First drive Ram 1500 diesel

hone eagle wrote:


these guys got better

27+ mpg

Once out of the mountain roads, we kept a steady 50 mph average along the scenic Pacific Coast Highway, where we saw our average fuel economy creep up to 26 mpg (remember, that includes our climb up the canyons and then back down), but out on the highway, cruising at freeway speeds (in California, that’s about 70 mph), we saw the instantaneous readouts tell us we were getting between 24 and 26 mpg. If we had to guess where the EPA ratings will land, we wouldn’t be surprised to see 20 city and 29 or 30 highway.

We did get a chance to take some shorter loops later in the day with a Laramie 4x4 with the EcoDiesel; when navigating the wide open city streets on our 12-mile test loop, we averaged 42 mph and 22.7 mpg.

We also got a chance to do a bit of towing. Ram provided us with a small boat and trailer (weighing about 3,000 pounds) for us to drive the urban 12-mile route. We managed to get 15.4 mpg under load in tow mode. In fact, it was while towing that we saw a little of the EcoDiesel’s shine come off the finish. We found that even under the relatively light load of a small boat, the response of the transmission seemed sluggish.