Born Free Leap'n Lions RV Club

I must correct myself. I went back and looked at my records and found 17 instances of MPG's in the 10's in over 1,000 fill-ups.

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Dallas Baillio
2001 26RSB
Born Free Leap'n Lions RV Club Member

I think diesel is going to be the way to go in the future. Volkswagen, Audi, and Mercedes are heavy into diesel in Europe along with their competitors. It used to be that diesel fuel was cheaper than gasoline. I am not sure why it cost more now. It may have something to do with refining costs for a relatively small number of vehicles using diesel. If meaningful numbers of cars and small trucks begin using diesel you will see diesel prices com down for both the fuel and the engines. This is definitely the way to go to save oil and gasoline. I wonder if the big gasoline refiners have lobbied congress to keep the prices high and discourage vehicles from utilizing Diesel engines. I wonder what your thoughts are.

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William Higbie
'96 26 rsb
2000 Honda Accord

As I understand it, diesel fuel requires less refining than gasoline. Any time the demand for something goes up, so does the price.

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2000 Born Free 24RB

1976 BF22 on E350 chassis, 460 with 4bbl Elelbrock, C6 3 speed.
Towing 18' flatbed trailer with 2 SxS - (about 5k total) - some flat and some mountains got just over 7mpg. Towing with one SxS and race stuff ( about 3.5k) on the same trailer over the cascades mountains and back got the same 7mpg. Running w/o trailer on flat ground gets about 10. Speeds around 62.

Unrelated but some gas vs diesel comparison.
2004 Dodge 3500 SRW, 4x4, 5.9 CTD'S, 6 speed, quad cab pulling 18' toy hauler weighing about 8000 got 10 mpg towing over the Cascades and back.
2013 Toyota Tundra, 4x4, 5.7, quad cab with the same 18' toy hauler with the same stuff inside on the exact same route gets 7mph.

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PacNORE.com

Meaningful numbers? You mean like the million semis on the road? Getting about 5 MPG of diesel? Back when gas was $1. a gallon, diesel was what? 25 cents? For diesel to cost 25% MORE than regular gas is just a racket. It negates any savings on buying a diesel vehicle. If a gas BF gets about 10 MPG and a diesel one gets 11.5, that is 11.5% better "economy". But the fuel costs 20-25% MORE. Not to mention up front costs are higher. A few years ago, I did the math for me to buy a Sprinter (diesel) based Class B, with the difference in initial cost, fuel etc. At my current driving miles ( 8-10K a year), I would have to drive it 10 years to break even. Since I rarely keep a vehicle more than 5 years ( because I want to try them all) I would have lost a lot of depreciation and and still paid more for fuel.
I KNOW a lot of drivers prefer a diesel for power and longevity and I am not arguing that.I just don't think they are that much cheaper to run. Yes Europe has many small diesels in cars and it works great for them-- people tend to keep their vehicles a long time and eventually it would pay off.

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1992 26' RSB
2008 Papillon named Emmett
1984 Honda GL1200 Standard
2008 Kawasaki Concours 14
2010 Kawasaki KLX250S

IMO gas mileage should be measured by dollars/100 miles. This would make diesel and gasoline comparable.

I've got 10, 10.43, 10.65 miles/gallon (only 3 samples) on my last 2000 miles trip to Montana. The states offer 85 or 87 octane gasoline that perform differently (local stupid laws that increase the price of driving (not to mention taxes and the week dollar)).

Some other factors, like the quality of the gasoline, terrain profile and way of driving wipes out any meaningful information from the logs.

The bottom line is keep on driving if you can afford it.

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Oliver P Smile
2005 26ft RSB

"Keep on driving if you can afford it"
Exactly!
RVing is not a particularly cheap hobby, but it can be a fairly cheap lifestyle.

There's a great topic on Andy Baird's website. Something like " being green at 10 mpg"

Years ago I spent some time living on sailboats and that is when I learned to conserve water, take one gallon showers, etc. that all apply to RV life.

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1992 26' RSB
2008 Papillon named Emmett
1984 Honda GL1200 Standard
2008 Kawasaki Concours 14
2010 Kawasaki KLX250S

An observation. I am traveling in Canada. Diesel is a few cents CHEAPER than gasoline.

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Dallas Baillio
2001 26RSB
Born Free Leap'n Lions RV Club Member

One of the biggest advantages I have seen so far owning a diesel over what I'm seeing in MPG of a gasser is overall range. I have around a 40 gallon tank and can go right at 500 miles on a tank (that's pushing it though and the rig will take 38 gallons or so to fill). If I had a gasser I would be dying for a gas station by 350 miles on the same tank. I am getting at least 4MPG better with my 7.3 TD over a 460. IMHO, it is always smarter to buy a well-maintained, used vehicle than to buy a new one. You are throwing away so much money for a brand new rig. My Gramps bought a 1996 Dolphin 36' Class A brand new for over 100 thousand. It had a 14' super-slide and he put a full Banks power pack on the 460. Drove it for around 20K before he had his heart attack and had to stop driving the big rig. They sold it in 2001 for 40 grand and were happy to get it. Now I realize this is not a Born Free, but it was still a rather nice Class A and it lost SO much value. The people who bought it got a religiously maintained, low-mileage Class A for nearly a third of what it had cost 5 years prior. That's smart shopping.

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1993 Born Free President 24' Rear Bunk, 7.3L ATS Turbo Diesel, 10K Trans Cooler, EGT & Trans Temp Gauges, 77K "Elsa"