I've been here a little while gleening tips on increasing MPG and fuel consumption.
I drive a '08 International
Prostar.
Picture #2. My APU is tucked underneath the ground effects blocked my the exhaust pipe.
The company I work for "seems" to be forward thinking.
All of our company trucks Have APU's (that on average, burn only 1 gallon of diesel fuel per 8 hours of running vs. approximately 1 gallon per hour of the truck idling.)
Super-singer tires on all tractors and many trailers.
All trucks have the half moon wheel covers.
A turbo boost guage.
A large portion of our straight frame trailers are equipped with the sideskirts (from between the tractor wheels to the trailer wheels). Other trailers are drop frames (that drop down 15" right behind the tractor wheels) sort of creating their own skirting.
On top of all these, they have a fuel bonus incentive. If you maintain an average of 8mpg or better per quarter, you will recieve a $ bonus. If you're the best MPG out of the company for that quarter, you'll win a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
I've been here one year plus, and in the last 5 months started trying.
The fiscal quarter ending Jan 31, I won the regular bonus with a MPG of 8.19, 17th out of appx. 1,100 trucks. The bike winner won with a 9.2. I don't know if I can beat that. The upside is, you can only win the bike once, so second place can win; My friend won his $25k bike with second place numbers that way.
In the past months, I completely changed my way of driving -- before I discovered ecomodder. Trucks now usually come with an "
instant MPG" setting on the odometer. I now only drive wearing crocs or plain barefoot. When I wear work boots, it's hard to feel the pedal and MPG goes to sh*t for the day.
I rarely use the cruise control unless I'm in a flat region. I still kick it off and use my foot when I come to an incline like an overpass to keep the turbo boost as low as possible.
Although I have a truck that will run 70mph, I cut myself back starting with 65, with little noticable results, then down to 60-61mph most times. Depending on traffic, I might go slower. When going down hills, I coast with my foot completely off the pedal. I'd experimented with Georgia overdrive, but have had better mpg without it. Go figure.
When I'm not on the highway, I try to time my starts and stops. Starting a truck from a deads stop kills my mpg, even when I take it really easy.
I'd like to have prepass for the state weigh stations, because, depending on which state I'm in and the scale location, I either have to stop, or slow down through them. Slowing is better, but not stopping at would be the best. And it seems like a large part of weigh stations are located in valleys, so it takes alot to get that momentum back. When I have to go to a truck stop or a rest area, I try to keep the location in mind. I love the ones that are at the top of hills!
We have an
onboard monitor that I record and clear the data every day so I can track my strong/weak points.
It's hard to get decent mpg when running dedicated to the northeast cities, but it can be done, even without prepass and easypass for tolls.
So far, with only until the end of april left, my figures show that I'm averaging 8.605 mpg for the qtr, and today, so far I'm running 10.1, but my load only weighed 7k lbs. Now I'm empty, so should be able to maintain. Not to shabby considering that truck mpg averages from 5.5-6.
Thats all I can think of for now... lol.