Obama calls for more fuel efficient big rigs beginning in 2014

It goes back to knowing how to drive your equipment efficiently....Knowing to keep the RPM down in the lower gears and increase it as you need to as you progress through the gears.
Not running around all day with your foot in it!
Knowing when to begin to accelerate at the bottom of a hill (not too early and not too late.)
Knowing what gear to use...And when.
You need to throw the ###### headphones and ear buds away and listen to the truck! It'll tell you all you need to know.
Proper tire inflation is a huge factor.
Proper maintenence is a big one (dirty air filters are bad for fuel mileage to mention one point)
There are many things that contribute to good fuel mileage and areodynamics are nowhere near the top of the list.

There are tons of areodynamic 62 MPH trucks that are not getting as good of fuel mileage as my non areodynamic ungoverned large car!

 

Oh...One I forgot to mention, STOP IDLING ALL THE TIME!

 

Its a mystery, I tell ya.....

Is there anything "special" you've done to it since its "your" truck? That W-9 we drove to my knowledge was completely stock. When we gave it back after training, it had like 450k miles on the odometer.

It wasnt neutered, altho the governer was set a 75, but we very rarely drove it over 65.....to scared to, I guess. But thats cuz we still in training. Besides, There was a few times we got speeding violations because England doesnt want you to average over 60mph on your logs.

I dunno, maybe the mileage suffered a bit because we were still in the proccess of getting a hang of things but even after being in it for nearly 2 and a half months, we still never averaged higher than 5 and a half for mileage.

Who knows, maybe it was because the diffs were geared so high, too. If my remember correctly, it had 3.29's in it while both FL'ers we had/have have 3.73's in them.

All good points.

True that. Our last FL'er was a company Century and it was a little better than the W-9, but I think a lot of its problem was lack of care and that it probly never saw a drop of fuel additive a day of its life.

But, aerodynamics DOES play a big factor in mileage. Wind tunnel tests have proved that many of times. Just like how anything over 65 burns more fuel. Yer makin your motor work harder to go that much faster.

I try to idle as little as possible.

 

Nothing funny about it at all. It's all a cover up. Kinda like how we went to iraq for a reason. We didnt. I mean, we went, but not for a reason.

Same people that killed Kennedy..

LOL....

Seriously though. That plane that crashed in penna, was headed towards NYC. They cropped the maps for the news specifically to not show NYC, so they could make it look like it was going to to the white house. Bull. It was going to building 7, and they let it go in another direction for a while so that it would conveniently show up after the main two towers collapsed. because thats the ONLY WAY to hit building 7 with a plane.

Ok, but how did they know when the towers were going to collapse? Especially when they stood there for what seemed to me like eternity before they collapsed?

And why?

Among other things, the enron investigations had to be ended because most of the documents needed were..in building 7.

Why was a white plane with "no markings" on it following closely behind the penna plane, around the time it crashed? It's claimed that air traffic control asked him to go check out the situation. Air traffic control does not have the authority to tell them to violate a no-fly order. Period.

Why were no bodies found in that plane? (cause it was being remotely controlled by the other one!)

Why did these people magically use their cell phones to call 911 at 30,000 feet when thats not possible? Seriously, try it sometime. You can't get a connection to a tower thats more than just a few miles away. A mile is around 5500 feet.

What happened to the wings on the plane that crashed into the pentagon? Why did it conveniently hit part of the pentagon that was just reinforced with *armor*? Seems to me like someone was testing that armor...lol. And i don't buy the cruise missile theory on that one, cause they could've blown the whole place up if they wanted to...

Why are the world trade center buildings the first buildings of their type of construction to totally collapse just like they were being demolished, from simple fires? Especially when they were centralized on one side of the building? How come it collapsed so evenly? How come building 7 collapsed from a ridiculously small fire, even when nothing happened to it?

How come i could see small explosions going off near the fire when i watched the buildings collapse on tv?

How come the governor's office staff ..in building 7....was told not to come in that day?

Why do we believe that a terrorist group who has never had a successful attack on anything that mattered did this, and afterwards, has never had another successful attack on anything that mattered?

Why the world trade center?

Why was this used as an excuse to invade iraq, when it was never even claimed they did it?

must be nice to believe all this crap the government tells us.

I had an 08 crapcadia with a detroit series 60, 515 hp engine, eaton-fuller 9 speed top 2, never could get more than 6.1 on average, according to the screen on the dash. Funny that blackw900 gets more than that on a longnose. I know how to drive fuel efficiently, but I usually do run 65, which does hurt it a little.

But then I just got assigned to another crapcadia. This time, an 09 with a detroit series 60, 515 hp engine, eaton-fuller 9 speed top 2 transmission...SOUND FAMILIAR? It's an identical truck, about 6 months newer. Only real difference is it has an air release knob for the fifth wheel..lol. I climbed in and looked at the average MPG, it said 7.6. Im like, wtf? I reset it, and my average is 6.92 right now. It *WAS* 7.4 until they started giving me these heavy loads. And a 9 speed top 2 is a ###### transmission, if i had a 10 speed or a regular 9 speed, i'd have a higher mpg right now..

"scatterpiller" engines seem to be fuel hungry. I did get around 6.5 in a t600, with a top 2 and some cat..dunno which one.


Also, the modern longnose trucks are more fuel efficient than they look. Kind of like an old volvo.



Would you believe *this* is my 35 mpg car? with an 80s style automatic transmission without a lockup clutch? It has little aerodynamic features like a curved windshield and the weird little contours on the hood. When i want to be a hypermiler i get on my bike, it gets 50 mpg even if i drive it like all hell

That hood, in particular, reminds me of an international 9900i......

 

HMMMM Heres my 31 mpg Box !!

 

The reason your Scion, and likely that Volvo get decent mileage is still aerodynamic drag coefficient. The greatest amount of drag comes from the undercarriage which, especially on the Scion, was designed to minimize that drag.

 

That has nothing to do with it - since the "United States" doesn't buy oil form Canada or Mexico or any other country - it is purchased on the Open Market.

That is why there is only one "price" for a barrel of oil - and not a seperate price from Canada nor Mexico.

We could produce 100% of the oil we use, and still have to buy it from the market - who happens to be "delivering" at the time it is irrelevant.

Politicians exploit this ignorance of the market to try and sell slogans about "more domestic production" - which is a farce since the oil companies don't have any "national" loyalty- they will sell for as much as they can to anyone with the money - and on the open market.

Do you really belive BP (British Petroleum) "sell's" only to Brittan's?

The Middle East still controls the market because no one else can match their production capability (courtesy of US oil companies).

They decide to cut back that production - guess what ... That Canadian and Mexican crude will go up in price too.

The more oil we use, the higher the price on "a" barrel will be, And the more oil we use - they will benefit anyway.

 

Oil does not all HAVE to be sold on the open market. Check gas prices in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It will start to make sense.

 

Not really....

The best thing I ever did was buy it without the yellow fuel guzzler engine!

Mine has well over a million...and is completely stock.

I rarely drive under 65 and usually drive about 75...
As far a some monkey lookin' over my shoulder and tellin' me what speed I should average on my logs...I couldn't live like that, I log it as I do it and sometimes when the stars all line up just right I have averaged 72/73 MPH on a day here and there when I just didn't stop for anything but a quick rest area bathroom break a time or two in a day.

Sounds about right for a CAT motor.

I hardly ever use fuel additives...But I do maintain my truck very well.

I'll keep that in mind...

As do I.

 

The volvo's undercarriage mostly looks like any other old car i've been under, maybe theres something i dont see. It does have air dams front and back that sit faily low to the ground. I drove my old one around without a front air dam and with the middle cut out of the back one (trailer hitch) for ages and it never seemed to hurt MPG though....neither did my 102' whip on the back bumper on this one. Gonna put the trailer hitch on soon and rip the back air dam off...hehe...

Oh yeah, the volvo has a belly pan too, goes under the rack and pinion and blocks the front half of the motor. I wonder how much that helps economy? I also rip the timing belt covers off these because the plastic breaks and ruins the timing belt...as long as i have a belly pan and air conditioning road debris cant really get in there....

Ok, but why can't trucks have a drag minimizing bottoms?