What is a "typical" unloaded fuel mileage for an 04.5 truck?

Im getting ~16.27 now after tracking it for a few weeks.

I went from 315 back to stock 265, with no change, and I have a 2.5" leveling kit in the front.

Ive done all the typical maintenance stuff, air / fuel filters with no improvement.

Any suggestions on how to improve the fuel mileage?

I try to keep it under 2000 rpm cruising, and around 1500 on acceleration from stop lights.

 

How true is the stock one on the roof? Mine says 23 ish, but ive never manually checked it. I do the same as you though. Another thing to do is stop slower. back out of it earlier when getting to a light/stop sign etc. Also use cruise control as much as possible.

 

Records. Practice. New attitude. The desire to learn and apply. To experiment (driving style, not gadgets). Bed cover & lose the level kit. Low rolling resistance tires (tread matters more than other considerations given stock dimensions). Etc.


Records for MPG


DTR: MPG


CF: Better MPG?


Mopar1973man: Better MPG


Cummins White Paper on Fuel Economy: Big Truck

Good luck

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Mine is about 6 off. Reads 20 all day long, and I wind up with an average of 16.

 

I'm 2WD and I average about 17.5 in mixed driving around town. hand calculated.

 

up north here it depends on the fuel. winter blend give me about 16-17 mixed driving and 19-20 on highway. During the summer i get about 18-21 mixed driving and 22-24 highway. All hand calc. but i do use the overhead as a point of reference. it wont be accurate, but it does tell me if i am doing better or worse in fuel mileage the way i drive.

Your biggest part is driving style. These trucks suck fuel from a stop. it doesnt matter if you hammer it to get to 65 real quick or slow and steady get up to 65. Stop and go driving kills fuel mileage on these trucks. My best record is 26.4MPG. i was driving from Washington to LA, CA. and when i did a 250 mile non-stop leg on I5 south in California where it was flat ground and cruise set to 65, thats when i pulled the 26mpg record.

Wide tires kill mileage too, just because they are smaller doesnt mean they use less power to push, its rolling resistance, and a AT tire will do worse then a highway tire.

 

Last tank...

O/H 22.8mpg

Hand-Calc 14.67mpg

 

Last tank 19.25 actual. Overhead 21.5 or so. That is empty, 90% highway @ 65mph.

 

I have an 03 autotran. I do all hand calculations since the overhead is so off. I fill it to the brim each time I fuel up when checking mileage. Locally I get 15 to 151/2, open road at 70 I get 18 1/2. Can get this usually up to 80. After 80 it drops quickly. I know manual trans gets a couple mile better. My truck is also a 3500 Dually.

 

As for the overhead... it lies!

 

My overhead readout is off by 7/10's (high). Have seen others indicating similar +/-, but I imagine they also do not have aftermarket tuners aboard (or taller tires, etc).

It's a fundamental to check the speedometer with against a GPS unit. I do it in 10 mph increments, starting at 30 mph and going up to 80 mph. Discrepancies are usually a percentage.

 

Went 425 miles 1 stop, through mountains (I-40 TN and NC) to SC for Christmas. Then two cold starts short hops and stops to about 650 miles total. 26.5 on the overhead, 21.5 actual, 58 - 60mph on the cruise and light acceleration. Empty, no bed cover, see sig for the rest. Had 28.5 on the overhead for a lot of the drive.

Average since I have owned it, hand calculated, about 15,000 miles, Commuting, city, hwy, some towing, is 18.0 Overhead averaged over 6,500 miles was reading 23.5. My spedo and odo is dead accurate at 60mph per gps.

bumping it up to 65mph drops it to about 19 actual. Faster than that is not pretty!

 

Saw one aftermarket performance tuner indicate that their poll showed 15 mpg overall average per CTD owners.

The other figure to know (against the overall average) is the overall average speed (as derived from the elapsed time counter::hourmeter). Above about 27 mph is golden, above 30 best. If the average speed drops to 21 or less the mpg goes in the . . . .

 

Tuned or not mine is off and the average varies. And the o/h will be off by a %age, not a set number. When the truck had less than 15K miles on it the overhead was only a very small percentage off, as the miles grew so did the error, I averaged a 17.3% error this year with a low of 10.6% and a high of 24.4%. Almost as if Dodge programmed it to read better as the truck got more miles on it, or as injectors wear they flow more per pulse and the ECM doesn't account for it. My SJR seems to add only about 2% to the error from running stock. My dad's 06 has about the same error as my 05.

If you haven't checked it in a while I suggest checking it again.

 

You are going to lose a little mileage from the lift kit because the truck riding higher in the front increases air drag. The faster you go the more difference it will make. I'm stock and get around 16-17 around home mixed driving and 20-23 solo highway on long trips. When I got the 23 (23.3 actually) I really drove like a grandma. All hand calculated of course. My OH actually reads low a couple MPG most of the time.