'09 MPG update

[john112deere]

The whole time i drove it, all I could think was "a Silverado has more power, room, better gas mileage, and costs about the same."

Heck- the Chevy salesman told me he could've put me in a Silverado for about the same money as a four cylinder Colorado. Or maybe it was the GMC guy talking about a Sierra...either way, though.

No sticks in the fullsizes, though, so I wasn't interested.

 

[polarbear]

Heck- the Chevy salesman told me he could've put me in a Silverado for about the same money as a four cylinder Colorado. Or maybe it was the GMC guy talking about a Sierra...either way, though.

No sticks in the fullsizes, though, so I wasn't interested.

No sticks in I-5 or V8 Colorado's either.

 

[5.0]

I drove a 5-cylinder Crew Cab 4X4 for 5,000 miles. No power, crappy gas mileage, and a transmission that could never seem to be able to decide what gear it was supposed to be in. Did I mention the window sticker was a little north of $30K? The whole time i drove it, all I could think was "a Silverado has more power, room, better gas mileage, and costs about the same." Now you can get a 5.3 V8 in a Colorado- and it gets 2 mpg less than a comparable Silverado (no variable cylinder management).

Yeah, the 30K + window sticker was another turn off, considering how lousy the vehicle really is.

 

[john112deere]

Yeah, the 30K + window sticker was another turn off, considering how lousy the vehicle really is.

Yep- I kind of wanted to like the GM twins. (I think the Canyon is prettier, so that's the one I test-drove, but they're identical in options, and price.)

Options list on the Work Truck trim was closer to what I wanted than anybody else builds- cloth seats, carpeted floor, A/C, CD and cruise...but with crank windows, manual locks, and not much else in the way of luxury trappings. Only big thing missing was the rear-slider. (Bucket seats, too, but they're less important.)

It felt really, really cheap though. Drove OK, decent power from the four-banger (but LOUD if you got on it)...and if the sticker was 17k, I'd have thought harder about it. As it was, though...it only stickered about a grand lower than the better-equipped, six-cylinder Ranger I did buy. (In fairness, the Canyon did have the four-door extended cab, which my Ranger does not. That adds a lot to the Ford sticker.)

 

[john112deere]

Up to 5900 miles on the truck...

Snow tires came off a few weeks back, weather's getting warmer, and I've put more highway miles on lately.

Overall average is up to 18.3 (over 5376 miles). Best tank was 21.5, worst two were both 15.8- not TOO bad, considering EPA is 15/19...

Here's a couple plots- "instantaneous" (tank-by-tank) MPG vs. odometer reading, and "lifetime" (total gallons burned over total miles driven) vs. odometer readings.