appropriate expressway speed?

Bedlam wrote:
What you missed is the faster you drive, the worse your fuel mileage. This requires you to stop more often to refuel which cuts in to the time you saved by initially driving faster. If you argue that your tank is larger allowing to go farther, you still lose additional time refueling your 50 gallons verses my 30 even if we make an equal number of stops.

If you look from the maintenance side, you have to run the engine and transmission harder (hotter) and put more centrifugal forces on your tires and lubrication. All of these things will have a shorter life span if you're pushing 20% faster over the same distance with all else being the equal.

:S :S

Lets do more math.

My Dmax gets 12.0 mpg towing my trailer at 70 to 75 mph. How do I know this? Because I towed the same trailer for 7 years with it and have tracked my mileage and every drop of fuel that goes in it when on vacation. I have done this for 10's of thousands of miles of towing. This year I almost put 5,000 miles on it during my vacation.

My Dmax gets 13.0 to 13.3 mpg towing my trailer at 55 to 60 mph. How do I know this? Because I live in a state that only allows towing at 55 mph so I track the mileage when I drive in state. I live in a big state so it takes me a while to get out of state so I have thousands of miles of fuel data in state that I have logged.

Now lets do more math:

If I fill my tank with 35 gallons of diesel and drive 55 mph at 13 mpg I can drive 455 miles.

If I fill my tank with 35 gallons of diesel and drive 75 mph at 12 mpg I can drive 420 miles.

So I lose a whole 35 miles per tank. WooooooooooooooW!!!! A whole 35 miles/ tank!!!! :R

Well guess what? I only like to drive about 300 to 350 miles per day anyway. So I only have to fill my tank 1 time a day just like if I drove 55 mph. You see, I like to take that hour and a half that I saved and stop at museums and parks and stuff like that. Where as the guy that drives 55 mph has to drive straight through because he lost 1.5 / day or whatever he loses.

Lets just say for some bizarre reason I have to fill twice a day to your once. It takes me no longer than 15 minutes tops to stop, fill and I'm on my way. Lets even say 1/2 an hour for some reason. I will still have more than an hour to do with what I want to but you will have to drive that hour.

As far as maintenance goes. Now your just being silly; at least I hope so. :R You do know your truck will run an hour and a half longer / day than my truck don't you? For my vacation this year, your truck would run about 30 MORE hours driving at your speed than my truck driving at mine. :E

Besides I own a Chevy so I don't worry too much about breaking down or pushing my truck too hard. :B Owners of other brands may have to worry, but not with my truck. :B