expected mpg (Page 1 of 2)

I had a '99 with the 360 in it.  I'd normally get 12 with an empty trailer, 8-10 with a loaded one, at 65mph on flat ground.

Thank god I have a diesel now.  This conversation reminds me of the bad old days.

Maybe fly in and rent from a Budget and tow home vs driving down and back.

LOL well I suppose you have me there with the spark plugs.

The University of Mighigan Transportation Research Institution produced a study "Total Cost of Ownership: A Gas Versus Diesel Comparison" in 2013. In the Total Cost of Ownership section over 5 years 75,000 miles the Big 3 diesel 3/4 ton trucks on average save $510 per year. The Cummins in a new Ram 2500 is $6800 more than the optional 6.4 V8. Based on that it will take 13 years and 195,000 miles to make up the cost of the diesel power train.

Why?

The study he linked to takes into account depreciation which itself takes into account residual value.

Sorry, didn't read the article.  Disregard.

I would imagine that all those studies rely on the basis that these are daily use vehicles.  For me personally, I didn't see the point in daily driving a big stinking dizzle truck around just so I had something to tow my LeMon(s).  I was going to buy something for this specific need.  Everyone on here seems to prostrate themselves before the shrine of Rudolf Diesel so when it was time to shop for a hauler I gave serious consideration to a dizzle.  I was looking in the $5k range.  I tried to navigate through the minefield of which dizzle is better than the other.  It seemed like all the "good" dizzle trucks in that price range were beat to shit or already had 300k miles on them.  Or both.  I then started looking at vans because they appeared cheaper.  If the van was white and a diesel, it was beat to crap and was a stripped version.  I ended up buying a V10 XLT E350 15 passenger van for half the amount of the other stuff I was looking at.  All the ones I looked at were pretty well maintained and fairly light use.  Sure, the seats and carpets had small stains and such but that was nothing compared to what I was going to put it through.  He came down to $2500 and I was stuck at $2300.  We flipped a coin to break the stalemate.  My kind of transaction.  Anyway, it has power everything (a lot of the 15 passenger vans seemed to be loaded XLTs)

It's roughly a 1000 mile round trip for me to go to Thunderhill (my farthest race).  If you search for the absolute cheapest fuel at the moment, there is a 40 cent/gal difference between gas and diesel.  The pedovan gets around 11-12mpg towing but lets make it easy and say 10mpg.  Spank's dizzle truck towing is about 5mpg better.  So over the course of a Thunderhill race weekend, it would have been $135 cheaper for me to have a dizzle.  I'll need to do a fair number of Thunderhill races to make up the price difference between a gas and diesel tow vehicle.  Interestingly enough with that example, the gas-diesel break even point is about 4-5 years of racing.  Prior to this latest drop in fuel prices, diesel was more expensive than gas here in CA so the break even point is pushed out waay into the future.  I don't put that many miles on it outside of Lemons.  In general, going for the diesel just didn't pencil out for me and my specific needs.

I have found the van to be far more useful than expected.  All my friends make fun of the pedovan except with it's time for a team drinking event and then it's the go-to vehicle.  With 3 rows of seats out, it still seats 5 and you can fit rolling tooboxes, spare engines and all kinds of crap in the back and be able to leave it most anywhere since it's all locked up inside.  I've fit 14 ft beams inside with the doors closed.  A number of Spanks bad ideas have traveled in there.  The thing has humungo 4 wheel disk brakes and it blows up and down the grapevine at 65mph no sweat.  I give it 2 snaps and a circle.

I pretty much agree with Cheseroo. I own a first gen Dodge D-250 Cummins, king cab, 5 speed. Yes, it is a stout vehicle. While the legendary Cummins engine is reported to last forever, it does not have the torque of more modern, very complicated, very expensive diesels. Off the showroom floor, the Cummins 5.9 turbo lays down 400 ft lbs of torque, about the same as a 454 Chevy. My fully loaded 20' enclosed car hauler (7,500#) is all my Dodge can handle. I definitely need to upgrade to dual rear wheels for carrying capacity and safety. I am considering a late 80's Chevy crew cab, dually with a 454. Yes, I know it will burn more of that cheap gas than that expensive diesel, but it won't gel up in the winter, and I can fix it my self - SIMPLE

***Update***
To answer the original question:
8 mpg @65 mph
7 mpg if it's hilly

8mpg.

I counter with 9 mpg.

Back to the real subject of this post, why did 2-speed rear ends go away.  This seems like a viable solution to the heavy-hauler vs daily(still overbuilt) driver.  Not a great example but my dad's first tow vehicle for work was a 1970's double-cab dually with a 454, Rockwell 3-speed plus granny and a two-speed rear end.  No ideal what the two rear end ratios were but I remember them only being selectable at a stop.  There is no way the truck got better than 10 MPG in high, 3 on a level road at 55 mph but I so can see a modern truck having a 4.10, 3.33 selectable rear end.

My 2014 FJ Cruiser gets 19mpg HWY normally and 11mpg pulling 5000lb of racecar/trailer/stuff - 4L V6

YMMV, WAC, etc.

Toni

I was blown away how easy my buddy's 4.0 liter Nissan pulled the Fuego home on a dolly. Made my decision to buy a V10 F350 look stupid. I like those little pickups, particulary the Tacoma, but damnit there expensive.