Archives

Part of the job I took for a few months requires tooling around in a Dodge Ram 4x4 Crewcab 6' bed with a gas 5.7 Hemi AT. A FSP if there ever was one. At least we generally have all the seats filled with teenaged athletes we're transporting, or the bed is filled with gas tanks for the outboards that I'm taking to refill (no I never carry both kids and gas tanks!). So the rig makes a tiny bit of sense. And it gets some use towing a big trailer of rowing shells. Otherwise a van would serve far better.

Driving the thing is a bit mortifying for a hypermiler. And I have new sympathy for folks with AT's: shifting the lever to N is a bit of a pain, MT is much easier. I'm told the beast deactivates 4 cylinders at cruise, so that redeems it a teensy bit.

It has a remote start feature on the key, which is fun but totally unnecessary. As is the power-operated sliding rear window.

After this job is over I may need a hypermiling rehab course??

P.S. I'm being very very careful not to tailgate anybody. The massive grille is kinda aggressive.

P.P.S. The boss of the operation is very into FE. He has converted two of his other trucks (diesels) to vegetable oil and has distributed drums to a number of restaurants in the area to collect it. He's also into driving efficiently, though he isn't familiar with this site. I'm working on him and may need advice for FE with AT diesel trucks.

You've got the tailgating thing all wrong, if you're going to drive that thing you have to maintain a maximum following distance of two feet from the rear of any Honda Civic you may encounter. This may apply to other types of cars as well, look in the manual, I'm sure it has a rather long section on this as every Ram that's ever been behind me has strictly stuck to this rule.

I can't see the front end so gauging two feet may be tough but I'll do my best.

Manual? What manual? I don't think they print one; all the information needed for driving one is encoded in the Y chromosome.

....I am definitely not jealous of you.

The AT diesel in the 335d was basically a lean burn machine IIRC. Not sure if there are any similarities with that and your truck besides the fact that they use the same type of fuel, however, w/o a sg it's a bit of a pain.

Shifting AT trucks into N is also a nuisance.

Good luck...it will seem as if all the subcompact and compact cars just fall in front of your front bumper... You might have to do an ecu reset, or remove that huge neodymium layer underneath the grille.

This one is a gasser, not a diesel.

I have a ScanGauge but I'm using it in the Subaru. I'd rather not move it to the truck ('scuse me, "truuuck") because I have it all set up for the Subaru and don't want to mess with the settings.

Lightfoot-are you sure that it burns less fuel in N than it does in D-with foot off gas gliding? My 5.7 98 Suburban uses exactly the same amount of fuel in D as in N when I lift off the accelerator and glide. GMs transmission-AT- just seems to disconnect/depressurize and let it just glide with zero engine braking.

On another subject-for some reason the 5.7 Hemi always gave the poorest mpg in full sized 1/2 ton pickups-poorer than Fords 5.4 and much poorer than Chev's 5.3.Granted it is a little bigger, but its gas gulping is waaaay out of proportion to its slight size difference.
Maybe it is a little better with cyl shutdown?
In general MB did nothing for the FE of the Dodges/Chryslers it ran for 10+years.Dodges were usually the poorest EPA FE-Caliber,Ram,Durango etc in most classes.MB did nothing for Dodge-none of that fancy technology they claim to have made it to Dodge. In fact,Dodges "best" product-the Rams with the Cummins-didn't use any fancy MB diesel tech.
Oh well,I'm running wide here.
Charlie

You've got the tailgating thing all wrong, if you're going to drive that thing you have to maintain a maximum following distance of two feet from the rear of any Honda Civic you may encounter. This may apply to other types of cars as well, look in the manual, I'm sure it has a rather long section on this as every Ram that's ever been behind me has strictly stuck to this rule.

ROFL. i feel your pain lightfoot, whenever i have to drive my FSP GMC which also has a 5.7 engine.......

hmmm, i wonder if i can tailgate myself in my civic?

I dunno if our 2000ish explorer uses less gas when in N than in drive but I know that I won't bother to try it. Last time I tried to put it in N I went too far and it hit reverse, which turned the engine off, and it won't restart unless it's in Park, which means I have to stop....

(un)luckily for us the explorer is having some problems and we are looking to get something else that can haul around light construction stuff(2x4s etc, just for backyard projects like building our fence, deck) that still gets decent mpg. I know we realllllllly want a Ford Escape Hybrid but even a used one is probably out of our price range of under 15k(preferably well under). I heard him mention he was thinking about a Subaro Forester (2000ish model maybe), and I recommended a Rav4 but he says that Toyota doesn't make seats as comfortable as other companies(he doesn't like the seats in my 94 corolla nearly as much as the ford).

/post

ROFL. i feel your pain lightfoot, whenever i have to drive my FSP GMC which also has a 5.7 engine.......

hmmm, i wonder if i can tailgate myself in my civic?

Pushing your car around with your truck to inflate your mileage doesn't help the environment, probably voids your warranty too.

Pushing your car around with your truck to inflate your mileage doesn't help the environment, probably voids your warranty too.
Why thank you, I hadn't thought of that! After all it IS a Ram. Although "Dodge" and "Ram" don't seem very consistent.

@phoebeisis: I don't know about D vs N because I haven't put the ScanGauge on it. But that's helpful information.

Actually I suspect that the thing sucks fuel even standing still with the engine off.