Why I Strive For MPG In A Big Pickup
 

There are idiots out there.

Had a close one today. An idiot driving too fast for the icy road hit his brakes, did a nice 540 and wound up coming at me in my lnae.

I had nowhere to go, so I hit the brakes and figured I'd scrub off some speed in a spin before I hit him.

The good news is that Ford puts fabulous anti-lock brakes on their pickups. the pedal buzzed and I slowed down dead-nuts straight.

Amazing how fast you think in these situations. I thought to get my thumbs out of the middle of the steering wheel so it wouldn't break my thumbs when the air bag went off. I also thought: "Hey! I've got a chance! Maybe a little slower and I can squeeze off to the right." Suddenly I knew I would stop in time.

A petrified codger and crone stared back at me - both of us dead stopped. I saw they were breathing so I figured I could not do them any good and my temper might get the better of me and I'd beat that old coot to a frazzle.

But there is undeniably an inexhaustible supply of idiots out there and if you drive enough, you WILL find one. Will you be able to walk away?

If I'd hit them, I woulda squashed that Toyota like a bug, but with seat belts. air bag and 7500 lb I would have walked away and had to wash codger and crone goo out of my AC condensor.

I ain't ready for the Promised Land just yet. I'll stay with my rolling fortress.

Glad to hear you're OK!

Stories like that are as good of a reason as any I know for everyone just to slow down a bit! Especially when the weather is less than perfect!

I'm not insulting your choice of a large vehicle here, but what happens when everyone owns a 7500 lb vehicle? Then you are just as likely to die as before. What happens when you hit someone in the truck and kill them, where they would have otherwise survived? Braking in a smaller car may have made that situation even less close by being able to stop sooner and definitely by being able to maneuver quicker and without fears of rolling. I'm not so sure I agree driving should be an arms race.

Regardless, it is good to hear a story that ends well.

Ah- so being chicken is a good reason for everybody to commute in full-size trucks and their derivatives. What about heavy duty trucks? Maybe you should commute in one of them... just to be safe.

Being able to manuever would not have helped at all. I was penned in by Armco.

Pickups are by nature treacherous to drive, being nose neavy. There is a Darwinian selection amongst pickup drivers. They either learn the limitations or they have wrecks/scare the bejeebers out of themselves and get rid of a vehicle they cannot handle.

There is also the thing about the "hauling stuff" mission. Pickups do that well. It just happened today that I was running empty.

That knucklehead doesn't know how close he came to dying a second time. If I had gotten out and gone over to him, I might have beaten him to a frazzle. Fortunately for him, I could see they were breathing and scared to death. I just minded my blood pressure and went on.

Or you could drive a 10-20 year old Volvo and probably be even safer.

What, did you think there'd be no Volvo nut here to sing the praises of his favorite brand? I've heard more stories of Volvos being mercilessly destroyed by driving mishaps, only to have their doors open and occupants climb out under their own power. And they only weigh about 3000 lb.

Wow Dave, that's mighty white of you, what a huuuuuuuuuuuuge favor you did them. :rolleyes:

I'll put the cost of my engineering cap/gown on three factors that were key here....

1. Tire selection
2. ABS
3. Quick Reaction Time

I'll put that same money on what wasn't a factor
1. Vehicle weight

So sure, you're pushing into the ground with more force - but you've got just as much more kinetic energy to deal with. The same reason why your car would just clobber that other car is the same reason why braking/maneuvering is much more difficult.

I'm not harping on you, just pointing out that it wasn't the big part of the truck - it was the driver, tire selection and non truck specific components...

Imagine how petrified Big Tough Dave is of bicycles and motorcycles. Do ya wear a helmet on stairways too? They are statistically the most dangerous of all.

c'mon frank... we got it the first time... While I share your sentiment for larger vehicles... I accept, at the same time, that nothing we say will directly sway someone's current vehicle (for a variety of reasons). I drive a MkIV Jetta - I'd love to get an even smaller car, but it's not economical for me to do so at this time - I'm sure plenty of others are in the same situation.

My point is - is it really worth it? If the answer is yes - my apologies, my troll shields must be to low :/

Come on, now. Play nice.

Obviously people will take different positions on the "rolling fortress" train of thought and where that might lead. I'm not inclined to get into the debate because frankly I doubt anyone here is likely to change their position!

So I'll just say: happy it ended well, and I'm genuinely glad to see you making an effort at efficiency given your vehicle choice.

http://tubearoo.com/articles/80799/M...kup_Truck.html I think you need a bigger truck, I was on the fire dept when a pizza delivery guy went up to the mines in a pickup truck and didn't pay attention to what he was doing. Same thing ended up happening to him.

I think feeling safe should be more along the lines in confidence in your driving and awareness of others. Size can help or hurt depending on the situation you find yourself in. I have been in situations that if I was in a car instead of a bike I would be hit and if I was in anything other than a fully caged race car I would have been seriously messed up. So drive what you want just be aware of it's limitations and what you can and can't expect it to do and you will be fine.

But if something is going to happen bad it really doesn't matter what you drive a truck can get splattered as bad as a car by a illegally overloaded semi crossing the center lane. I have seen both situations happen and it never is good for the non coal truck passengers.

Here's my winter beater. I think I could use some hubcaps.

Driving a big vehicle vs a current fully equipped sedan (safety wise) solely for the purpose of being "safer" on the road is plain stupid IMHO. All you'll do in the end is kill someone when you would have probably both walked away.

Dave I'm gald your OK.

Here's a list of the safe transportation.

Are pickups safe.
There is some goods link on there to.

I know you don't drive a light truck but..

It would be interesting to see data about the safety of large trucks, Hummers and SUV instead of what is just accepted as facts. The safety requirements are not the same as cars.

I guess if someones's top concern is driving the largest, heaviest, "safest" SUV/pickup out there and don't give a rip about the lives of other motorists, they could always drive a Navistar International 7300 CXT. It would flatten a Ford Excursion or a H1 and would only lose going up against a fully loaded semi or cement truck (or an M1 Abrams). It's the current top gun in the SUV arms race.

http://www.pickuptruck.com/html/stor...nal/page1.html

Let’s face it, we all operate in a couple of different continuums seeking utility, safety, and economy.

Nobody here has taken MPG to the max that I know of. The most energy-efficient type vehicle to move a human along the surface is a powered street luge. The CdA on that is nearly negligible and the weight is almost all that of the driver.

The extreme of the safety continuum would be to hunker in Cheyenne Mountain. That don’t get it either.

We all have to make our choices. Balancing safety/MPG is a matter of the old risk/reward thing. How much risk can you tolerate? How much reward do you need? Even hypermilers get tickets and have wrecks. Their per-mile low is very, very low, but if you drive enough even remote probabilities will catch up with you.

As far as safety, I do believe that damage control on the Titanic starts with “Don’t hit the darned iceberg!” In my case the excellent ABS on the ford did the job. I thought sure I was gonna hit those rubes. I had resigned myself into spinning into them. My old Chevy truck certainly would have but the Ford ABS brought me down fast and dead-nuts straight on a poor road surface. Yeah, I’m an engineer too and I know about F=ma and all that, but the fact is that the Toyota spinning into my lane was unable to get enough grip on the road and he spun. With a half-ton of iron over my front wheels, obviously I did get a grip and stopped.

I do think driver competence is paramount but it is not a fail-safe trump card. I have nearly three-quarters of a million miles under my butt and my insurance company considers me a preferred risk. Obviously, I drive to get good MPG, so I am hardly a speed-demon. But I drive a lot of miles and the law of large numbers is still working.

So I have to strike a balance.

I think ecomodding and hypermiling is good for society as a whole and the big numbers that little cars can rack up provide fine leadership, but it is important to remember that people buy different vehicles for different reasons. To concentrate of squeezing the last MPG out of a Prius (as satisfying as that would be) while ignoring larger cars, van, pickups, etc is an exercise in self-marginalization.

BTW, I do ride a motorcycle – a Honda Valkyrie (whatta gas-hog!), but I don’t ride it in “have-to-get-there” situations. If my butt is on a bike seat, a Bell helmet is on my head. Back in the 70s I trashed a Bell Magnum on a mailbox post and walked away.

Again, this is not how physics works ;)

KE = .5*m*v^2
Friction = Cf*m*g

More KE means more energy to dissipate while braking. You're increasing friction force while increasing the amount of power necessary to come to a stop in the same amount of time. As your ABS kicked on, that's case and point that your weight was not why you were able to stop in time... You have the braking power to lose grip with the road (and you did - ABS kicked on to manage it).

People do buy cars for different reasons... I may not agree, but accept this. But physics applies the same for everyone and I personally would like to dissolve these myths about heavy vehicles that are based on incorrect intuition.

We'll see who gets marginalized with $6 gas.

Here's a solution to the safety/ efficiency problems! A 4 tonne electric pyramid made out of bullet proof glass! It only cost $60,000 to make and seats 1.

But how many 4x8 sheets of plywood can it haul?? :)

Size and MPG
 

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 :thumbup:

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 :p

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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 :thumbup: 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) :/

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.

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!

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

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.

It's not the mileage of a minivan - it's the safety. Minivans must meet stringent safety protocols - and it shows...

In the event of an accident - here's the stats
Lincoln Navigator SUV:
Chance of life threatening head injury: 16%
Chance of life threatening chest injury: 20%
Chance of leg injury: 35%

Ford Windstar minivan
Chance of life threatening head injury: 2%
Chance of life threatening chest injury: 4%
Chance of leg injury: 1%


As long as you've realized that weight falls out of the equation :thumbup:


But keep in mind Dave, people aren't jumping on this for the economy (for the most part). It's the safety claim. To visualize in chart form....

http://forum.ecomodder.com/attachmen...1&d=1203132144

Those are real world results, not crash testing data as compiled by:
Tom Wenzel (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, CA)
Marc Ross (University of Michigan)

But the point is, SUV's aren't on the top 10. 3 minivans, 4 mid size, 1 full, 1 compact and 1 subcompact.

Ha, I just noticed the three subcompacts at the bottom of the list are all American. Maybe that's why small car's aren't economical for GM - their small cars kill their consumers :/

trebuchet03
I agree with those stats just from observation but have you found any statistic for deaths per miles on different cars and ages of drivers? It would be interesting to see the data broken down that way.

I'll have to hit the databases and see if I can find those :thumbup:

Oh, I forgot to mention that the above stats are based on deaths per 1 million vehicles.

Thanks that helps quantify it better.:thumbup:

Agh! My Cavalier is fourth from the bottom. I don't know whether to make a smart alec comment, or feel sick. Ok, I'll do both.

I"m gonna look for another Pinto, despite the exploding gas tanks. They're not even on the list. :)

On the feeling-sick side, that gives another point of view on my choice of a Civic or VW diesel for my next car.

The Cavalier and Sunfire are the same car, just rebadged. It makes me wonder if the "sporty" Sunfire attracts younger drivers who like to drive recklessly, I mean sportier. Hmmm, I drive the boring Cav. My 17yo nephew drives the sporty Sunfire.

Trebuchet, I also notice the worst 10 are *all* US models. Is this an international conspiracy to punish us for our patriotism, or just a stupidity tax on buying poorly made cars? ;)

Its Darwinian Theory at its best.
the stupidest get killed first. tongue in cheek.
btw i have my wife drive an Avalon.
S.

Remember what Disraeli said about lies and statistics, doncha? You can tortue statistics into telling you anything.

Where was the legendary Volvo and M-B.

I see the Corolla is above my F-series.

Anybody here wanna take bets on who would have walked away if my ABS hadn't saved the day?

I suspect those folks are reconsidering what they drive. I am not.

SUVs and pickups are top-heavy and the ever-present idiots drive them like sports cars. I'd be willing to bet that most of those deaths were single-vehicle accident where the idiot found something nice and solid to whack into.

If a person is driving for MPG that scenario is very remote.

BTW the car most involved in rollovers is the Corvette.

Safe they may be, but minivans still suck the gas.

More like a domestic conspiracy :D I personally wouldn't blame the international community for our shortfalling.

Yes, you can torture them a lot... But the coroner doesn't lie.

* I agree -- since the F-150 is the best-selling vehicle in the U.S., the odds would be more fatalities. There needs to be a ratio of number sold to fatalities...

Similar to: "Camry is the most stolen vehicle!" -- well, there's more of them out there.

* In response to the Cavalier -- they hadn't redesigned the shell for a long time and suffered from poor crash testing. The Cobalt fixed a lot of that, structurally -- and with availability of side-impact bags, improved that score as well.

* I say, let Dave drive his truck. He has a right, and he wants to get better FE, so he is here to do so. We may not all agree with his rationale, which is OK.

* I'm one of those people that disagree for the reasons mentioned. My goal is to not spread this idea of personal security at a sacrifice of others, and of FE. I agree that Minvans are also guzzlers. Choose the smallest vehicle for the job. It's cheaper to rent a truck/SUV/Van when you need it, than to own one.

In the meantime, I'll be at eye-level with many bumpers and hope I don't get pummeled.

RH77

The per 1 million vehicles does that ;) It levels the playing field by raising or lower the fatality number :thumbup:


I don't disagree (and I hope Dave understands that) - I just won't let physics myths perpetuate.

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But on the subject of those statistics up there.... No one has to believe them (which is totally fine). But, one place to look is an industry purely based on risk management.... Insurance...