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Old 12-06-2015, 10:02 AM   #1
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Pickups with 31 mpg

The EPA confirmed the 2016 Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon 2 wheel drive turbo diesel get 31 mpg on the highway, best fuel economy of any pickup truck. These can tow up to 7,700 pounds.

I doubt these trucks would even feel my 17B under tow.
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Old 12-06-2015, 12:12 PM   #2
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trucks

I wonder what the Ram eco diesel gets? Does anyone know what the GM diesel s will go for$
I've seen a Ram tradesman Quad cab with a eco diesel for 37k at a dealer in Kellog Idaho DAVE SMITH 800-635-8000
I wish I could talk my wife into a truck she like the SUV
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Old 12-06-2015, 12:26 PM   #3
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The Chevy/GMC is the one I am most anxious to see. Will be needing a TV within a year or so. From what I've read the cheapest version with the diesel will probably be around 35k.
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Old 12-06-2015, 12:26 PM   #4
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I've been watching truck ads on TV and I now an fully informed.
Dodge Ram, Ford trucks and Chevy / GMC are all best in class in towing, hauling and fuel economy and any other criteria you'd like to apply.
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Old 12-06-2015, 12:47 PM   #5
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So true Glenn, so true.


Jenny, the 2016 RAM egodiesel gets 35 mpg on the highway.... imperial. With the HFE package. They must have got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, as I (and PGDriver at least) remember 4-0 in the introduction ads a couple years ago.
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Old 12-06-2015, 12:48 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gbaglo View Post
I've been watching truck ads on TV and I now an fully informed.
Dodge Ram, Ford trucks and Chevy / GMC are all best in class in towing, hauling and fuel economy and any other criteria you'd like to apply.
It's good to be #1
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Old 12-06-2015, 01:28 PM   #7
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The EPA confirmed the 2016 Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon 2 wheel drive turbo diesel get 31 mpg on the highway
Doesn't fill me with confidence.
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Old 12-06-2015, 02:17 PM   #8
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The additional purchase cost and the cost of operation of a tow vehicle with a diesel engine could easily offset the mpg savings.
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Old 12-06-2015, 02:26 PM   #9
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There are only two positions in automotive comparisons:
  • Number One
  • Didn't choose the comparison "class" and work the numbers correctly to establish the Number One claim.

Any suitably sized vehicle barely notices a lightweight travel trailer at constant speed on a level road. The towing rating indicates how much load can be safely and reliably towed, but says little about performance. Hook just one and a half tons of trailer to a two-ton truck with only 181 horsepower and the drag on performance (acceleration and grade-climbing) will be quite noticeable.

If the Colorado just meets the SAE J2807 standard at 7700 pounds of trailer plus passengers plus cargo, then when loaded to that limit it will be incapable of more than 40 mph up the Davis Dam grade or of reaching 60 mph in less than 30 seconds... huge differences from the speed an unloaded truck could manage up this long steep climb or the time it would take to accelerate on the level.
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Old 12-06-2015, 02:56 PM   #10
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In the case of towing the torque is what you should be looking at. The Chevy Colorado has 369 ft-lbs of torque at just 2000 rpm. To put it perspective the 5.3L Chevy V-8 has only slightly more torque (383 ft-lb).
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Old 12-06-2015, 02:58 PM   #11
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The issue I have with the Chevy Colorado is that I can buy the V-6 gas with the SAME equipment for around $6,000 less! That buys a LOT of gas!
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Old 12-06-2015, 03:20 PM   #12
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Pickups with 31 mpg

Quote:
Originally Posted by Porsche Pilot View Post
In the case of towing the torque is what you should be looking at. The Chevy Colorado has 369 ft-lbs of torque at just 2000 rpm. To put it perspective the 5.3L Chevy V-8 has only slightly more torque (383 ft-lb).

Or the 6.2 has 420HP and 460 for torque.
Have towed our 5.0TA with both the 5.3 and 6.2 and there is no comparison. The 6.2 also gets better fuel economy then the 5.3.

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Old 12-06-2015, 03:26 PM   #13
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The newer transmissions have a lot to do with mpg, my 5.3L GMC with the 4 speed was pretty bad on gas.
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Old 12-06-2015, 04:30 PM   #14
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The additional purchase cost and the cost of operation of a tow vehicle with a diesel engine could easily offset the mpg savings.
Oil changes are expensive on diesel too . Pat
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Old 12-06-2015, 04:48 PM   #15
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The newer transmissions have a lot to do with mpg, my 5.3L GMC with the 4 speed was pretty bad on gas.
Yep, the transmission is definitely part of it. I'm happy with the EcoBoost V6, but the new diesels are definitely interesting. I'd suspect the 31 MPG on the Colorado NOT Towing would change very rapidly to under 20 WHEN Towing.
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Old 12-06-2015, 04:59 PM   #16
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if you look at the numbers ie the 420 ft-lbs of torque your have verses the 369 ft-lbs in the much lighter Chevy I bet the performance would be surprisingly close.
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Old 12-06-2015, 05:25 PM   #17
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Pickups with 31 mpg

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Originally Posted by Porsche Pilot View Post
if you look at the numbers ie the 420 ft-lbs of torque your have verses the 369 ft-lbs in the much lighter Chevy I bet the performance would be surprisingly close.

That's 420 HP and 460 ft-lbs
Forgot to mention we found one with the NHT, RPO (package) so you get 3.42 gearing instead of 3.23.

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Old 12-06-2015, 06:17 PM   #18
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Originally Posted by Porsche Pilot View Post
In the case of towing the torque is what you should be looking at. The Chevy Colorado has 369 ft-lbs of torque at just 2000 rpm. To put it perspective the 5.3L Chevy V-8 has only slightly more torque (383 ft-lb).
You can have as much torque as you want, if you don't care how slow you're going. The smallest Honda lawnmower engine (GCV160 - 4.4 hp from 0.15 L displacement) with 100:1 gearing would put out 690 lb-ft of torque... at a crawling pace. To move a load up a grade you need torque and speed... and by 3400 rpm that little Chevy diesel is well down in torque (to 280 lb-ft) and maxed out in speed so you can't downshift to get more torque to the wheels. The physical reality is that you need power; the 2.8 Duramax may be more than enough, but there's nothing magic about the torque.

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Originally Posted by Porsche Pilot View Post
The issue I have with the Chevy Colorado is that I can buy the V-6 gas with the SAME equipment for around $6,000 less! That buys a LOT of gas!
Excellent point. One would need to tow an enormous distance to ever make the diesel pay... especially with a higher fuel price per volume and more expensive maintenance.

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The newer transmissions have a lot to do with mpg, my 5.3L GMC with the 4 speed was pretty bad on gas.
I agree. To be most effective and most efficient any engine needs to run at the right speed. With only four ratios, the engine will often be way off of where it should be (either too slow for power or too fast for economy, depending on conditions). Having become accustomed to 5-speeds (and now 6-speeds) in our other vehicles, I find the 4-speed in our (Ford chassis) motorhome to be aggravating.

The 2016 Colorado has a six-speed transmission - the automatic is presumably the 6L50. The 2015 Silverado uses the similar (but stronger) six-speed 6L80, with the same gear ratios, or (in some equipment combinations only) the eight-speed 8L90.

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Originally Posted by rbryan4 View Post
I'd suspect the 31 MPG on the Colorado NOT Towing would change very rapidly to under 20 WHEN Towing.
I agree. Robert's F-150 with 2.7 EcoBoost performs well and has piles of low-speed torque, but not surprisingly saw a big jump in fuel consumption with the trailer attached, just like other vehicles of similar size and engine size. More work takes more fuel.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Porsche Pilot View Post
if you look at the numbers ie the 420 ft-lbs of torque your have verses the 369 ft-lbs in the much lighter Chevy I bet the performance would be surprisingly close.
I don't think so. At the same road speed, the EcoTec3 gas V8 engine could run faster (lower gearing) and put much more torque to the wheels than the 2.8L Duramax diesel; if they were both ideally geared and compared running at their respective torque peaks, either V8 would be running over twice as fast and putting out more than twice as much torque to the driveshaft as the little Duramax. I'm not talking about screaming high speeds here - only 4100 rpm for the V8s. A 5.3 at 4100 rpm will put out far more torque to the driveshaft than the 2.8L Duramax even with the Duramax wound up to its 3400 rpm peak.

Turbocharging is an effective substitute for displacement, but not effective enough to make up for a more than 2-to-1 ratio of displacement. The 2.8L Duramax looks to be about comparable to the 4.3L EcoTec3 V6 in performance... but the Duramax should use less fuel.

While the Colorado is smaller than the Silverado, there is not nearly as much size difference as there was with the previous Colorado. Comparing 6'-box double-cab 4x4 auto-trans examples, the Colorado weighs well over 4500 pounds (I only found 2015 gas specs) to the Silverado's 5300 pounds. Add a trailer and the weight difference is even less significant.
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Old 12-06-2015, 06:51 PM   #19
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My Dad lived by some things he felt were truisms. He push started tour busses with four cylinder cj2a jeeps, and race cars too. "It's all in the gears" he would say. And when I admired the big gas sucking V8s of the late 50s and early 60s he'd laugh and remark, "that one will pass anything but a gas station" Driving loaded duece and a halfs filled with 5 gallon cans of gasoline on the Autobahn at night without lights during the big war gave his remarks credibility with his impressionable sons.
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Old 12-06-2015, 06:55 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Porsche Pilot View Post
The issue I have with the Chevy Colorado is that I can buy the V-6 gas with the SAME equipment for around $6,000 less! That buys a LOT of gas!
You also have to consider that a diesel engine outlasts a gas engine by a lot, all dependant on lots of variables, like type of driving (towing, highway, etc). I recently read of someone with a 2002 F-350 with a 7.3 litre Power Stroke diesel, who made it past the 1 million mile mark with the original engine, though almost all highway miles. Of course that is not likely the norm.

Another big consideration is resale. Equivalent trucks with diesel engines out price those with gas engines on the used market by a considerable amount.
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