What kind of MPG should I be putting down with my 95 V6 5 speed 4 wheel drive dakota on 31's with 3.55 gears in town? I've been getting consistently 11's... I'm going to assume a tune up will help, but is there a common reason for such bad mileage? I mean I don't beat on it, but I also don't drive like a grandma, but for testing purposes, the difference between a tank grandma-ing it and beating it is from 10-12 mpg. Now on the highway I've seen almost 18 which isn't too bad, but I really need to improve the in town because I mainly drive in town.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.

 

The 31's is what is killing your MPG. Upgrade the gears.

 

keep in mind that your odometer is calibrated for the older set (around 28-29"), unless you have changed out the gear.

 

I know the speedo/odo are off but the difference between stock 235/75 and 31x10.5 is 6.7%. So even accounting for that, 110 miles is 117.3, meaning the 10 gallons used goes from 11.00 mpg to 11.73 mpg. So I REALLY get from high 11's to low 12's instead of mid 11's. Still abysmal in my opinion for a v6 stick truck that small. Now granted 3.55's with 31's aren't great, but they are better than my cutlass with 2.14 gears and it got similar mileage with a v8 and weighs within 200 lbs of the truck.
What kind of real world mileage did these trucks get when new?

 

I have 31s on my 4.7 with 3.55s and I still get 14 city and about 20 highway. Check your spark plugs.

 

Yeah, you need a tune up or something, man lol. I'm pretty sure we have the same tires and size but I have a V8 extended cab automatic and I dont get that bad of gas mileage and I can be pretty lead footed haha