MPG reports

[Kry226]

I tow a ~7500lb 24' enclosed trailer on roadtrips each month. Have gone thru a lot of tow vehicles. https://www.turbodieselregister.com...O-BABY-IS-A-VM-MOTARI-ECODIESEL-RIGHT-FOR-YOU

Most recent tow vehicle was an 2000 F-250 Powerstroke diesel. 2 weekends ago I did 542mi round trip and got a surprising 14.4mpg. Tow speed 62-64mph. That's an honest 1mpg better than I'd have gotten in the "pre-EPA" and therefore very efficient Powerstroke big diesel. I've a buddy with a late model Cummins and his EPA choked diesel couldn't quite get the mpg that my older rig could.

I've done a number of similar roadtrips now with the Ecodiesel. The picture that is emerging is that as long as you keep the engine in it's comfort zone, that is to say not tow something that needs a sustained 400ftlbs, it will give you better mpg then a big diesel. If I my trailer was 2' taller, for example, the edge in mpg would probably disappear. If I was pulling up mountains a big diesel would probably get better mpg then the straining Ecodiesel.

In 2 weeks I'm retracing the same route, Savannah, GA. to Road Atlanta, a race track N. of Atlanta. Next month I'm towing the trailer to a race weekend in New Orleans, a round trip of 1300mi.

So what was your EcoDiesel towing mileage?

 

[RangerGress]

So what was your EcoDiesel towing mileage?

I may have caused confusion. The F-250 is long gone. The trip above was with the Ecodiesel so 14.4mpg.

 

[Waldo Pepper]

Mine has about 5100 miles on the clock, and average MPG is 25mpg running 72mph in Ozark Hills moving our house stuff loaded with trailer loaded. Empty running same trip it was 27mpg, had one trip south in Arkansas to visit a friend and with no hills and only two stops and 55mph speed limit trip averaged 41mpg which had me near dizzy with wow factor. When doing 65mph it gets 31/32 mpg range. A friends new 1500 5.7L V-8 has as yet to get north of 17mpg highway, and his truck stickered $1200 more then mine.

Not sure why the site will not let me edit my profile so I can put in info on the truck and myself.

 

[Waldo Pepper]

Well it just let me into my profile...when I picked correct tab.

 

[sag2]

This is for the quad cab long bed 4x4 with 3.55 axle I had for work. Pretty impressive mileage numbers and I never babied it. The overall average shown includes the 614 miles pulling a 5k travel trailer twice up highway 88 to Tahoe. The highway mileage, LA and back was mostly at 75 mph. Overall I am really impressed with the performance and mileage of this package. The down side is the limited GVW and cargo capacity. Towing is also very impressive. On the first trip up to Tahoe I average 12+ mpg going up. It never lacked for power, but it really could use an exhaust brake for the downhill sections. It downshifts to try and keep the speed in check but with no real engine braking it is not the perfect towing machine the HD truck is. But the 8 speed transmission is fantastic.

 

[Waldo Pepper]

This is for the quad cab long bed 4x4 with 3.55 axle I had for work. Pretty impressive mileage numbers and I never babied it. The overall average shown includes the 614 miles pulling a 5k travel trailer twice up highway 88 to Tahoe. The highway mileage, LA and back was mostly at 75 mph. Overall I am really impressed with the performance and mileage of this package. The down side is the limited GVW and cargo capacity. Towing is also very impressive. On the first trip up to Tahoe I average 12+ mpg going up. It never lacked for power, but it really could use an exhaust brake for the downhill sections. It downshifts to try and keep the speed in check but with no real engine braking it is not the perfect towing machine the HD truck is. But the 8 speed transmission is fantastic.

View attachment 90024

Pretty much same with mine, and I sure love the way it drives on our hilly, curvy highways here in the Ozarks. I have been down in NE Arkansas flat country with 55mph speed limit where it averaged 41 mpg, but here in MO Ozarks cruising 72 to 73 in the 65 mph zones so it won't downshift on the 15% grades.

I guess you had the low end work truck, forget what they call it, but your gage cluster is a lot different then mine. I have Big Horn with dual exhaust, 5.5' bed, and most of the options. Thank God it doesn't have leather seats, I hate leather and the vinyl seats cause I seat like a pig in them.

My oil stays clean almost like a gasser, no soot output like my diesel cars of the past. Also oil loss from CCV system seems non existent, which is nice for a change and hope it mean no intake soot/oil fouling of the intake like the diesel cars had in '90's thru '05 that I had.

 

[wanderson]

This is for the quad cab long bed 4x4 with 3.55 axle I had for work. Pretty impressive mileage numbers and I never babied it. The overall average shown includes the 614 miles pulling a 5k travel trailer twice up highway 88 to Tahoe. The highway mileage, LA and back was mostly at 75 mph. Overall I am really impressed with the performance and mileage of this package. The down side is the limited GVW and cargo capacity. Towing is also very impressive. On the first trip up to Tahoe I average 12+ mpg going up. It never lacked for power, but it really could use an exhaust brake for the downhill sections. It downshifts to try and keep the speed in check but with no real engine braking it is not the perfect towing machine the HD truck is. But the 8 speed transmission is fantastic.

View attachment 90024

I agree with you on the exhaust brake! I really miss the exhaust brake I had on the 2010 Ram 2500 pulling my TT around in the Colorado Rockies. Maybe this will be a consideration on future Ecodiesel models.

Wayne...

 

[KBurgoyne]

That is not all that great for a 3.0L. If I get on the freeway and hit cruise at 75 I could get the same. I don't get why they didn't just drop the 4BT engine in. Its the 5.9 with two cylinders chopped off, so reliability is a guarantee plus the torque you get, and probably better mpgs. Sure it would shake some and it weighs 800 pounds, but hey its a diesel.

 

[Simplysmn]

We just picked up a Jeep GC eco Diesel and Love this thing so far best mpg has been mid 30's all freeway around town we are doing high 20's

 

[photowrite]

Speed has been 65-70 m.p.h and the mileage is staying between 26 and 28 m.p.g. The DEF is another story, it is supposed to go 10k miles and it does not look like it will. I have over 3600 miles currently and I am below the half way mark on the DEF gauge. The gauge showed 100% at delivery, not sure if it was a full as it could be though.

Interesting about the DEF on your 3.0. I was against buying a new diesel with DEF (partially because I had a good, old 7.3L) for years until I got one... I'm surprised at the low DEF consumption on my '14 6.7 at 3,000 miles. Of course I've not towed much with it yet, but it looks like 10k for a refill will be easy. I'm interested in other DEF consumption or lack of with the 3.0 engines.

 

[Simplysmn]

On the Jeep GC eco diesel so far the def useage has been low have over 5000 miles and still have right at 3/4 tank but it has only been in town n freeway use no towing .Have the Truck for that .

 

[RangerGress]

Interesting about the DEF on your 3.0. I was against buying a new diesel with DEF (partially because I had a good, old 7.3L) for years until I got one... I'm surprised at the low DEF consumption on my '14 6.7 at 3,000 miles. Of course I've not towed much with it yet, but it looks like 10k for a refill will be easy. I'm interested in other DEF consumption or lack of with the 3.0 engines.

10k between DEF fills might be optimistic. If you get really low on DEF the truck is supposed to start warning you that it won't start after XXXX more miles. So once the DEF gauge gets into the red most folks will figure it's time to get some more DEF, vs. letting it go for another month. Sure it's an 8gal tank but if you aren't comfortable with the DEF gauge in the red, it starts looking a lot like a 6gal tank.

I'm at a bit over 10k miles and I've gone thru 11gal of DEF. Call it 900mpg. I tow for a long road trip each month so ~1/3rd of my miles are towing. Every couple months I pick up a $12 jug of DEF while wandering around Walmart or Home Depot on some other mission. I could just as well make it every 4 months and pick up 2 jugs. Only take a couple minutes to pour the stuff in. Whole thing is a non-issue.

 

[photowrite]

10k between DEF fills might be optimistic. If you get really low on DEF the truck is supposed to start warning you that it won't start after XXXX more miles. So once the DEF gauge gets into the red most folks will figure it's time to get some more DEF, vs. letting it go for another month. Sure it's an 8gal tank but if you aren't comfortable with the DEF gauge in the red, snip...

The EcoDiesel has an 8 gallon DEF tank, bigger than the 2500-3500 Ram? Interesting.

 

[Roc Doc]

I'm a manufacturers rep, and my territory is all of AZ plus So Nevada, so there are lots of mountains and wide open spaces.

Trip to Vegas from Phoenix via Lake Havasu got me 26.7mpg, at 5mph over the posted speed limits (70-80mph). Combined with three days of city stop and go, with plenty of sitting in the parking lot engine running while making calls or responding to email, I still got almost 25mpg. I think I'll be able to average over 24mpg.

I know the big cummins motors get better with breakin, but is there any real evidence that these small high efficiency engines will do the same?

 

[Roc Doc]

10k between DEF fills might be optimistic. If you get really low on DEF the truck is supposed to start warning you that it won't start after XXXX more miles. So once the DEF gauge gets into the red most folks will figure it's time to get some more DEF, vs. letting it go for another month. Sure it's an 8gal tank but if you aren't comfortable with the DEF gauge in the red, it starts looking a lot like a 6gal tank.

I'm at a bit over 10k miles and I've gone thru 11gal of DEF. Call it 900mpg. I tow for a long road trip each month so ~1/3rd of my miles are towing. Every couple months I pick up a $12 jug of DEF while wandering around Walmart or Home Depot on some other mission. I could just as well make it every 4 months and pick up 2 jugs. Only take a couple minutes to pour the stuff in. Whole thing is a non-issue.

If you can believe the gauge, I'm at 7/8's with 1500 miles on the clock.

Also for you folks that live in high temperatures, and you want to have some DEF on hand, store it indoors.

 

[SHobbs]

So far I am averaging 26.5- 28 mpg, my best so far has been 28.6 mpg hand calculated. I am coming up on 30k miles and everything has been flawless, no issues at all. The DEF I stopped keeping track of due to the colder months, I was only filling it about 3/4 full. Now that it's warm I will track it the next time I top it off and see what it's running.

 

[Waldo Pepper]

Mine has about 5100 miles on the clock, and average MPG is 25mpg running 72mph in Ozark Hills moving our house stuff loaded with trailer loaded. Empty running same trip it was 27mpg, had one trip south in Arkansas to visit a friend and with no hills and only two stops and 55mph speed limit trip averaged 41mpg which had me near dizzy with wow factor. When doing 65mph it gets 31/32 mpg range. A friends new 1500 5.7L V-8 has as yet to get north of 17mpg highway, and his truck stickered $1200 more then mine.

Still doing about same for MPG except when I'm driving it like I stole then it will drop about 3 to 4 mpg but truck it still cheap to drive.

My DEF gauge is strange, when filling from 1/4 it only takes 5gal to hit full, and then it take 3gal more to fill to get to full. Then I can get another 2.5gal if I take it to very top of fill tube, but I only do this if headed for a road trip. Filled to overflow it goes about 12,000 miles or more. I have 16,4xx as of this morning and it's still a love affair with the truck.

I know of 4 people in my area with this model truck, all but one reports similar MPG overall as mine, other one is a lower geared (3:90 I think he said) quad cab truck with long bed and trailer brake option. None have had any problem with their truck either, I think one guy is in the 50,000 mile range on his work truck.

 

[TboneMan]

Shobbs, I see from your signature that you have the air suspension system. How do you like it? I'm considering adding it when I order one of these trucks.

 

[SHobbs]

So far I am happy with the air ride. Where the system really shines is when the truck has a load on it, the ride is better than conventional springs and the auto leveling is a good benefit to have. Empty it still rides like a truck but with a softer ride it that makes sense. It also helps when changing the oil and the fuel filter too.

 

[Roc Doc]

At speed aerodynamics is the biggest contributing factor in efficiency. Driving to Yuma yesterday I had a headwind/crosswind, and it dropped my MPG's to below 24. Fiat, er Ram has made an effort to make it as slippery as possible, but it's still a big old brick. My Volvo S60 was low and had a very good aero number so wind didn't effect it much.