Trip Report - 2014 Ram 2500 Hemi 6.4
We are back from our Disney trip with the new truck and I wanted to share for those looking at the 6.4 Hemi. Summary My truck is a 2014 Ram 2500 CC LB 4x4 6.4 4.10 gears. We purchased the truck at...
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With a manual transmission your fuel economy probably would have been worse. In the old days I could get a manual transmission with a 5th gear that was an overdrive gear instead of a 4-speed automatic transmission that had no overdrive. Now my truck has a 6-speed automatic transmission and 5th and 6th are both overdrive gears.
Above 50 MPH most of the fuel is being burned to overcome air drag and the force increases with the square of the speed of the vehicle. At 70 MPH the air drag is 60% greater than at 55 MPH as your fuel consumption demonstrated.
Fleet operators of big trucks know that an extra 1 MPG translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra profit and the industry is working to educate its drivers to plan their trips. If a driver knows that they have an opening i 6 hours at the dock where they will be offloading their trailers and that they can cover the distance to that destination at 55 MPH then they understand that driving at 70 MPH to get their a hour earlier and have to wait in their rigs, often with the engine idling, accomplishes little or nothing and wastes fuel.
I try to discipline myself along these lines as on most trips whether I get to my next stop in 3 hours or 3 hours and 15 minutes makes very little difference and saves fuel. My truck burns diesel so in theory it has greater range on a tank full of diesel but in reality there are far fewer places that sell diesel so I need to plan more carefully and try to get the best fuel consumption I can under the circumstances.
The trucking industry refers to 6 MPG drivers and 8 MPG drivers as they know that the most important fuel consumption minimizing device is the person behind the wheel in the cab. The technology being developed for the industry is designed to compensate for the shortcomings of the 6 MPG drivers.
Above 50 MPH most of the fuel is being burned to overcome air drag and the force increases with the square of the speed of the vehicle. At 70 MPH the air drag is 60% greater than at 55 MPH as your fuel consumption demonstrated.
Fleet operators of big trucks know that an extra 1 MPG translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra profit and the industry is working to educate its drivers to plan their trips. If a driver knows that they have an opening i 6 hours at the dock where they will be offloading their trailers and that they can cover the distance to that destination at 55 MPH then they understand that driving at 70 MPH to get their a hour earlier and have to wait in their rigs, often with the engine idling, accomplishes little or nothing and wastes fuel.
I try to discipline myself along these lines as on most trips whether I get to my next stop in 3 hours or 3 hours and 15 minutes makes very little difference and saves fuel. My truck burns diesel so in theory it has greater range on a tank full of diesel but in reality there are far fewer places that sell diesel so I need to plan more carefully and try to get the best fuel consumption I can under the circumstances.
The trucking industry refers to 6 MPG drivers and 8 MPG drivers as they know that the most important fuel consumption minimizing device is the person behind the wheel in the cab. The technology being developed for the industry is designed to compensate for the shortcomings of the 6 MPG drivers.
