Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

I sold my Titan(loved that truck) 3 weeks back and bought a Prius. I did all the arithmetic, and I know that breakeven is waaaaay off in the future. Still, I remembered a $80 fill up post Katrina. Fillups were pushing $65 3 weeks ago($2.50/gas and a 28 gallon tank). It was just killing me to get so little change from $100 bill. My annoyance overcame my math. There were other factors-wife hated to drive the Titan, and it was too big to easily park so my son never took it to school. They love the Prius. The Prius is a much better 2 greyhound in the back vehicle than my extra cab Titan.On very short trips with a cold motor I'm getting 38-40 mpg(2.5 miles). The Titan got 12 mpg with a lot of effort on the same trip; with no effort the Prius gets 38-42mpg.It is a nice ride-not as stiff- also.
Oh well, it was a good trade off. The Prius is a better evac vehicle than the truck. We had 3 cats and 2 dogs to haul in the truck and the Pilot. The Prius can handle 2 dogs more comfortably than the Titan. I had to pull the backset out of the truck to make it two mutt capable. Thanks,Charlie

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

My wife wants to use the Honda next week for a series of 150 mile round trips. My Subaru is out of commission, and I have a meeting every day, so I need to be in my suit. I wouldn't mind using my motorcycle, but I don't want to deal with helmet before a meeting. I might be stuck with the truck, and the 500 miles worth of gas it seems to enjoy drinking. I love the truck! It pulls a fair amount of weight, and is nice and roomy, but it is just very thirsty.

Merigayle, I wanted to put headers and stuff on our Dakota. It's rear wheel drive, and really quick. After seeing your husbands mileage, I'm happy I never had the money to do it!

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

They are very good for the size engine they have. The current model is rated 18/28 with a manual tranny. I have no trouble getting 29 in mine without trying hard at all. Almost hit 40 once using hyper tricks.

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

Another thing to think about that I think a lot of people forget is that iFE s not only based on engine size but also on weight and drivetrain. For instance, I corvette with the 5.7 L or now even the 6.0 or 7.0L engine has a lot of power between 355, 390, 400 or even 450 or more HP with the 7.0 L so most people think that the engine is instantly burning fuel. However, the corvette is very light weight (I believe 3000lbs or so) and it does not take much power to get the car moving and even less to acclerate when up to speed. With the vette, when you get on the gas and in higher RPM's more fuel will be consumed, but when just crusing along at speed the engine only needs to use 12 to 15 HP or so to keep the car moving. However, take say a Chevy Silverado or a Surburban (Over 5,000 lbs) with say the same 6.0L engine as in the corvette. The Surburban has a lot more weight to move, which takes more power or more fuel with the same size engine. Sometimes, I am a strong believer that depending on the vehicle an underpower engine can be worse than a larger more powerful option. I hope that makes sense.

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

This does seem to be the case. A friend of mine has a business and gets a new SUV every couple of years. One year he downsized the engine in hope of getting better mileage and instead his mileage went down (or so he says). Now he is running a 3/4 ton pickup with a huge diesel that has lots of power and gets good (for a truck) mileage.

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

I believe the same thing, I have a 5.4 Liter with 300 HP however, I feel the engine is some what underpowered for the 5,700 pound truck. A friend has the 6.8L V10 and he gets about the same mileage as me(10-11 MPG)! I wanted the 6.0 Diesel with 325 HP and 570 ib/ft of tourqe but I could afford the extra $6,500 premium (about 20-22 MPG).

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

My sister's F-250 PowerSmoke was showing 14.5mpg on the trip computer last Christmas, although probably due to a fair amount of idling. Then again, even warmed up, after I reset it and did some driving around Rocky Mountain national park I had a lot of trouble improving on that. I was very disapointed to see that if you never got much over 35mph, it was impossible to best 15mpg or so, even with the diesel.

https://www.greenhybrid.com/share/fi...owerstroke.jpg

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

I did the same thing about 3 weeks ago - I traded in my 05 Titan SE King Cab 4x4 (with less than 6k miles) for my 06 HCH II. I actually made out pretty good on the trade as I got $21K for the titan and got the 06 HCH II for $22K plus tax and tags. With the fed tax credit and pa refund, the HCH II was under $19.5K. The only reason why I got a hybrid instead of a regular civic was that I didn't want to get hammered on the trade - the dealer would give me less if I bought an LX or EX. Sort of screwy, but this was right before the gas prices spiked so I'm sure they would have offered me much less now. The ironic part was only offered $19K back just after the gas prices spiked for Katrina. I'm glad I waited. The ironic part of it was that the dealer is now trying to sell it for almost $26K - when I paid about $24.5K for it new.

I really miss my truck - loved the way it drove and ran - but did not miss the mileage it got (between 14-15 mpg on the highway, 12 in the city). I made the trade as I switched jobs so my daily round trip commute went from 40 miles per day to 160 miles per day. I figured I'm saving about 7 gallons per day so at $3/gallon, that's about $5.5K/year!

Re: Filled up wifes Dodge Truck...need defib!
 

There was an article in the Washington Post, interviewing people at a gas station in Fort Lauderdale. One woman was complaining about how much it took to fill her Mercedes 500SL. You know what? Why don't you interview the single mother digging change out of the seats to buy enough gas to get to work at McDonalds? If Ms. Rich ***** doesn't want to pay so much for gas, she can afford to go out and buy a more efficient car.

I think it was the NY Times that had an article talking to a guy who worked for the Petroleum Institute (or something like that). He said that their profit margins aren't really any more than those of the pharmaceutical industry. I'm thinking that's not a group you really want to compare yourself to.