Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Which diesel truck gets the best mileage?

actually , I beleive the Fords and Chevies still do have EGR and DPF like the Dodges.....the difference is they are using urea injection rather than injecting fuel into the exhast for the regen events .

Think I've sorted it out: Too much blue stuff?

Talked with a guy at our range t'other day, that was driving a fairly new F250 diesel 4x4. Claimed to get close to 22 MPG highway, kinda empty. Didn't stick around to see if he could shoot a rifle, too. ;O)

Well, either me or my calculator must be full of it. Made a 387 mile trip last weekend, filled to the brim when I left & filled to the brim when I got back. 17.1 gallons which, according to my cheap OfficeMax calculator is 22.6 mpg. Obeyed the speed limit (65-70) the whole trip. 2003 Cummins.

If you see him again, ask him if we could arrange for him to drive my '06 F-250 diesel. I'd like it to get that kind of mpg, but the best I've gotten with it so far is 18. Maybe he'd even let me tag along and learn some things.

I gotta be done with the deezils for a while.

In new/newish trucks anyways.

I do have a hankerin to hand select the best of the cummins offerings (bone stock and conservative on power)from the past 10-15 years. Focus would be squarely on dependability & economy, I don't need and don't want 700hp & 800ft pounds of torque. Put a manual trans behind it, a stout T-case feeding a pair of simple dana 60's with disc brakes and selectable lockers and put it all under a vintage ford crew cab long box with just enough lift to clear narowish 35" tires.

Well I had a long talk with my highschool buddy Bosco today! He told me that his 2008 Dodge 1-ton dually gets 15.3 going down the interstate at 70 mph. His rig has .373 gears in the rearend. He has close to 40,000 miles on the 6.7 Liter Cummins Diesel engine. He gets 11.5 mpg pulling a 5th wheel down the road to Florida. Coming back he only gets 10.7 mpg.

yep.

And that aint so bad when diesil is lower than gas, but that aint happened in a long time sustainably.

He can pull the ass out of a goat 24-7.... but how often does he need to?

That's why I went back to gas for a while here.

I am currently on my way to becoming a master diesel tech. I don't care who says what about my friends truck this my friends truck that blah blah blah. It all comes down to a few things when MPG is involved. GEARS....Gear ratios can make or brake millage, Driving habbits if they suck so does your millage, Fuel filters and Air filters keep em clean and fresh.

Do eary year Duramax (GM/Isuzu have injector problems yes LB7 LLY engines are known for them. Once they are swapped to an aftermarket part the truck is good to go.

Do Ford (International) 6.0 and 6.4 have their fair share of injector and egr and turbo related problems....YUP. Ford is going to TRY and make it better with the Scorpion.

Do your 5.9 6BT Cummins have known issues with bad diaphrams in the injection pumps....sure do. Does the 6.7 Cummins have a its problems, yup engine oil being diluted with with diesel fuel.

They all have problems they all have potential to get decent millage, your better bet is duramax or cummins in my opinion. These two engines are a stronger design that the 6.0 or the 6.4 Ford, not to say the Ford's have BAD diesels its just not as strong a design. If you don't believe it pick up a diesel power mag....both Duramax and Cummins can be built up to and over 1000 HP with aftermarker products. The Ford 6.0 and 6.4 Internationals can't really reach those numbers...but we will see what happens with the Scorpion engine.

Pulling a moderate trailer in MN/WI, etc. isn't a big deal with a gas motor, but it's a different story once you start hitting the hills anywhere. Once you start upping the elevation, even in SD the gas motors really start to show their weaknesses (my opinion).

It is a joke that diesel is as high or higher at the pump than premium un-leaded. Up near the Cities two weekends ago diesel is/was 3.49 a gallon. Still around 3.09-3.19 out this way.

It cost money to extract sulfur out of diesel (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel).

But that still doens't make alot of scents on why it is so high priced because refineries that extract sulfur from diesel make a profit on the extracted sulfur?

They charge it because they can. It has nothing to do with what it costs to make.

I have never encountered any problems pulling moderate loads in the Ozark Mountains and anybod who has been down here knows that these are steep long hills especially from Nixa to Harrison Arkansas etc.

My Superduty F-350 V-10 just walks the dog pulling 5,000 to 8,000 pounds. On flatland you don't realize you got that weight behind you, hills sort of ring the doorbell on a long grade at 65Hwy. Gas is 35 cents a gallon cheaper than diesel fuel and easy to come by most anywhere. If I really need to pull a house down the road, I'll just turn Ole Bull loose with it's 410 gears and that 7.3 oil leaking Ford, will simply roll on down the road without a care in the world.

First year LB7's had injector problems. They were improved. I know a bunch of guys with LB7's who are very happy. And the LLY is not "known" for injector problems because it doesn't have them.

GMC Z82 , best truck I have had yet

The computer on my '08 2500 DMax says 15.8 mpg...has a Banks SL tuner, Banks air box and Banks duals...3.73s....265/70/17 Duratracs....

Drive 40 miles of back roads to work daily and 240 miles of highways on weekends to camp...rarely tow....or run the SL...

Don't think the tuner has done anything for the mileage.....rarely have it above the 1 setting....about all it does is tell me the EGT and when the DPF is doing its thing....

BTW, no more Banks tuners for me....their service is the worst....

Computer mileage isn't accurate and with a chip whatever it says is meaningless. Hand calculate, you're probably doing a lot better than that.

I ran Edge/Attitude for a few years and liked it fine. They now have one that gives more power than what I had. The absolute best for a DMax is EFI Live. And I believe there's a DSP5 switch available now for an LMM and that's definitely the way to go.....5 tunes on the fly.

Come to think of it, the computer has been stuck on 15.8 since I put the tuner in......duuuuuuuuuuuuuh......while I am not hung up on MPG it would be nice to know what it's getting...

EFI Live's service has to be better than Banks'....

You're lucky. If I boost the power in my 6.0 it'll blow the headbolts off.

I know most people don't get that good, but a few do. I have one buddy that bought a new one, single cab. long bed, manual tranny. I would have to guess at the year but probably just prior to common rail injection.

We got 26 mpg on one trip and drove 65 most of the time. This was a 700 mile tour of AZ.

A current buddy has an 04 and was driving daily from Tucson to Florence and a fueled with him multiple times. He was getting 22 mph and ran 70.

My 2000 F250 long bed crew used to get about 18. When this new crappy ultra low sulfur stuff came out I lost about 2 mpg.

I rarely crack 17 anymore. 600,000 and going strong.

I got my first dodge diesel in 1989. Got a tad over 22 on the open highway, unloaded. Auto trans, 3.08 rear end. It wouldn't go much over 65.
My present dodge is an 06. Manual box, and standard rear end, (3.89 ?). I live in the mountains, so I get just under 18 on the current low sulfur fuel. With my fully loaded, 10 ft. Lance Camper, and towing my Jeep, it gets about 13.7 at 60 mph on flat highways. E