[slowmover]

Well, here's a bookend to this thread:

Had to make a run to Houston yesterday to buy an RV air-conditioner. Cost of freight on that item was high, and with no local deals worthwhile, I took advantage of being in a big metro area to source a few other things for truck & trailer along with a truck service not available to me elsewhere.

In trip-planning the roundtrip point-to-point was 407-miles. Additional miles was figured at 80 (dependent on locally sourced information this might be higher, potentially lower. In fact it was much higher). True cost was around $230 (cpm calc), of which $110 was out-of-pocket when food/misc is included. Freight "savings" was about $180, plus a labor expense of $40, so $$ is a wash, thus, "success" [break even] in a full day of working the truck as the aforementioned exclusive service was also done.

Filled up first time the night before and hit the road at 0430 to make the 0900 service appointment. Fog for over 100-miles made it a stressful dark-o-thirty drive with that 99% humidity and temps mainly in low 60's. Had to move at 65-mph to be on time for about half the distance.

Returned last night by 21:30. Engine run time was 11.25-hours for an average of 47-mph. Felt like I was never out of the truck over that 17-hours, but 5.75-hours says otherwise (truck drivers are allowed 11-hrs driving in a 14-hr workday). Minor crosswinds outbound & inbound with temps from low 60's to mid-70's for the most part. Truck was heavy with a lowered rake on the way back (full-timer "trunk junk" and had to load the 105# A/C unit and new 90# Class V hitch receiver; respectively, at the very back of the bed, and literally just beyond/below the crossmember = pendulum effect) and A/C was on most of the day.

Fuel burn was 26.8-mpg where 360-miles was country, and 170-miles was Houston metro ("town" miles). Went through [22] engine starts with [17] departures.

Filled second time at farthest point from home, and then again the third time a few miles prior to final shutdown. Nearly the same distance and nearly the same rate of consumption. Made a point of using SHELL diesel as some hotshotters claim better running & mpg versus the more usual VALERO diesel. Might be something to that. Used the last of a gallon of SCHAEFFER's #131, so the combo worked well. OFL and new fuel filter the past two weeks. Tire pressure at 55-psi all around.

This is the first trip of any distance out-of-town on this truck in 1.5-years.

Keeping shift points low is really working well. I was figuring fuel cost at 16-cpm but came in at .145 instead.

I have been working from the premise of 21/town and 24/country when driving for economy (hottest weather excepted) over the past couple of years. Now have seen that 23/town and 26/country while solo is possible (all other conditions basically favorable). The last 2k miles have averaged 23.8-mpg . . nice to see that extra 9%.

I now feel it safe to estimate country miles at 4-gls/100-miles solo for level terrain & mild climate. This is versus quite a few -- maybe most -- diesel pickups at 18-mpg/country and is worth just over $2000 every 10k/country at today's prices. More importantly it's a reduction of 550-gls to do the same work over the same miles.

(I'm a good ways away from new towing mpg figures, but if I extrapolate based on the type of solo improvements made in the past five years, I could see mpg going from 15+ to 17+. That's just barely beyond what others with my spec of rig are seeing -- 16-mpg high cited often -- so the potential is there as this would not be the high number for CTD/aero aluminum TT owners; or, 6-gls/100-miles [22-cpm at $3.79/gl].)


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