I took my 2000 CC 4X4 4.7 Dak with 3:55 gears on a highway trip for the
first time this weekend. Interesting. I love this beast on the road. But it
has it's quirks. I drove from Phoenix Az up to Flagstaff and back. If anyone's
ever made that trip, it's about 130 miles from my place to where I was going.
But the change in elevation is from about 1200 feet to 7600 feet. So you are
pretty much climbing the whole way up, or rolling most of the way back. I
filled up right after I left the house and then again just before leaving
there to come back. I wanted to see the mileage difference if any between the
up and back trips.
First interesting thing I noticed was on the way up you are climbing most
of the way, but you go down into the Verde Valley on the way. When you get to
the Verde Valley there is a 9 mile run down a 6% grade into the valley. Every
other vehicle I ever drove up there I got it up to about 75 mph (speed limit
75) and put it in neutral and coasted for the next 7 minutes or so. Usually
braking to keep it under 85 or so. I had the Dak rolling at about 80 or so and
put 'er in neutral on the way down the hill and she freakin' SLOWED DOWN!! I
mean, by the time I was down to 70 and people were passing me I put it back in
gear and got on it. What the f___?!?! No wonder the damn thing gets crappy
mileage. It has to work it's ass off even to go down hill! I'm hoping this
situation will get better as I get more miles on it. (only have 3K on it right
now)
The other item that kinda urked me is that when I'm blasting along at 80
or so and hit one of these 4, 5, or 6% UPHILL grades, the Dak would slow down.
(unloaded) The problem is, with the 3:55 gears, you really aren't in the 4.7's
power band in 5th gear until you are going about 90 or so. So I actually had
to downshift an unloaded truck a couple times once I had slowed to 70 or so to
start gaining speed up these hills again.
Now for the mileage. When I filled up in Flagstaff before coming back down
to Phoenix, I found that I had only gotten 13.3 miles per gallon on the trip
up. That was on the highway! I just about loaded my BVD's. Now in defence of
the Dak, I was in kind of a hurry and worked my butt off to maintain a
constant 80 or 85 mph on all those climbs. So I'm sure she was gulping gas as
fast as she could! On the way home the beast posted 19.6 mpg. Not too shabby.
Most of the way back is downhill. I did notice though, as I climbed back out
of the Verde Valley again (Yes on the way back it's a 9 mile climb up a 6%
grade) that I drank almost an 8th of a tank of gas trying to maintain 75 mph
up that one hill. And it did good. Finally had to downshift to 4th about 200
yards from the top since I had slowed to about 60 mph.
I'm going to change the diff's to have Mobil-1 in them soon. That might
make a difference. But the fact that there's no grease fittings anywhere on
the damn thing kinda pisses me off in that I can't grease anything else up to
try and help. We'll se how things go in the future as the truck gets a little
more broken in. I'm walkin' kinda bow-legged after payin that much for the
gas for just a 260 mile trip...
Sorry this post is so long, but I thought some folks out there might be
interested in some of what I found on my first highway voyage with the Grey
Ghost. Thanks for listening. I'm gonna go pop me another cold one....
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:49:40 EDT