Ford 350 Diesel Mileage - Page 2 - Montana Owners Club

cs413 · 09-22-2006, 06:37 AM

I get 13-14 w/o hauling and 9 towing. I gladly sacrificed a little milage for less wear and tear on the rear end. I have 9800 miles on the truck and a long way to go to break in. No regrets. Love the truck.

Curt

Virgil · 09-22-2006, 01:09 PM

Hi all. I know I shouldn't be posting here as I traded in my Montana for a Jayco Designer. The Jayco weighs 11,500# empty and has a GVWR of 15,800#. That matches closely with the pickup. I can't imagine ever loading the Jayco to the max GWR but what I have pulled it so far, I get around 10 pulling and 15 - 16 empty. I did pull it home last weekend against a 30 mph angular head wind and got 8 mpg. I thought that was pretty good actually considering we live in the rolling high plains. I love the truck and yes,, I will subdue ,, but I do like the Jayco also.

I stop in here all the time just to see whats up and gain advice from others. A main purpose is to check on how my Montana friends are doing. I belong to a couple other forums but this one is BY FAR the best. Good job to the organizers of it.

montanared · 09-23-2006, 11:49 AM

I have the 4:30 rear end and I am happy with it. Seems like everywhere I go I have to climb a mountain, so the extra gearing eases the load on the engine and transmission. But it does have a down side... I only get 14MPG unloaded and it drops to 10MPG towing. Good news is about 2 hours ago I paid 2.44 for diesel.... hope the prices continue to drop.

Fordzilla · 09-28-2006, 03:34 AM

Well I am home from the rally and upon doing the math the Computer on the truck was pretty close. I reset it when I left home and never touched it until we were ready to head home from the rally and doing the math I was within a tenth overall for the trip. It said I got 10.6 mpg pulling and I calculated 10.52mpg. This was almost all @ 65mph or better. On the way home we took almost the same route with less stops as we drove it back in one day. But the mileage was only 10.1 on the truck and 9.96 with the calculator. I accounted the worse on the way home to the stiff side winds we had all the way home. I am about 22,500lbs when loaded up for a trip.

WildBigBill · 09-28-2006, 04:47 AM

We have F350 Dually, psd, 4.30 ratio limited slip, tow boss, fx4, and get 9-10 mpg towing, 16-17 mpg alone. It has 24000 miles on the truck.

mallardjusted · 09-28-2006, 06:44 AM

We have SRWs, and the 3.73's. Just did a 3400 mile trip (Puget Sound to South Dakota and back), and we went over passes about 11 or 12 times, the highest being 9660 feet. Overall mileage was at 9.7 mpg. I would assume the dually, with a 4.3 rear end, and a heavier FW unit would have lowered this at least 1 mpg?

2Seekers · 09-28-2006, 12:25 PM

We have the F-350 CC DRW 4x4 auto long bed w/4.10 w/21,000 mi and get 10 mpg towing - 17.5 mpg empty on the road. Checked the empty mileage several times on 600 mile trips from TN to Atlanta and back - always the same.

As for pulling power with the 4.10 diff, yesterday I pulled a friends 31 ft TT up a TN mountain to a log house that he is building. The driveway was very steep and narrow and the right side of the drive had been under cut by rushing water. That side of the drive broke away and both right side tires dropped into the ditch leaving both axles grounded on that side. After placing boards in front of the tires that Ford package drug those axles & TT for about two feet to the boards and on up the drive -MUCH TO MY RELIEF!

judyuk · 09-28-2006, 02:21 PM

Wow, that could be a new Ford commercial. Glad you weren't hurt.

Thanks everyone for your input.

Judy

richfaa · 09-28-2006, 02:56 PM

I have the 05 F-350,CC,LB,4:30 diff V-10 there is a thread going on another forum about Diesel MPG and I am very surprised at the difference between towing MPG Diesel vs V-10. We get between 8 and 9.5 Towing depending on conditions.We have seen 7's and we have seen 10's. The difference is not all that great. We are talking 2MPG or less.Now not towing there is no contest..diesel all the way. We are not knocking the diesel it is by far the better all around motor and our next TV will, we hope , be a diesel.Not to mention the price difference between diesel and gas 50 to 60 cents a gallon right now...I am surprised as we usually hear much higher numbers for the diesel towing... Oh..We pull the 06 3400

mallardjusted · 09-28-2006, 04:15 PM

richfaa,

2mpg would be approx 20%. Seems like that has been about right for 3/4 ton and 1-ton diesels over the last 20 years or so - 20 to 30% with heavvy loads and 30 to 40% with light loads.

richfaa · 09-29-2006, 02:45 AM

MPG is not the primary reason I would get the diesel. There are many other factors but it seems that most folks use the MPG issue as the reason they have the diesel. I drive a diesel near evey day (bus) and I am well aware of the MPG numbers and all the other factors. With a 50 to 80 cents diff in fuel price it would be hard to justify the diesel on MPG only.We are looking at a 08 MY diesel IF anyone can build a good one at a reasonable cost.

mallardjusted · 09-29-2006, 06:50 AM

I agree - the primary reason (among many reasns)I've been buying the diesels is because of the torque they provide. But it is nice to get the 20-40% better fuel economy even while current diesel prices are up to 10% higher (there's currently a 30 cents difference in our area). And it is nice to be able to get up to 350 miles towing and 650 miles on the highway before having to fuel up!!

ols1932 · 09-29-2006, 08:59 AM

Rich,
I did some calculations of cost/mile based on my diesel at 11 mpg and my friends V10 gas at 9 mpg. I used $2.60/gal for diesel and 2.35 for gas. The results for 100 miles of travel are: Diesel would use 9.09 gal, costing $22.72; Gas would use 11.11 gal, costing $26.11.

Based on that, I'm reconsidering my thoughts about purchasing the gas engine truck. Not only because of the operating costs, but because of the long term use of the truck.

I don't know what others are getting, but it appears that when we have to lay out the money for each fill-up, it looks like the diesel guys are paying more. I only have my experiences and those of my friend with the V10 to go on.

Orv

cs413 · 09-29-2006, 01:11 PM

ols1932

I think I lost something in the translation. If diesel owners use less fuel and it costs 3.39 less, how are diesel owners paying more?
Hopefully you are not saying the longevity of a gasser will outlast a diesel. I must have missed something here.

ols1932 · 09-29-2006, 01:49 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by cs413

ols1932

I think I lost something in the translation. If diesel owners use less fuel and it costs 3.39 less, how are diesel owners paying more?
Hopefully you are not saying the longevity of a gasser will outlast a diesel. I must have missed something here.

Diesel fuel costs more but the fact that you get more mpg results in a final cost of the diesel cost per mile is less than the gas engine cost per mile. So the result is it doesn't cost as much per mile to fuel up the diesel.

Possibly you thought I was saying diesel owners were paying more. I wasn't. What I am saying is in the long run, diesel fuel is cheaper in cost/mile.
Orv

richfaa · 09-30-2006, 04:05 AM

Now that Helen is retiring our travel will change.We just turned 8K miles on our 19 month old 05 F-350 V-10..98% of the time it is moving it is pulling the camper. We will be traveling many, many more miles in all parts of the country and the next truck will be the last one (the Ford 450 maybe) the diesel is definitely required. We get the Ford at employee cost and did not care to chance the 6.0 05 diesel knowing a new one was in the works. The V-10 worked for us in the short term..we did 8.6 mpg returning from the rally in Goshen, Ind. Oh..One other note..we have the dually now but our next one will be a single wheel simply because we will be using it more as a daily driver and the dually is "inconvenient" at times.

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