Dodge Cummins Diesel Owners??

TimNJ

Just wondering. If you have the trip computer in your overhead console, what kind of mileage registers on it with driving around town trips vs highway?

house bldr

I have an 03 3/4 ton ext. cab 4x4 get about 19-21 highway only about 14-16 in town.

TempestV

any Idea what an older cummins would get for gas milage- say a 93 3/4 ton?

nitrox2595

I have an 04 3500 cummins diesel dually 4x4 with about 500 hp and close to 850 ft lbs. of tq. I get around 11-14 mpg driving hard and 15-19 driving easy

TimNJ

Thanks. I am considering my next truck to be the diesel. I have the hemi now and no matter how I try to nurse it during my riding around, it always averages out to 11.8-12 around town and the max I get on the highway is 15.
I did get 37mpg for about 15 seconds once. When I filled up at a gas station at the top of a hill and reset my computer, I pulled out, accelerated for about 200 yards and then coasted down the hill to the light.

ruskent

I have a 05 3/4ton cummins. 90% of my driving seems to be 10 mile trips.
With alot of short trips mixed in. 10 miles to the job. then 2 miles to the deli for lunch, 2 miles to the hardware store, 2 miles back to the job site, 10 miles back home.

I average 14 around town. When i drove to texas i could not get better than 16.5 on the highway. Granted i was crusing at 85 most of the way. I still think i should get better.

I do not have the overhead gauges since i have the base truck so everything is hand calculated.

I wish i could get 22 on the high way.

72chevy4x4

back in the mid 90's I was talking to a welding guy who had a new cummin's 4x4 -2500, who told me he was getting 22mph at highway speed (pulling a welding trailer which is small).

SmithBuilt

Be careful if your just going by the computer. Most of the ones I've been around are not very accurate.

The only way to get a true mpg is to calculate it. Using the actual gallons pumped into the truck compared to the actual miles driven since the last fill up. Too many people say that got so many miles on a tank but don't actually calculate their mileage. Which means nothing.

Another thing to consider is the price of fuel. Now that the new Ultra low sulfer fuel is required the price has gone up in comparison to gas. Add in the air filters, oil filters, more oil than a gas engine would require, higher priced oil, two batteries, and not to mention the extra $6000 at purchase which will buy a lot of gas.

I'll bet a gas engine would be cheaper to operate over the lifespan of a truck. Keep in mind the truck body and transmission will not last as long as the diesel engine will.

apkole

TempestV,

The 91 Dodge Cummins I owned managed a best mileage of 21. That truck had the 3 speed TorqueFlite auto trans.

SmithBuilt is dead on. I usually take averages on mileage over several tanks to see just what our trucks are getting for mpg. Our '99 Dodge Cummins auto hasn't ever done much better than 18 mpg. Our '01 CTD is a quad cab short box auto. That's shown a best mpg of around 17.

Keep in mind that as the interiors of these trucks become more plush and the horsepower and torque increase, it will take more fuel to move them down the road. There's a limit to what the new computerized fuel management systems can do for mileage.

Perhaps that price difference will purchase alot of gasoline, but for our towing requirements and snowplowing operations, the Dodge trucks with the Cummins diesels have worked out well for us over the years.

TempestV

thanks for the tip- the truck I'm looking at has the five speed and is bare bones inside
very true, good for me that I like the simple interiors with less options, particularly when the options are annoying bells and chimes and such.

I'm also intrested in doing a straight vegtable oil conversion, considering how active the biofuels market is here in Bozeman.

Mpeters

The older cummins (mid 90's 12 valve) got much better mileage than the higher HP ones out now.

apkole

MPeters,

I agree. I think the best mileage seen in these trucks was probably from a 12 valve, 5 speed, 2wd, std. cab. The trucks we owned were all 4wd. Allthough it should be mentioned that the '91 had 3:07 gearing in the difs. The difs in our newer trucks are geared at 3:54.

TempestV,

Going veggie sounds interesting. Just a little curious about jelling issues in cold temps. I had -22F during this last cold snap.

Lots of info on the Dodge diesels at www.turbodieselregister.com

TempestV

I know a couple of people around bozeman that run SVO, apparently they don't have trouble- a guy down the street from me says his diesel toyota runs better on SVO than regular diesel in the cold because the SVO is warm since you have to heat it before you can burn it.

I think -20 something is about as cold as it got this year, last year it fell to -40 at one point I beleve. locally, it was the warmest January to date.

Milhaus

Are there any alterations that need to be made to the engine to run SVO? I'm interested in going this route with my next truck. I've heard there are minimal changes?

TempestV

The oil needs to be hot (about 140f) when it goes into the engine.
most people use a heat exchanger from the cooling system, and maybe an electric heater if that isn't enough. It's hard to start then engine on svo, so you'll need a second tank for the oil so you can still carry diesel in the original tank. vegtable oil gells in the cold pretty easy, so you might need some kind of tank and fuel line heater to keep the oil liquid in cold weather. Depending on whether you peice your system together or buy a premade kit (buying premade means that you are paying someone else to piece it together for you), how fancy of a system you get (I've seen a computer controled model that switches to SVO automatilcly when the engine is hot enough), and how cold it gets in your area (colder means a more extensive system), the conversion could cost anywhere from $500 - $2000

Milhaus

Thanks for the info TempestV.

Quick change of the subject. I see you're from Bozeman. My wife and I spent our honeymoon up there. Beautiful country-there is something about Montana that I don't get from any other state. But it seemed like the building market was tough though. Either you are working on the high end stuff, or the very low end. Is there any middle ground up there?

TempestV

that's about the size of things- either cheap trackhomes or custom framing on million dollar homes. the house I'm working on now is probably 9000sq feet and already had 900,000 into labor alone buy the time the siding was started. Of course you could also go up to Big Sky where that is a cheap house- that's where they are building that 155 million dollar, 53 thousand square foot house. On the other side of things, most of the other building is 200-300 thousand dollar track homes that are build dirt cheap. I heard somewhere that the GC on the job I was working on this summer built a bunch of houses at one point that for the finished floor they painted the osb with epoxy garage floor paint.

if there is a middle ground I haven't seen it. maybe in the remodels, although I haven't done much of that since I got to Bozeman, so I couldn't say

Milhaus

What's a track home? I assume the same as a spec home?

Teetorbilt

The correct spelling is TRACT homes. AKA punchouts, popouts and

__________________
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Milhaus

Gotcha... .

i didn't see much of that when we were up there. Trailers on a couple acres or the millions...

Back on track...is biodisel picking gaining ground up there? My Uncle-in-Law drives city bus in Breckenridge, CO. Says their running a percentage of bio in all their buses, but still working out the kinks with geling.

I hope to make my next truck a diesel...and modify accordingly.