Blendo

My truck was fuel efficient. One MPG per cylinder usually

2005 Ram SRT-10 with the Viper's 8.3l 10 cyl. I think the best I did was an average of 11.2mpg on 100octane. Having 'fun' would be 8.5 - 9mpg plus rear tire costs at about 500 a pair!!

Good times though. Nothing more fun than blowing the doors off of a mustang/camaro/corvette/import with a 5500lb truck with the aerodynamics of a 4x8 sheet of plywood!

I do miss the torque... and shifting at 2000rpm in city driving.

Triple-H

I hear ya! I was sitting at a signal light minding my own business coming home from Home Depot with 3 sheets of 1/2" 4x8 plywood, about 6 2x4s and 2 4x4s for a little project I was working on. I had only had the Titan for a month or so and the thrill of romping on it was still fresh. This silly kid pulled up next to me in a Sentra Spec V and started reving me. I was like WTF, I've got lumber in the back... Well I knew I had tied it down well so when the light turned green I just slowly buried the gas pedal. That poor Sentra ended up behind me so darn fast I nearly split a gut laughing so hard. Some people just have no clue how much power some of us are packing.

undertow

Still have my 98 Frontier 5 speed 4cyl that gets about 27mpg hwy. It's been a good truck over the years.

It's a shame the compact pickups are going away these days. The new Tacomas and Frontiers are more mid-sized now. They still get roughly the same gas mileage as the old compact versions but they're a bit clumsier to drive. I think the Ford/Mazda is the only compact left.

Chris S

I won't miss the compacts a bit when they're gone! If you have a full size truck, it's not likely you'll ever regret picking it over a compact one.

jah

i had a 85 tacoma, sold it for $600 last year, 260Kmi on the clock

bought a 99 110Kmi v6 auto xcab tacoma for $8K, again last year.
i upgraded the shocks, springs, added a rear sway bar, helper springs, new bumper and tow electricals, filters, fluids, brake pad/fluid, plug/wires. kinda difficult to work on, the service manual is odd, only avliable in a paper copy no cd.

it seems to tow a trailer + 3K lb car excelent in town. you really need the trd super charger for the large hills. with the super charger there is a fuel kit etc and you will have to use premium gas.

this is the first auto i have had in my life, good for towing, i would like a stnadard for the snow ice this year in colorado.

very solid ride even though i have towed alot with it. gas milage is at the level i can tolerate if i elect to drive it for a week. my dd is a 92civic-vx with 45mpg.

Triple-H

Oh man, how true is that...

This is one thing I have found to be very difficult to explain or get other people to grasp. I drove small pickups for over a decade and when I started test driving full size trucks I could not help but ask myself why I had not done it sooner.

And the irony is, my '05 Titan with a 5.6 V8 gets almost the same fuel economy as my old '95 Hardbody with the 3.0 V6. In simple terms I'm buying about 4 to 6 more gallons of gas per week and that small amount of money clearly makes owning the Titan worth every one of those dollars.

sodaking663rd

wow that's a big ass four cylinder!

jah

i guess the key here is i had the same pickup truck (tacoma) for >20years before buying a new one. if i had to sell off my vehicles i would keep the tacoma because its reliable, low cost to own.

i had a C10 in the past and the maintance was a pain, recently a friend sold his full size because it was not predictable on what would go bad next. i can fix the bad but it just takes time out of my live.

bottom line... what are you going to do with the truck


with gas prices high i dont like to be seen in a truck, just looks like you hung with stupid too long and were the last one out.

Chris S

Ever think that perhaps people w/ trucks need their utility (service businesses, motorcycle/ATV riders, boat owners, etc.) or make enough money that high gas prices aren't going to kill them?

When I factor in tire wear, more frequent oil change intervals, and premium vs. reg. unleaded, my Avalanche probably cost less per mile than the S2000, and is much, much more practical.

Call me stupid if you want, but I love it and there's no way I'd want to trade it for a less useful but more fuel efficient vehicle. Gas is a very small % of my monthly expenditures, and rising prices aren't going to make that big a dent in my budget.

vader1

Sure they pack some power but I would not go overboard, they still test out to 60 in over seven and a half seconds. Torque is fun but can be very misleading. My buddy makes claims about how fast his Hemi Ram is (which tests about the same as the Titan) and he trys to race everone when I ride with him to show off, and most of the cars on the road if they decide to play keep up or spank him. Seven and a half to sixty is great for a truck, don't get me wrong, but it was the same time as my V6 Alero, which was not a speed machine by any means.

And like the C&D comparo, the Ram and the titan got sub 13 mpg. If he was looking for fuel efficiency, 12 is not that great. And it might not strain you budget but say an extra five gallon a week at $.50 a gallon average cost is $650 a year. That extra $650 might be a bigger deal to some.