34-36 highway? Holy crap, that's in my Mercedes diesel sedan territory! Now you've got me pondering another toy lol
My highway average is 25-MPG. That’s at 1,100-lbs above delivered weight.
35-MPG means a further savings of 15-gals every 1,000-miles highway. $75. (50% highway annually at 7,500-miles makes it $560 at $5/gal).
$10/week , (2) gallons.
Higher the MPG, the lower the percentage gain. Break 20 and it doesn’t matter too much how much higher it goes vs the 15-17/MPG most CTD owners settle for. The price — the value — crosses lines at about 22-MPG.
So how does it do with 850-lbs permanently in the bed of a 6,000-lb truck? As it weighs less, let’s go with 14% as that’s the same ratio. Otherwise it’s 75% of the same weight given the F150 may be 6k, whereas empty-to-empty was 87%. Or make it 1/2 of posted payload if one wants (same ratio of that number).
FUELLY shows the F150 diesel with the same average MPG as I see:
19-MPG. I’d bet those trucks are empty.
An empty bed means the wrong vehicle was chosen.
Initial purchase price plus higher maintenance just kills diesel (government interference designed to cripple the logical powertrain choice).
Big truck MPG continues to climb. A 2023 is
significantly better than a circa 2003. Not true for CTDs.
I can bobtail in a fleet tractor more than twice as heavy as a 3500, twice as tall, with a 15L ISX (more than twice the size of the 6.7L) and — with no head or crosswinds — hit 12-14/MPG.
Add a 15,000-lb reefer trailer with but 20,000 in the box and staying at above 8-MPG isn’t difficult.
Gimme a tailwind and its double digits grossing 54,000-lbs.
Empty truck MPG means the use is out-of-spec. Test correctly and make appropriate claims as to MPG.
The pickup market isn’t aimed at economy and hasn’t been since the late 1960s. Yet that was its original strength: a low-cost farm & ranch hybrid vehicle. They’re just wringing as much money out of a 1940s design as they can until
kaput.
Had Detroit been given the go-ahead to be serious about pickup trucks they’d have been kin to the AMC Hummer since the days of Ronnie Raygun. An American Pinzgauer capable of
far more work given attachments.
But family farms aren’t on the agenda, either. Better for them you should buy a trailer, a tractor, a skid steer, a loader . . . .
.