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I had a '96 Chevy K1500 (4X4 half ton extended cab 6.5' bed) that I put 140K miles on from new until I retired it to my nephew in '11. I kep a fuel log notebook in my rides and that truck saw a lifetime 14 MPG average. It was my commuter vehicle for about half my time owning it and it towed our 6500lb boat during the Summers on countless trips to the bay and lakes. It too always had a cab height bed cap on it. It was also my vehicle used for all of my Fire Dept use as it had the radios, lights and siren in it. It saw lots of cold start "spirited" driving responding and more than a little bit of on scene idling at times. The best I ever calculated was 18 MPG on a 300 mile round trip with a light load and no towing, and there were a few single digit tanks.
I replaced that truck with an '05 Ford V-10 4X4 Excursion that saw about half of my commuter miles in the first two years I had it. Over that time it too averaged 14 MPG. The big wagon is now our dedicated tow rig for our 11,300+lb Travel Trailer and sees very little unloaded miles. It gets between 7 and 9.5 MPG towing the big TT (19,500+lbs combined weight), which is actually pretty darned good, all things considered.
Since 14 MPG was my standard mileage for so long it is the benchmark that I now use to calculate the fuel gallons & dollars saved on each fill and (since my ownership) lifetime on my Metros (2 '94s, 1 retired and a very clean XFi I'm driving now) and an '01 Suzuki Vitara 2.0 4X4. Both Metro have more than paid for themselves and the Zuk is nibbling away at it's purchase price that was higher, and it see much less miles than the Geo.
14 lifetime is pretty decent for a truck that sees a good deal of work, we here tend to focus on our high(er) mileage results and forget about all those "normal" folks out there in the world getting that kind on mileage as regular part of driving.
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