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497 Posts
Gas Wars
By
Kevin Williams
The price of gas seems to be on everyones mind these days. The national average as of this writing is about $1.84 per- gallon. We here in California would love to find gas that cheap! If you happen to drive a full sized pickup or SUV, the sting to your wallet when buying gas seems all that much sharper. My SUV…a 1990 Dodge Ram Charger has a 40 gallon fuel tank. My 99 ¾-ton pickup has a 35 gallon tank so when filling these vehicles it takes a huge toll from my pay check. Since we really can't do much about the price, about the only thing we can do to affect the hit to our wallet is to make our vehicles more efficient.
There are some things that you can do to help squeeze more miles per gallon from your vehicle that I have tried and they really work. This is not just some ad for a new product. This is a test to show that there are many factors that when worked together, can make a pretty significant difference in the performance and ultimately the economy of your vehicle.
The first thing I did was something that costs nothing. Free is always good. Watch the "Jack Rabbit" take offs. When sitting at a light, it has always been my practice to "hit it" when the light turns green. It's just a product of my younger days when I drove cars like a 1965 Mustang, 1965 GTO, 1969 Road Runner…you get the picture. Back then, gas was .45 per gallon…the GTO was getting about 6 mpg, but I worked at a gas station where the boss said that he'd give me $20.00 a day and top off my tank. That was a great job for a 17 year old kid. My 99 Ram pickup is a 4x4, 2500, long bed, quad cab. It's heavy. It weighs in at an even 6000 pounds making the Jack Rabbit starts a harsh factor in the fuel consumption. My "normal" driving habbits were yielding me a 9.4 mpg with my truck combined city/hwy. That's pretty bad. So I started making my 'pull out' a little smoother, less aggressive, and that has sent my economy up to 10.8 mpg. That's better than 10% and not spending a single cent.
The next free thing was to watch the air pressure in the tires. I now check it every time I gas up. Theres not really much difference between the fuel stops but on that first time I had to add a significant amount of pressure because I try to fun the tires so that they have full contact with the road. On my Ramcharger I was running the pressure down to about 22 psi because they were "crowning" at 32. I didn't want the center of the tread to wear out prematurley but we are trying to save fuel and keep some our money in our pockets and out of Exxon-Mobil's. Doing that raised the fuel economy about a mile to the gallon on my Ram Charger or roughly 10%.
So, changing the driving habbits a little and keeping the tire pressure correct on
the vehicles has added about three mpg to the 99 and about 2.5 mpg to the RC.
So after the SEMA show last year I received an email from one of the vendors asking if I would be interested in testing some of their product. After speaking with Mike Aubrey of Mikes Performance Automotive in Lancaster, CA and a little research I agreed and Royal Purple sent me out some of their synthetic lubricants. Mike Aubrey has been in the performance business for better than 20 years and has built some of the best performing cars in our area. He told me that he has used Royal Purple products in customers cars for years and they have always been happy with the performance.
Having heard that I agreed to test the product. I received a 5-gallon bucket of 90W gear oil for the RC, a case of automatic transmission fluid, 10W30 engine oil, and a case of synthetic lube for the limited slip in my 99.
I have since chaged to the 90W to the Ram Charger and saw immediate results! The RC now gets a combined city/highway mileage of 12.8 mpg. This coming from a truck that has 35" tires, a throttle body injected 5.9 liter engine and 4.56:1 gears. I have yet to perform the highway only test but I am looking forward to driving it up to Denver, Colorado this June for the Broncos Fan Fair. I will see how well the it performs on that trip. As for the pickp, I have only used the engine oil so far and have seen an increase of another 2 mpg. The 99 now gives me about 13 mpg combined which is the best mileage it has gven me since I bought the truck in 99. I am getting ready for the gear oil swap in the rear axle and then the transmission fluid. I will file a report as soon as the results are in and you will see how my results are.
I know that the cost of synthetic oil are a bit higher than that of the standard engine oil but there is another factor in the use of synthetic oil that may cause you to make a change. The oil lasts longer than petrolium based oil. In otherwords, you don't have to change the oil as frequently as with you do with regular oil. Royal Purple recommends that you change the oil every 10,000-12,000 miles with filter changed every 3000-5000. This makes the oil well worth the investment. I used the 30-weight motor oil in my wifes 1997 Dodge Stratus. It has a 2.0 liter engine with a 5-speed maual trans. Around town the car would give about 23 mpg which is not too bad considering she uses her car on the job and drives close to 200 miles a day around town. With the Royal Purple motor oil her mileage went up to 30.2. That is very significant. Rememer that she has to watch her mileage as she gets paid for the miles she drives on the job so paying attention to miles and mileage are very important. On the highway the car delivers 38 mpg now where it used to give us about 32.
All-in-all I am very impressed with the performance of Royal Purple products and am looking forward to testing the trans fluid and limited slip axle oil soon.
Royal Purple's web site is http://www.royalpurple.com Visit them to find your nearest retailer
By
Kevin Williams
The price of gas seems to be on everyones mind these days. The national average as of this writing is about $1.84 per- gallon. We here in California would love to find gas that cheap! If you happen to drive a full sized pickup or SUV, the sting to your wallet when buying gas seems all that much sharper. My SUV…a 1990 Dodge Ram Charger has a 40 gallon fuel tank. My 99 ¾-ton pickup has a 35 gallon tank so when filling these vehicles it takes a huge toll from my pay check. Since we really can't do much about the price, about the only thing we can do to affect the hit to our wallet is to make our vehicles more efficient.
There are some things that you can do to help squeeze more miles per gallon from your vehicle that I have tried and they really work. This is not just some ad for a new product. This is a test to show that there are many factors that when worked together, can make a pretty significant difference in the performance and ultimately the economy of your vehicle.
The first thing I did was something that costs nothing. Free is always good. Watch the "Jack Rabbit" take offs. When sitting at a light, it has always been my practice to "hit it" when the light turns green. It's just a product of my younger days when I drove cars like a 1965 Mustang, 1965 GTO, 1969 Road Runner…you get the picture. Back then, gas was .45 per gallon…the GTO was getting about 6 mpg, but I worked at a gas station where the boss said that he'd give me $20.00 a day and top off my tank. That was a great job for a 17 year old kid. My 99 Ram pickup is a 4x4, 2500, long bed, quad cab. It's heavy. It weighs in at an even 6000 pounds making the Jack Rabbit starts a harsh factor in the fuel consumption. My "normal" driving habbits were yielding me a 9.4 mpg with my truck combined city/hwy. That's pretty bad. So I started making my 'pull out' a little smoother, less aggressive, and that has sent my economy up to 10.8 mpg. That's better than 10% and not spending a single cent.
The next free thing was to watch the air pressure in the tires. I now check it every time I gas up. Theres not really much difference between the fuel stops but on that first time I had to add a significant amount of pressure because I try to fun the tires so that they have full contact with the road. On my Ramcharger I was running the pressure down to about 22 psi because they were "crowning" at 32. I didn't want the center of the tread to wear out prematurley but we are trying to save fuel and keep some our money in our pockets and out of Exxon-Mobil's. Doing that raised the fuel economy about a mile to the gallon on my Ram Charger or roughly 10%.
So, changing the driving habbits a little and keeping the tire pressure correct on
the vehicles has added about three mpg to the 99 and about 2.5 mpg to the RC.
So after the SEMA show last year I received an email from one of the vendors asking if I would be interested in testing some of their product. After speaking with Mike Aubrey of Mikes Performance Automotive in Lancaster, CA and a little research I agreed and Royal Purple sent me out some of their synthetic lubricants. Mike Aubrey has been in the performance business for better than 20 years and has built some of the best performing cars in our area. He told me that he has used Royal Purple products in customers cars for years and they have always been happy with the performance.
Having heard that I agreed to test the product. I received a 5-gallon bucket of 90W gear oil for the RC, a case of automatic transmission fluid, 10W30 engine oil, and a case of synthetic lube for the limited slip in my 99.
I have since chaged to the 90W to the Ram Charger and saw immediate results! The RC now gets a combined city/highway mileage of 12.8 mpg. This coming from a truck that has 35" tires, a throttle body injected 5.9 liter engine and 4.56:1 gears. I have yet to perform the highway only test but I am looking forward to driving it up to Denver, Colorado this June for the Broncos Fan Fair. I will see how well the it performs on that trip. As for the pickp, I have only used the engine oil so far and have seen an increase of another 2 mpg. The 99 now gives me about 13 mpg combined which is the best mileage it has gven me since I bought the truck in 99. I am getting ready for the gear oil swap in the rear axle and then the transmission fluid. I will file a report as soon as the results are in and you will see how my results are.
I know that the cost of synthetic oil are a bit higher than that of the standard engine oil but there is another factor in the use of synthetic oil that may cause you to make a change. The oil lasts longer than petrolium based oil. In otherwords, you don't have to change the oil as frequently as with you do with regular oil. Royal Purple recommends that you change the oil every 10,000-12,000 miles with filter changed every 3000-5000. This makes the oil well worth the investment. I used the 30-weight motor oil in my wifes 1997 Dodge Stratus. It has a 2.0 liter engine with a 5-speed maual trans. Around town the car would give about 23 mpg which is not too bad considering she uses her car on the job and drives close to 200 miles a day around town. With the Royal Purple motor oil her mileage went up to 30.2. That is very significant. Rememer that she has to watch her mileage as she gets paid for the miles she drives on the job so paying attention to miles and mileage are very important. On the highway the car delivers 38 mpg now where it used to give us about 32.
All-in-all I am very impressed with the performance of Royal Purple products and am looking forward to testing the trans fluid and limited slip axle oil soon.
Royal Purple's web site is http://www.royalpurple.com Visit them to find your nearest retailer
