Small Pickup MPG

I never beat 20mpg in my Frontier XE 4cl 5spd 4x4. 18 typical. For 2-3mpg, get a full size truck.

I had a '94 Ranger with the "old" 2.3 and a 5 speed manual...around town it got 23 miles per gallon and if I REALLY didn't care about the folks I shared the roads with, I could get 30 or better, but it required a VERY constant/consistent amount of pressure on the gas pedal. In other words, any kind of hill had me down to near crawlling speeds.

I don't have experience with it, but I would imagine the newer 2.3 in the latest Rangers could do at least 23 in the city and easily come close to or even exceed 30 on the highway....but for the small gain in MPG, I'm not entirely convinced a 4 cylinder small truck is worth it.

In reply to integraguy:

So 23 around town, not being careful, vs, in 1994, the best F150 city mileage per EPA was 14, current f150 gets 16 in town at best. 26% is a small gain to you? Thats in mpg which is a deceiving exponential scale, in GPM or GP100M, the real world gain, its even higher at a 30% cost savings.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to integraguy: So 23 around town, not being careful, vs, in 1994, the best F150 city mileage per EPA was 14, current f150 gets 16 in town at best. 26% is a small gain to you? Thats in mpg which is a deceiving exponential scale, in GPM or GP100M, the real world gain, its even higher at a 30% cost savings.

A small gain to barely get 30mpg at crawling speeds compared to getting 24mpg at normal speeds. You're trying to compare real world mileage on one truck and epa estimates on another truck. You might as well compare it to the space shuttle.

Lets do apples to apples. EPA on my 2000 Sonoma: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/16074.shtml

EPA on my current crew cab: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/22202.shtml

Now, the original sticker (which I still have for the CC) showed 16/21 on the sticker, and real world has born that out to be low. Real world it see's closer to 17/18 city and 22-24 highway. Where as the Sonoma original sticker was 20/26, and real world showed that to be low with closer to 19 in the city and 24-26 on the highway. Same driver. Different trucks. different results.

So, that shows a difference of 23% epa ratings, but an 8% difference in real world ratings. Purely city driving is within 1 mpg of each other. That's the very definition of a "small difference". If I skewed it like you did, and went with the current EPA ratings of the CC and compared it to my real world Sonoma best that would skew the results to show a 27% difference.

Reality is, the reasons to buy a mini-truck do NOT include better fuel economy. If you just cannot stand the idea of purchasing a full size truck, and you want to feel better about yourself and lie about the reality, than a mini-truck is definately for you.

EDIT:

Holy cow the EPA is so off it's not funny. I can't even use them as a real "guesstimate" at this point. Case in point: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2000_Hyundai_Accent.shtml

That's the wife's 2000 Accent. It has an EPA rating of 24/33. The car has 215+k miles on the odometer (that's miles, not km's) and she AVERAGES 38mpg. She's had a high of 41.x mpg in the spring/fall with the "good gas" and the AC off. WHen I drove it daily, flogging the living E36 M3 out of the car, I saw 34mpg with a WORST tank of 32.x. THat was WOT on ramps, stoplights, 5krpm shifts (might as well call it redline, engine is useless from 5k-the redline at 5800), holding lower gears to get the most from it etc.

My 2004 4x4 5 spd ext can ranger with 4.10's did 22 on the hwy 18 city wit AT tires. I fixed that with 4.88 gears and a 6 in lift.

My 97 reg cab 2.3 5spd 2 wd step side Ranger wit ATs would get 26 consistently combined mileage until it got around 200k miles. It dropped to around 24. Then we dropped the cat and added MS tires and it still gets 24 at 275k miles. Still daily driven.

The Ranger is the only small pickup I would consider for durability/price and ease to work on.

Whether or not fuel economy is a good reason for driving a small truck depends on what you are comparing it to. In my case, if I could buy a small pickup that got 25 mpg to commute in, it would be a huge improvement over the 15 mpg I get in my Sierra. Thus the reason for my original question.

bravenrace wrote: Whether or not fuel economy is a good reason for driving a small truck depends on what you are comparing it to. In my case, if I could buy a small pickup that got 25 mpg to commute in, it would be a huge improvement over the 15 mpg I get in my Sierra.

If you're getting 15 in the sierra, you'll probably get high teens out of the small truck. low 20's if you change your driving style.

In reply to Bobzilla:

I pretty much hyper-mile my Sierra to get that mileage.

In reply to bravenrace:

Do you need a truck for work? I bought my ranger back when I was still in college and couldn't afford fun things that needed to be towed around. it was good for being trucklike, but now that I have a job and can afford fun things to tow around I'm looking at getting a bigger truck and either DDing the ranger (its a known quantity in terms of maintenance now) or selling the ranger for something smaller, since I really don't need the truck aspect for work.

PS Not good news about the sierras mpg :-( I've been looking at the 2500 since I would only be towing with it, but was hoping for around 14 mpg towing. If you get 15 empty, sounds like bad news for that pipe dream.

IF you can take what you read on the internet for real, seems like a 5.3/4L60E combo in any 2wd S10 will net 26mpg without resorting to Active Fuel Management or Displacement On Demand crap technology.

My Dakota really isn't a minitruck, more like a maxi-minitruck, it gets an anemic 20mpg. My old 96 Ranger, 2.3/5spd/2wd, got about 26 or so. My dad's old 90 Ranger, 2.3/5spd/2wd, could easily net 30. But terrain here is all up, down, and turning, for the Dakota, where both Rangers were in flat and straight road land of Michigan.

My Z71 5.7 93 gets 17 hwy only. 11mpg from my house to work... It has 33's but its a reg cab short bed! My mom has an ext cab long bed z71 97 5.7 she says does 15/16

My neighbors ext cab long bed Z71 is a 2000. The 5.3 liter in it does 20+ consistently. But she drives easy.

Dad's got a 1996 taco stripper model. 2.4,5speed, regular cab. It's averaged about 28 mpg over the 170k miles he's owned it(from new). My old s10 (2.2, 5 speed extended cab) was in the 24-27 mpg range.

I'd be THRILLED to see even 90% of that in a full sized truck. My 4.6 4x4 f150 5 speed and 3.08 diff gets 18...on the interstate... With a tailwind... Downhill.

Another observation, seems to me the small 4 banger truck crowd reports two sets of numbers, teens or mid-high 20s, never in the middle. I have a theory this is related to poor maintenance a lot of these vehicles see. On the GM 2200, they basically all need a timing chain, badly, by 150k, 8 plug Fords eat plugs and o2 sensors. How many 15+ year old beater trucks have tight suspension and brakes without dragging issues? How many of these trucks that sometimes sit months at a time have the tire pressures checked routinely?

For quite a while now I've been curious to see what a Duratec 2.3L Ranger could do with a bit of aero-modding like lowing it, add an aerodynamically tapered bed topper, smooth the underbody, add fender skirts, etc...Not that it's very high on my priority list, but more of just an intriguing thought to me.

'94 Ranger SuperCab 4x2, Lima 2.3 with 5-speed manual, best tank I ever got was 27. Darn thing was hard to drive at part throttle.

2 words: E36 M3 aerodynamics

Driven5 wrote: For quite a while now I've been curious to see what a Duratec 2.3L Ranger could do with a bit of aero-modding like lowing it, add an aerodynamically tapered bed topper, smooth the underbody, add fender skirts, etc...Not that it's very high on my priority list, but more of just an intriguing thought to me.

Well, if you want to extrapolate from a 2001 F250 7.3 PSD... Same kind of mods being asked about, he went from 18 to about 23 mpg. but as far as I know and can read, he didn't block off the grille, tape seams, skirts, etc.... But then again on trucks the biggest thing is to just get them out of the air as much as possible first then get the air to go around the body.

Rangers, especially the 98-ups although all of them suffer from it, that the cab is rather "upright" then a S10/Colorado/Dakota, almost cartoon PopeMobile-esqe.

I calculate my fuel economy on every tank. Every single one with no exceptions. 2011 Colorado 2.9/5 spd. In this cold weather I get 28.2 imperial, or 23.5 US. In the summer weather I get 35.3 imperial or 29.4 US. I don't drive it easy, and it is a about a 70/30 mix of 2 lane country roads, and city. It's almost exactly the same as my B2200, and S10's were, but a much bigger, and more powerful truck. I can't get even close to that in a full size truck. I've tried.

I've pulled a 26 for a tank of gas in my 4.3 v6 s10, adjusting the nut behind the wheel to draft semis at a safe distance was part of it. My highest highway trip was 28.8mpg. look into scangauge II and ultragauge

I had a '92 Ford Ranger 2wd regular cab longbed with the 4.0 & an auto tranny. I put a tonneau cover over the bed shortly after getting it and generally got about 24mpg on the highway. Drove it from Roanoke, VA to Midland, TX a couple of times with a codriver (what a really long boring drive...) and was pushing a 70mph avg. over 24 hours including stops. Still got 23-24 mpg on those trips.

SVreX wrote: Yes, it's possible with a 7.3L. That's not too small though.

I have no idea how. I get 13-14 in my 7.3 Excursion.

The '99 ranger 2.5, 2wd, 5spd extended cab I had would average 25 mpg highway, never really checked city since my commute was almost all highway.

I had a '96 S10, 4.3, auto, 4wd extended cab and the best I could get out of a tank was 21mpg highway. That was with a tonneau and 205/75-15 tires. It also required staying in the 65-70 mph range to get that economy.

Not a small pickup, but another data point for the small/full size comparison. I had a 1990 GMC 2500 4wd reg cab, 6.2 diesel with 4sp manual (granny 1st with no O/D) used to get 21 mpg highway and 17 mpg towing a 3000 lb boat.

So let's sum up a mini-truck: limited capacity, can't tow much, can't haul much, gets mediocre mileage (poor for it's size), isn't very comfortable and is easy to park. I guess 1 out of 6 isn't too bad.

Minitruck works great for me. I use the truck bed a lot, but I don't tow anything more than the occasional yard load that the truck handles just fine. Most of my driving is in town where the 4cyl is much more efficient than a full-size truck (50% or so according to the EPA). I haul bikes, a kart, an atv, camping gear, car parts and love having the utility of the truck bed. I've carried a lot in our hatchback Mazda3 too (including the go kart), but it's so much easier with a truck bed.

Teggsan wrote:

SVreX wrote: Yes, it's possible with a 7.3L. That's not too small though.

I have no idea how. I get 13-14 in my 7.3 Excursion.

You have weight, height, and 4 wheel drive plus aggressive tires going against you on top of maybe aggressive driving.

Fletch1 wrote: My Ranger got 25 on the one time I calculated. 1996 4-cyl 5-spd Lima 2.3L. I've heard more from the 2.3 Duratec.

Basically this. Also, if you remove the flywheel, use threadlock to bolt it back up.