I bought a new 2010 Ram 1500 SLT Big Horn. After about 1,000 miles I am getting 9 to 13 mpg in city and 15 to 25 on highway. Have the 5.7L Hemi engine. Love the truck. Any ideas to improve the gas mileage performance in the city?

 

It is a heavy pick up. I get about what you get as far as city driving. IMO, the hemi really hates short trips with lots of start ups or stops and go. A few things that seems to squeek out a bit of city mpg for me is keep the tire pressure up a few pounds over the sticker calls for, and keep a light foot on the throttle.

Dodge Rams or for that matter pick ups are not known for city mpg.

 

Im 14-15, keep foot off. P.I Performance improver by amsoil. Click below. If you dont see results, money back

 

Thanks for your replies. Yea, I've been trying to keep a light foot and see how many times I can get the "ECO" light to come on. Plus, I put snow tires on it. I think the softer rubber of the snow tires isn't the greatest for mileage.

 

I got about a .4 increase in gas mileage with my new mopar CAI.

up to 15.7mpg from 15.3-15.4

 

Sounds about right depending on what "city" is. If you are having to stop and start every couple of blocks then there is not much you can do other than accellerate slowly. Putting it in tow haul mode actually makes it feel a lot better for stop and go driving, but mainly because of the increased engine braking.

 

Try to keep your MDS light on as much as possible. From my experience, the MDS only works at 25mph or above (we have an 09 though, so yours may be different), so try to keep the truck rolling as much as possible in city driving. Traffic permitting, brake early and then let to truck coast to the light at a slower speed, in the hopes of it turning green in time so you can keep some of the momentum you've had.

A tonneau cover is also a good idea. It won't improve city mileage much if any, but it'll definitely help your highway mileage. We got a solid 2+ mpg increase at 70mph.

Lastly, your engine is still loosening up. 1000 miles is not much at all. You'll see it go up a bit more over the next 5,000 miles or so.

 

The show Trucks had a few shows on getting better mileage by trying different improvements. One episode they changed the fan from belt driven to electric powered. A very small improvement, but it was something.

Better air induction .. the CAI .. should be a good add. A cheaper option would be a better drop in filter like the K&N oiled filter. Easy to maintain and better air flow.

Be religous with your tire pressure checks. In the summer, I keep them inflated higher (without exceeding the tire max). This seems to help me the most.

Truck bed cover or cap. Some say it doesn't help, but most agree that it increases mileage with less drag.

I believe lowering the truck also helps .. less wind resistance .. per other threads I've read on these boards.

For every 100 lbs you can remove from your truck, you gain a certain percentage of MPG (sorry, I forgot the percentage). So don't carry extra heavy crap that you don't need.

Driving habits as everybody knows and you mentioned above several times.

Lastly, a couple years ago I read that adding a very small amount of "pure" assitone (spelling?) to a tank of gas can increase mileage by nearly 30%. Don't do this until you find out for sure exactly what to do and how much to add. I believe I read it on the Dodge Challenger forums. I'm sure many others will have more information about this one. I have never tried it, but I've thought about doing it on my old truck. When I try this, I will google it and find out as much info as possible prior to doing it.

Also on other forums (Charger and Challenger), they talk about a break in period where your engine will run a little rich until 3k or 5k miles (nobody ever agrees on a odometer number). I found that on both of my last Dodge cars, the mileage increase about 1.2 MPG around 5000 miles.

 

Acetone? I wonder how much more volatile that is compared to Gasoline? It has good cleaning properties!!! LOL!

 

I average between 19-21mpg in mixed driving with a stock truck and a Backflip F1. Balloon-foot the hell out of it and you'll do better.