First road trip observations......

[EMD-Run8]

Well, made my first real road trip this past weekend. Took the wife to WDW for a little weekend getaway. 430 miles from Pace to Orlando and I got 17. 67 mpg on the way down. I thought I was running about 75 at first but remembered the 265/alloy take-offs I put on had my speedo off so I was really runnin' in the 77-80 mph range with one short spell at about 83 or so. Coming back I got 17. 87 (all by hand calc) which seems odd 'cause it's downhill from north FL to south FL. I'll chalk it up to fuel quality I guess. Only now do I find out that runnin' with the tailgate down actually DECREASES mileage (not knowing EVERYTHING sucks!). Maybe I'd have topped 18 or better with it up----I dunno. Anyway, as I sit here sippin' a margarita (I have a great recipe by the way), I can't help but be a little peeved about my mpg. I know, I know, it's a 6000 lb truck with the frontal area of a Marmon cab-over but I ought to be able to get close to 20 flamin' miles per shouldn't I !!??? Does a front air dam make that big a difference? Mine got torn half off not long after I got the truck due to creative (hidden) parking barriers at the rail yard plus a real jackass moment on my part so I just removed it. I guess I'm just ticked because I have yet to definitely crack 20 mpg with the truck. Oh I've gotten real close----19. 93 and I think for sure I did once by a good margin when we evacuated for Ivan "the terrible" to Jacksonville, FL but I wasn't able to verify it because of fuel availability on the way back. Anyway, I'm gonna play around with some things like removing the TAG. I'm wondering if it really makes a difference with the 4" exhaust. I mean I could really tell the difference when the stock exhaust was on but after I put the Banks pipe in I wasn't so sure. We'll see, maybe an Amsoil drop-in filter or AFE or Airraid set up may help but geez those things are 300 bucks!! I just replaced the air filter element today with a Wix unit 'cause I think I may have run a little long on the air filter with 16,600 on the odo even though it didn't look too bad. I'm on my third fuel filter so I don't think that's an issue. What do ya'll think? Am I a fuel mileage geek or what? Oh!! I almost forgot-----the most impressive (and incredibly stupid) thing I saw on the trip was the dude or dudette who passed me between Lake City and Gainesville runnin' a GOOD 7-10 miles per faster than me in a Chevy Trail Blazer or GMC Envoy with a flat steel car trailer LOADED with a late model Camaro. I thought---WOOF!, until I saw how close he or she was following the fella in front of him. I thought Man----that load is gonna pile-drive that little SUV into whatever is front of him is he has to get it down fast. No tellin' how hard that little truck was runnin'!! Impressive (for the truck) but very, very stupid on the driver's part. I guess he made it. I didn't see the little thing in the woods anywhere!!

 

[ndennis]

Mine is a bone stock one similar to yours with 17k Kalifornia grown mileage and using Kalifornia low-sulpher fuel the best I could hope for is high 18's at 70 or less. Speed kills..... mileage that is. Another thing that I have not seen mentioned here is that these trucks seem love ligher ambient temperatures. My 2 CTD'd (one 2000 and one 2004. 5) get much better mileage during the hot days. We do not get the winterized fuel that the colder areas get and I know that it takes longer to warm these puppies up in the morning, but my figures show that I get better mileage during the hot days than I do with cool evenings. Going easy on the accelleration and short-shifting can get me 1-1. 5mpg during city driving. On the open road I set cruise for 68-70 and I can get close to 19mpg with a truck that weighs about 9000lbs. The 2000 on runs between Napa and Brentwood(CoCo County)can get 20. 5mpg at 72mph and probably better on longer runs... thats with DDII's and Edge EZ and 114,000 miles.

N Dennis

 

[rbattelle]

I just replaced the air filter element today with a Wix unit 'cause I think I may have run a little long on the air filter with 16,600 on the odo even though it didn't look too bad.

For the speeds you were driving I think your fuel economy was exactly what I would expect (maybe a little higher, even!). I recently slowed my cruise setting on the drive to work from 68 to 65 and picked up around 1 mpg, so speed is a HUGE factor. Anything over 2000 RPM and mileage drops like a brick.



Why do you think 16600 is too long on the air filter? Did it pull the filter minder down? I'm now running my stock filter until it pulls the minder down. I've got 22900 on my current filter... no change in the filter minder.



Good story about the doofus in the trailblazer.



-Ryan

 

[EMD-Run8]

I frankly don't trust the filter minder but I really just figured replacing it would be cheap insurance. Wix element was $27 and change.