Head winds? Hills? I can tell you that running empty with my truck on a long haul will get me in the high 19's and low 20's depending on speed.
I was averaging 15.8 when the truck was my daily and that was probably 60% city and 40% highway miles.
I did have head wind going up to Alberta and a 30' 9000+ lb (shipping weight) mid level luxury fifth wheel so I'm not too disapointed with the loaded mileage... It's the empty mileage on the interstate with a tail wind I'm really stoked about.
My buddy has an 05 Duramax. He started with 13 mpg when he bought the truck brand new, now he has over 60k miles on it and he avgs 18 MPG city and Hwy. We live Seattle with lots of hills. When he heads to his property over 2 mt passes he gets about 22 mpg. Towing his bobcat in a 5000lb dump trailer he still gets 17 mpg. Chevy might be worth looking at.
With my Ford in the shop for over 10 days now I am starting to wish I bought a Duramax.
Giving GM some consideration but I had waaaaaaaaay to many problems with chebby years ago, pretty leary of them now. My brother won't buy a GM product any more because of recent problems with his Denali, his Yukon and my Dads suburban.
I personally never liked the interiors in GM cars either. I had great luck with my 93 Plymouth sundance duster V-6 that I finally sold a couple years ago, great fuel economy and extreemly dependable, no problems at all until the tranny went at about 130k
Rip off the muffler and cat, and do some sort of intake. That'll help out a lot. Give it that one last chance my friend.
Nope, She's history, cleaning it out and cleaning it up already. I feel like I'd just be throwing good money after bad which is a poor business decision. Putting as many miles on a truck as I am I have to act now. Can't stall on a business decision as it will bury you, been there done that and ain't gonna have the same thing run me out of business a 3rd time..... Happened twice before with big trucks.
Already have 125k on the truck and KBB trade in value in good condition in is right about what I owe which is $21k.
If anyone wants a good dependable truck with a clean CARFAX, new batteries, new tires and doesn't care about fuel economy....... $21k and it's yours, speak now or forever hold your peace, going shopping Monday or Tuesday.
I have other reasons for leaving Ford too.
- BAD price gouging in the Parts and service dept
- $100 fuel filters
- Pricing themselves out of reach of the people that made their trucks great..... The American Middle class working man.
- Forgetting a truck has to not only be dependable, but affordable.
- Forgetting that a diesel owner spends the extra 6 grand for a diesel powered truck not only for the power and dependability..... but the long term fuel savings too
- and it's gonna be even worse with 6.4 parts, EPA etc....
Sorry buddy, 6 Ford trucks over a 22 year span and they finally managed to lose me.