Mileage thing is really getting to her I said to wait till 20000 miles it would get better,

it has not. and it has 30000 miles now does she need a reflash or something?





thanks again

 

[AMassaro]

I don't know of any flash for the 05's... ... Sorry



Maybe she can take it in and have them run a diagnostics check. Maybe she's got some bad injectors or maybe the timing is off somehow.

 

[PWitteveen]

I have a 2005 QC that is bone stock and I run as high as 20 mpg if I keep my speed at 60 or lower on the highway. If I run 70, I get 18 mpg. On the tankfuls with just around town driving, I average 15-16 mpg. My mpg doesn't go that low until I'm pulling my travel trailer. This past summer I averaged 14-15 on a trip from Michigan to North Carolina.

 

[RRees]

Could it be, because of climatized fuel up in Alaska that you are showing lower mpg?



Does she do alot of driving with the 4x4 engaged?

 

[JERRYKAM]

You didn't mention what type of loads the truck has been hauling. If it has been used as an "around town" truck all its life then it is entirely possible the engine was never really broken in. As a side note the longer a CTD is driven under light load the more difficult it is to break in. Cylinder wall glazing can become a real problem. Based on my research 30K miles should be sufficient to break in any engine provided it sees at least a modest amount of heavy hauling.

 

[DieselFiend]

No offense to anyone but I just don't believe the 20 MPG claims with the 05's and up. The EPA has literally sucked the MPG out of these engines. It wasn't so bad with the 04's and lower because the EPA wasn't as strict with them. You'll definetly see much better mileage with an older 3rd gen. I'll be lucky to get 16 MPG if I'm driving the highway at 65 and I'm easy on the throttle. I might believe it with the 6 speeds but definetly not with the autos.

I did have a reflash that was supposed to help out but it just didn't happen. I got maybe . 5 MPG better per gallon. I did use a demo smarty for a week or so and was able to see 18MPG which was a vast improvement over stock.

Also, towing my 25' travel trailer, I'll see 11 to 13. Nothing to brag about thats for sure. Now, if I had done my homework before I purchased my 3rd gen, I probably would have kept my 2nd gen which I regularly saw over 20 MPG.

Also, these are also hand calculated numbers.

 

[RCupp]

Does she have 4:10 gears in it??

My '03 has 3:73s and got 23 on the highway/19 around town

'til I put the 315 tires on it and it sucked down to 15-16 avg.

 

[RStamand]

No offense to anyone but I just don't believe the 20 MPG claims with the 05's and up.

I'm not offended and you still don't have to believe me but, I have hand calculated every tank with the exception of the first. Through this summer until mid October I ranged from 19. 5 to 20. 8. Since mid October till present I'm between 18 and 19. 2, some of this was four wheel drive in the snow, some might be ULSD, some might be winter fuel.

05 4x4 Quad auto 373 stock

 

[DieselFiend]

RCupp brings up a good point. At about 28,000 miles I went with a different wheel and tire setup which probably contributes to my MPG loss. Still the best milage I saw with my stock wheels and tires was 18 MPG and that was with a strong wind at my back going east through wyoming. But, on the highway, a larger wheel/tire should give you a little bit of an advantage.

 

[thejeepdude]

The bottom line is this... you're either lucky or you're not. My '05 4x4 gets 18-20mpg on the highway. If I keep it at 65, it's a fairly consistent 19. 5 hand calc. My best tank was 20. 1, all highway. My friend's identical truck with almost identical build date is lucky to get 15-17mpg in the exact same conditions on the exact same trip. We can't figure out if it's a result of engine or drivetrain inconsistencies, but there's got to be some difference somewhere! He's just hoping it gets better with time, and I'm just glad I got lucky. FWIW, the reflash from about 6 months ago did give him about 1MPG improvement. All it did to mine is make the overhead lie more!

 

[brods]

hello again



she has no mods or bombs



SHE does not race, she does not speed, does all her maintence. she is very unhappy

with her dodge she will probally go back to a ford she bought the dodge because she was unhappy with the service at the ford dealership. but her ford got way better fuel Mileage. I reccomended the dodge took her for a ride in mine. showed her my spread sheet on fuel mileage. she likes the dodge but the fuel Mileage thing is really getting to her I said to wait till 20000 miles it would get better,

it has not. and it has 30000 miles now does she need a reflash or something?





thanks again

Does she let it idle a lot?

How does she calculate her mpg?



Depending upon the truck's build date it may have a reflash available for mpg/white smoke at startup. Do a search on it. The tsb lists the engine serial numbers that it covers. Mine is a early 05 and its engine serial number was in the range for the reflash (haven't done it for fear of the dreaded E17 recall).



Mine averages 15 mpg overall. Lowest 12 mpg towing, typically 15 mpg town and 18 mpg highway. Maybe could get 20 mpg by never exceeding 55 mph on the highway (speed limit 70 mph around here). 36K and no noticeable change in mpg since new.



Unless she drives at 90 mph, 14 mpg highway sounds low.

 

[JDerrick]

I was hoping to see better economy with my 06' right off the bat. This is not so for me either. the last few trips on the interstate even in cool weather ( 20 deg f and below) the best I have seen is 15-16 ish. Not very appealing for my wallet compared to my 99' auto that would regularly numbers in the high teens to low 20's on the highway with avereage speeds of 65-75 ish ... . I was hoping to see some improvement at least to 20mpg after i have put some miles on it. Only time will tell. I am not looking forward to spending $900 bucks on an X tuner or the product from TST just to get some economy out of the truck.

 

[Hoagie]

If you live in Alaska I presume she plugs her truck in in the cold weather. My truck takes a long time to warm up that big iron block. The engine runs richer when it is trying to warm things up.

I suggest that she pay attention to her rpm's-1400 to 2000 rpm and shift. If auto let it shift in that range. I had a friend go on a trip with me one time (900 miles one way) and he drove the tach to 3000+ like his H2 hummer and thought nothing of it. I corrected him and explained the difference and he found out the beauty of the diesel torque in the torque range.

I suggest synthetic oil for its better flow characteristics in cold.

Tow economy chip got me 2+ mpg driven this way.

Hoagie

 

[abdiver]

I only have 7000 miles on my truck most of my driving is into town and back hardly get into 6 gear mostly winding roads so use 5th I usually get 13 to14. On trip to Az I was getting close to 19 mostly freeway but I was doing 70 to 85. Hoping to get better mileage as I get more miles on truck

 

[amsoilman]

I have an '03, and if I keep the R's below 2K, it will do very good on the freeway, which is about 19 MPG. Not as good as my older '94, but then it has MUCH more power!

 

[JasonBrown]

I have a 2005 QC that is bone stock and I run as high as 20 mpg if I keep my speed at 60 or lower on the highway. If I run 70, I get 18 mpg. On the tankfuls with just around town driving, I average 15-16 mpg. My mpg doesn't go that low until I'm pulling my travel trailer. This past summer I averaged 14-15 on a trip from Michigan to North Carolina.

Same as above for me. Of course, if you look at our sigs, we have the same truck.