I just spent 1200 miles running around New England and 1460 miles between fill ups. Got 8.66 mpg. Two of three loads were multi stop, one of them had 4 stops all around Hartford, CT. It wasn’t easy miles. Miles were mainly in MA and CT, with some VT, and far up state NY about 30 miles from Montreal. I’m another multi stop load now, finals Wednesday morning, 7 drops. I’ve had 10 days of just sitting around this month because of the pickup wreck and an issue with a wheel end the dealer messed up while doing a wheel seal. It’s resolved now but it cost me time as well. Despite that I might be able to hit 19k this month. I’ve only run 7800 miles this month come Wednesday when I deliver this.
These XDN2s were the ones I bought months ago. Got 4 of them for 800.00 total. They were “used” from a Walmart fleet trade. They’re brand new. Only 3/32nds of rubber had been used on them. Nobody in my area runs super singles and the tire dealer was happy to get rid of them.
I heard a loud bang as I was driving under a bridge yesterday. I thought something was hanging off the bridge and I hit it. I couldn’t see anything. Today I was walking back to my truck and saw a smudge on my roof fairing. I got a closer look and you can see a full bird outline on it, beak, eye, body, and a wing. I hit a bird as I was going under the bridge. If you zoom in on the photo, you can make out it’s parts, including the bird crap at the back.
I had the shocks replaced on my truck today. I didn’t think that would break the bank. I had other stuff, like oil change, grease job, little stuff. The shocks cost me almost 1000.00. They ran into issues and had to cut the old ones off and rethread some bolts and cost a ton of labor. I was thinking 1200.00 bucks max, for everything, ended up with 2100.00. The shocks were bad, you could see fluid all over them. I really wanted gas shocks, but there aren’t any available yet for the LT. On a positive note, I did finally get my old drives up to Joplin to be recapped. Gave me an excuse to cruise in the new pickup. It’s a Chevy 1500 RST with the new 3.0 Duramax.
It’s an inline 6. It did really well today. Joplin and back was a few tenths over 29mpg. I had the cruise set on 65. It could probably be in the 30s on a longer trip and fewer hills. It’s super quiet and the seats are really comfortable. If you look at some videos what Chevy did with the DOC, DPF, and SCR, I think it’s superior to the other brands. The engine gets to operating temperature really fast too. It was 28 degrees this morning and after only 6-8 minutes, it had defrosted the windshield and hat already risen the temperature. It behaves a lot like a gasoline motor.
Yeah, I've found the same thing with the 2.8L. It gets to operating temperature quickly, yet doesn't overheat even towing over gross going up Vail and Eisenhower. The transmission temperatures get pretty hot when towing up long, steep grades. I've seen it get hotter than 270F. With the cruise at 65, I get over 30mpg. I think running around Florida recently I was at 32mpg average. The only issues I've had were low quality DEF warnings, and they usually work themselves out after 50-100 miles of driving. The exhaust brake is pretty good as well.