Why I Strive For MPG In A Big Pickup

[AndrewJ]

While I don't necessarily agree with the safety argument in larger vehicles, I certainly agree that larger vehicles have a place in the ecomodder community.

Lets face it, we are all at the forefront of a movement that will sooner-or-later sweep the nation as gas prices (or availability) become major hurdles for the continued functioning of our way of life.

We need representatives from all sectors of the motoring public to begin modifying their vehicles and driving habits for maximum efficiency. That means people with small cars, big trucks, old cars, new cars, heck even SUV's.

The sooner we can identify and implement the best efficiency-boosting techniques for each vehicle type the better off we all will be when the poo finally hits the fan.

As far as trucks are concerned, there are ENORMOUS gains to be made in trucks and I'd like to congratulate Big Dave for making such headway with the gains in his truck.

Think of it like this: if you take a 15mpg truck up to 20mpg, and you drive 30,000 miles each year you've saved 500 gallons of gas.
If I wanted to save that much gas driving my 40 mpg car 30,000 miles per year, I'd have to take that 40mpg up to 120mpg!!!

Multiply Big Dave's results by a few hundred thousand trucks on the road and you've got some major improvements to our fuel situation.

[Gone4]

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

While I don't necessarily agree with the safety argument in larger vehicles, I certainly agree that larger vehicles have a place in the ecomodder community.

Lets face it, we are all at the forefront of a movement that will sooner-or-later sweep the nation as gas prices (or availability) become major hurdles for the continued functioning of our way of life.

We need representatives from all sectors of the motoring public to begin modifying their vehicles and driving habits for maximum efficiency. That means people with small cars, big trucks, old cars, new cars, heck even SUV's.
...

I agree with you completely - up until the SUV's... I never feel as much contempt as I do watching people drive in an SUV alone with nothing in them. And there are MILLIONS of people doing it. It's a disgrace. Trucks definitely have a place, though.

[Frank Lee]

I feel that contempt even more so when they are all sitting around idling thanks to auto-start happy idiot ***** owners.

[personx]

I used to drive a large passenger van for work and I noticed that on these back roads around here it was better to have a full size truck coming the other way than a little car. these are un-marked roads here and the trucks always pulled as far to the right as possible. the little cars never did move over even alittle, hogging the road. never made much sence to me because if we were to meet they would have faired pretty poorly.

my personal pref. is for little cars but I pull over as far right as I can in them too.

[Daox]

First off I'm glad Big Dave is okay.

My beef is not with people who NEED a truck, van, or SUV. Its with people who DO NOT NEED them that drive them around like a trophy that says 'I'm sucessful'. The same goes for those people who park their gigantic SUV in their 4000 sq/ft house that only two people live in. Those are the people who are driving gas prices up for everyone and increasing emissions. Of course, we all share the brunt of their stupidity.

The premise of buying an SUV just for safety is just not smart. It is and has been proven by crash testing (sorry, don't have any links on this). If you want the safest vehicle to drive around in you do some homework and buy a safe vehicle. It likely won't be an SUV.

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

Think of it like this: if you take a 15mpg truck up to 20mpg, and you drive 30,000 miles each year you've saved 500 gallons of gas.
If I wanted to save that much gas driving my 40 mpg car 30,000 miles per year, I'd have to take that 40mpg up to 120mpg!!!

Multiply Big Dave's results by a few hundred thousand trucks on the road and you've got some major improvements to our fuel situation.

Lets say half of the people that own an SUV-Truck don't actually have a need for them. If they realize this, and go from a 15mpg SUVtruck to a 30mpg car - that would be 1000 gallons of fuel saved over 30,000 miles

When the guzzler laws (and current loopholes) were written. Trucks and the equivalent SUVs made up less than 25% of the market share of vehicles sold. Around that time, 1 farmer fed ~6 people. Nowadays, 1 farmer feeds around 121 people... For some reason, the decline in farmers has yielded an increase in farm equipment... irony

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But all that above is wicked hard to accomplish. Changing people's minds is damn near impossible. People need to change their own minds But that can't happen until people are properly educated (the other day, I was attempting to explain why 4wd doesn't increase braking ability... I don't think the message set in though) :/

[NoCO2]

What trebuchet03 said is completely true, I couldn't agree more. People have to make up their own minds about change. Unfortunately, in America (and possibly other places), stupidity seems to have run a muck of society. Everywhere I look in the suburban area I live, I see more single passenger SUVs with huge, inefficient wheels on the road with every passing day. Thankfully many people around here are starting to realize the errors of their inefficient ways and are starting to change, but the majority of people can't seem to grasp the big picture that they are contributing to the problem with their SUVs and driving habits.

Just the other day, I was trying to explain the sudden change in my driving habits to my girlfriend of 3 years now. Up to this point I have never really cared about gas, then I started paying for it and my world flipped upside down (financially anyway). She couldn't understand why I kept putting the car in neutral to coast and why I drove so slow. I told her the reasons for savings gas and why I did what I did, but she would not be convinced that any of it really made a difference. I even showed her the proof of my millage increases and she attributed that to the fact that I must have done more highway driving them usual on that tank because that's the only place your fuel millage can just increase without doing major changes to your engine. Now, I love my girl to death, but sometimes she can be as stubborn as an ox. This just happens to be one of those times and I just gave up trying to explain it and told her she could keep her 240 miles/tank and I'll keep my 500 and we will see who's car breaks first.

[8307c4]

I will say thou, I am pretty sure my next car is going to be either a bmw 850 or a Ferrari Mondial, nothing smaller than a v-12 so when I step on it the sound and smoke spewing from the 4 tail pipes should finally get the message across.

I would get the Bugatti Veyron but it's too expensive, even older Lambos are not cheap...

Because why fool around with anything that gets double digit mpg when I can get less than 8 miles per gallon! I want the kind of car that when I pull in to a gas station the price of fuel jumps by 50 cents all across the United States, yes sir!

[Gone4]

Originally Posted by NoCO2

Just the other day, I was trying to explain the sudden change in my driving habits to my girlfriend of 3 years now. Up to this point I have never really cared about gas, then I started paying for it and my world flipped upside down (financially anyway). She couldn't understand why I kept putting the car in neutral to coast and why I drove so slow.

I'm in the same process with my gf actually
She knows it can make a difference, I'm just not sure she takes me seriously yet.

[Big Dave]

At one time a SUV was a unique vehicle. Jeeps and old K-Blazers, etc. Now they are minivans with an extra drive axle. At diesel sites, I dog on SUVs as poseurs. My criterion is simple: A real off-road SUV has mud and scratches in the paint. No mud or scratches, you are a poseur.

I am a little puzzled that the venom for SUVs is not equally applied to minivans. Are you that afraid of Momma? Minivans get horrible MPG, too. They are operated (usually) in an method guaranteed to get poor MPG. They have the aerodynamics of a box of Wheaties. If any vehicle ever made that should be a hybrid it is the minivan with its stop-and-go mission.

Yup. Kinetic energy. It does you no good to have only a small amount of KE if you do not have the traction to deal with it. I don’t know whether the Toyota had poor tires or poor ABS or what but it was a two-dimensionally ballistic object on that surface. Because of my narrow tires (inflated to 90 psi BTW) my truck did as good jeepers in Colorado counseled was effectively riding on “pizza cutters” that reached down and found some traction. Even though my KE was much higher than theirs, I could manage mine and they could not manage theirs.

Yup. The conditions were exotic. Maybe three days a year even here on the frozen steppes. But then me getting that close to idiots is a fairly exotic occurrence, too.

As we watch some of the guys wrestling with aerodynamics of short, brick-like cars a pickup does have one thing going for it: Length. That long bed gives you some space to taper the wake down with building yourself a very long tail. Yes, I need it because of the height of the cab.

As AndrewJ noted, a relatively small improvement in pickup MPG could have an enormous effect on national fuel consumption. I think I can coax 30 MPG out of this beast (in summer). While there is no EPA number (for whatever credence you give that number) for pickups over 8600 GVW, the best a similar truck gets is about 17 MPG. That would give me a 75% improvement.

Yes, compromises will have to be made. That is always the case when you seek performance. But compromises have their attraction. If I can get 30 MPG, haul my 4x8s and 2x6s and not expect to be mashed like a bug by an idiot in a lifted F-150, that is an acceptable compromise.

The guy who drives the powered street luge can throw rocks.