The Elephant in the Room

[Twerp]

It was a nice day yesterday, so I got under my truck and did some investigating. I found that when the truck rolls back and forth, the front axles turn but the front drive shaft does not. After looking at the owner's manual, I found out that it has an Automatic Disconnecting Differential. I guess I'm not the only one with ADD. So evidently the front wheels disengage at the differential instead of the hubs. Works for me, I guess.

[Nerys]

Thats fine then the added friction from the front axles is minimal at best IE you could not measure the difference with them off and the additional mass of the locking hubs would offset the friction loss of installing them. IE no gain. so No worries :-)

[MetroMPG]

Hey, Twerp - welcome to the forum.

Awesome avatar.

Definitely, definitely get a ScanGauge. It'll pay for itself in no time with the amount of fuel you'll be saving. If the price seems steep, I like to remind people that you could always use it for 6 months to fine tune your driving and then sell it later and get most of your money back. There's no shortage of people looking to buy these. (But I bet you won't be selling it once you get your hands on one.)

If I had a truck I was using for commuting, that'd be step one, followed immediately by driving adjustments. Have you browsed the list of driving tactics?

As well, I'd be looking into aero mods - particularly partial grille block and an aero cap. (I'll assume you've checked out the aero forum).

Can't fault Daox's advice about keeping your eyes open for a cheap, small beater, too.

It'll be interesting to see where you go with this.

[Twerp]

ScanGauge is definitely the first step. I still haven't started the new job yet, so hopefully my tax rebate will be coming soon and I'll buy the SG with that. I have read the driving tactics and I've already started to practice some of them while doing errands and such.

Once the SG is in place, I'll start experimenting with aero mods. I plan on doing an aero cap, a partial grille block, fill ins for the fog light holes and I'm going to experiment with deleting that front spoiler. Since I have really nice heated electric mirrors, I'd rather not delete those, but I may turn them in against the side of the truck and cap the ends of them with smaller after market mirrors. I figure I can at least reduce their profile that way. I've already picked up some beaded seat covers so that I can hopefully cut my use of the AC this summer. I plan on tinting the windows (although it is illegal around here).

As far as getting a cheap beater, well, that might be a bit challenging. Anything that's not completely destroyed around here costs around 5 grand. At least, this is according to my friend who searched high and low and finally ended up financing a brand new Toyota Yaris. I may follow suit or I may stumble upon a really good deal, but I need to pay some bills first.

[Daox]

Check www.craigslist.org daily. Theres always a deal lurking on there.