I bought a 2000 Ram 5.2 about 3 weeks ago. The first mileage check for in-town driving I got 10 mpg and a combination of highway and in-town I got 14 mpg. I'm not a person that installs all sorts of goodies on his vehicle but, other than the basic oil & air filter and spark plug change, what are some suggestions to help this?

I'm out of touch with vehicles with all of the electronic monitoring, etc. that makes these things run anymore so I don't know what little gizmo or whatchamacallit can be checked. I'm used to dealing with points and condensers. lol.

 

Running synthetic fluids in your tranny and rear end in additioin to your engine will help lower friction and increase mileage. Keeping your tires a few pounds above the factory recommended air pressure will also help. Keep the tailgate up, too.

Dusty

 

Hey dusty....I've trin to find out how hard it is to change fluids in tranny and differentials for my dakota. Also what can I use????

 

if your gas milage is lower than normal, then have the tire sizes also been changed? how are you figuring gas milage? ive seen people put bigger tires on and wonder why they are getting crappy gas milage... but forgetting that the speedo (and odometer) is off 5-10 mph... just a thought

 

You Know I have a 99 5.2 manual with Big tires and what not, and I get about 9-10 MPG on Freeway and 12-14 in town. I have an intake been wanting to do synthetic for quite awhile but i havent got around to it yet.

 

I am curious about this, as I have a 97 Ram 1500 4X4 5.9 Auto, and I leave the tailgate down when I take trips. I save about 1/4 tank of gas over 300 miles.

 

Unless you have a tonneau cover or something similar, I would think that with the tailgate down you free up the restrictions back there. I would think that the gate creats a wall thus redirecting airflow up and over the gate as opposed to a more straight airflow with the gate down. Try this, put a piece of paper back there with the tailgate up, I bet you that it stays in there. Now try it with the tailgate down, I bet you that the piece of paper is gone before you get to higher speeds. Unless my dynamics and aerodynamics thinking is off today.
I always see trash flipping around in truck beds with the gate up. I never trash flying around in trucks with the gate down (whether it's clean or trash already flew out before I saw them).

 

They actually tested this on a tv show called mythbusters they showed that if you leav the tailgate down it actually causes a tornado sorta thing in the bed of your truck, creating extra drag

 

actually, if you leave the tailgate up, it creates a n isolated air system type thing, whereas if you leave it down, all the air goes over the cab and lands right on the tail gate, forcing it down and creating drag

 

See, that's what I was thinking too. Plus it's a truck, they usually have a wall for a grill, but then again, they're not made for high speed long drives but for pulling and hauling things right? Don't get me wrong, there are some fast trucks out there...SRT10 (nuff said)...