Hello 5.9 owners - I have a new to me Durango with 46000 on the odometer. Gas mileage city ~10mpg highway ~12mpg. Yikes is this normal? I was @ least hoping for 12 and 17mpg. FYI I baby it with very slow starts.

Thanks in advance

Bill

 

why did you post this here? i really really really want to know.















this is the WRONG section for this question, it should go in the 1st Generation Section, as is stated in the STICKY at the top of the page, did you read it before posting like it says to???

and your numbers are on the low side of normal for the 5.9, 10-12 city and 13-15 highway is the best most people get out of those engines, thats the o nly downside to them(you will never get 17 out of it on the highway in stock form)

i would start with a full tune up, plugs, wires, cap, rotor champion copper core plugs only, gapped to .040 or you will cause more problems

 

I'm going to give you a couple links and these will be your best bet to clean up the engine and get it running at peak performance. Also, hopefully you have a 2002 or 2003 with that low of mileage. If you have any older than a 2001 I'd say it just needs some driving time in because that is quite low mileage on a first gen.

I'd recommend starting off with a tune up, by changing the distributor cap and rotor, plug wires, and spark plugs. Always remember, never put any spark plug other than the Champion Copper or Champion Truck plugs in there because it will cause problems on down the road.

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...ttle-body.html

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...ml#post2030778

 

What they said, + new air filter, keep yer tires aired up, and dont believe the console MPG readout, its lying to you, so drive her till the light comes on, put some gas in,write down how many gallons + odometer reading, run down to fuel light on again, and do the math.
I have the 5.9 with permanent awd 128,000 miles and average around 13 or so mpg, but she still needs a little more TLC yet so it may improve, I gotta fix the big stuff first !.
I dont know what vehicle you had before this, but if you are used to "Lesser Trucks", then I imagine the D may have come as a bit of a shock to you. Myself I ran an old Ram 250 longbed truck into the ground for years so I knew what to expect. My wife however found it a little shocking.
IMO though, best vehicle on the road, and though she pulls at the purse strings a little and hurts me sometimes, worth every penny. Not many cars are built like a tank, show a clean pair of heels to the kid at the lights in his export, and can do it whilst pulling a house behind it or moving half your mates furniture, in comfort, and looks good doing it !
Keep her a while and then think about going back to anything else, I know I will hang on to mine till gas is $10 a gallon or the wheels fall off.

 

You're doing it backwards... don't calculate based on the light, it's unreliable. Fill up, drive until you decide it's time to fill up again. Divide the number of miles between fill ups by the number of gallons to fill it back up. I typically average about 305 miles between fill ups of about 22.5 gallons... ~13.5 mpg mostly city. I have a 2002 5.9L AWD.
FWIW... My mileage slumped quite a bit when I let my plugs and wires go too long. You might start there.

 

So at what point do you decide to fill up if the light is unreliable, do you guess ?

 

Disregard my last post, I wuz a bit slow, but I caught up in the end, lol

 

I get 3 gallons to the mile, what is everyone complaining about?.....LMAO

 

I typically put in around 20 to 21 gallons each time and get around 290 to 300 miles between fill-ups. Call it around 14.5 mpg. My driving is probably 80% highway and 20% town. I consider myself light-footed and still this is the best I can do.

The computer does lie - I've had it say that I'm getting anywhere between 12 mpg to 22mpg as an average (not instant)! I wish I got 22mpg (avg)

 

Thanks for the warm welcome. A simple "hey please check the rules and regs first" would get it done - My apologizes - if jumping all over a new member makes you feel like a better person, by all means.

Those other and above thanks much for the information. Thanks for the reassurance that the mileage was not the norm. It is a third vehicle for towing - that makes even the #'s posted bearable, but 15 is much better than 11 IMO.

Thanks again

Bill