Ok, so after a trip home, and a trip back to school, about 117 miles each way, this is what I have to report.
Going home
22.3 MPG, coming back to school
20.6. And yes I hand calculated these, I'm a grad student, which means I spend most of my time broke, so I don't have money for fun things yet, and I don't think a mileage calculator would be something I'd put near the top of my list anyways.
I have a 4-door, 4 wheel drive 1996 'hoe with 3.73, P265's (radar checked the speedo, it's right on). It had a whole 107K on it when I got it, and I just broke 111K on the way home. I have done no mods...yet
. This truck is basically a grocery getter an older gentleman had around home, and for what I can tell, didn't do a whole lot of hard lifting in it's early life.
The one thing I do, and I do this every long drive is I drive at about 61 mph. The tach is reading about 1600-1700 RPMs, I don't floor it and I press the go pedal like there is an egg shell underneath my foot.
At the same time, my in town mileage is anywhere from 10-15, so I really think there is something to be said about that range of RPM's. Also I think there is a slight overall downward slope from school (Purdue area) to home (Fort Wayne Area) so that might help too. What I mean by that is there is more going downhill than uphill on the way home. I usually see slightly lower mileage coming back from home.
Rather than hi-jack the thread, if anyone has anymore questions, PM me and I'll answer them to the best of my abilities, but I'm not very mechanically inclined, I can only tell you my driving habits and what I know about the truck (which isn't much really).