> My Dak gets 17-18 MPG if I drive it real nice.
> the Ram with the diesel was in the low 20s except when we hit the
> mountains 14,000 ft. it went to high 19s. Kind of pissed me off, the
> only advantage the Dak has is acceleration. don't ever think a diesel
> won't bust a 100. We also had a 400 lb. load in the Ram.
You're forgetting that the diesel is intended for a different application,
and didn't mention it's #1 advantage: monster torque. That diesel is a towing
and hauling wonder. The 400# load is barely a pimple to that Cummins.
The main advantage of the diesel is excellent mileage _under load_. The
Cummins will simply haul much more efficiently than the gasoline engines.
You do pay a penalty in the power department, however, and the speed at
which the diesel can apply it's torque is limited. That's why your acceleration
falls off. There is a difference between 250hp/300ft-lb and 200hp/500ft-lb
(guesstimate, I don't have specs handy).
There are other advantages gasoline engines have over diesel, like initial
cost and maintenance ease/cost. So it's always a trade off.
Ron
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:09:51 EDT