Miles per gallon with a diesel?

[Dave and Kimberly]

I'm thinking that my next truck will be an F-250 super duty diesel.  I understand all the benefits (pay load, braking, handling and elimination of the WDS) There is a significant cost up ($10K) for the diesel engine alone.  Ive read enough folks opinions on the diesel engine and I'm convinced that it is better for towing.   My current F-150 just never gets any more than 13mpg... and thats generally a good day!   

  A question to the many of you folks that have made the leap to diesel;  what kind of milage are you getting while towing your Ollie?

[Mike and Carol]

MPG will, of course, will depend on how and where you drive.  My Ram has a 6.7L inline six, a little different than the Ford V8.  I get about 18 mpg around town not towing.  A little over 20 mpg just highway.  Towing on level highways I get a little over 15 mpg at 65 mph.  I’ll do 70 on I-10 going west from San Antonio and I’ll get 13/14 mpg.  In the mountains it drops to 11 or 12.  I’ve got about 75K miles on this truck, half of it towing.  Mike

[Patriot]

Totally agree with @Mike and Carol on mpgs. That said we are very happy with our F350 6.7 diesel with safety, comfort, towing,  great cargo capacity and ridiculous power and torque. We only have 30k on our TV. We own a smaller Ford Ranger that we use daily for running errands when at home. Our F350 is mainly for travel and towing. 

Empty and not towing I get about 19-20 mpgs. Our average towing on the flats we average 15.9 mpgs. This of course changes when we hit the mountains. But I know our mpgs are much better than our former half ton Tundra with the 5.7 V8. We sold the Tundra as it just did not have the power, braking and mainly cargo capacity we needed.

One thing worthy of note we have noticed out west in some of the mountain passes Law Enforcement will do brake checks on 1/2 ton vehicles towing campers. They use a heat gun and determine if you need to pull over to designated parking areas so that your brakes can cool. With our one ton diesel we were waved through and no check. 

Best of luck with your choice for a new TV!

Edited September 16 by Patriot

[ScubaRx]

Tali and I currently tow with a Silverado 3500 HD. We did tow with a Silverado 2500 HD and before that, a Sierra 1500 SLT 6.2L gasser. Both the Silverado's have be diesel. We found the 2500 HD to have a minimal payload of just over 2000 pounds. As many of you have pointed out, we carry a lot of gear, too much according to some (I have a list.)

The poor Sierra was seriously overloaded, probably by about a ton (literally). It's no wonder it got a dismal fuel mileage of around 10.5mpg. Moving up to the 2500 HD was great for fuel mileage coming in around 13.5-14 mpg right out of the gate. Unfortunately, I discovered that I was still 7-8 hundred pounds overloaded so we moved up to the 3500 HD. The engine and transmission in both the Silverado's are the same. I was pleasantly surprised to get exactly the same fuel mileage from the 3500 HD.

With the exception of driving the 3500 HD around town, it is always a tow vehicle. We've had it nearly three years and it doesn't even have 30K miles on it. Our trips are always at least 4500 miles so the mileage we've racked up are virtually all highway towing miles. We have only ever made a single one-way trip to Huntsville not towing the Oliver. We went there to pick up another trailer to tow back to Tupelo. I can say that in the 2500 HD we made a few non towing trips in. It got 22 mpg on the open highway. Mileage around town seems to be the same as towing mileage.

[Rolind]

Our F250 gets 13-14 mph while towing our LE2. Mileage is very speed dependent. 

[Jason Foster]

I love diesels but I do not love what the EPA is doing to them.  I have a 2014 Cummins that gets about 25 on the highway, 18 in the city and about 13 towing.  This includes stopping, idling and everything in between.  Mine is not EPA compliant, however.  Personally, if I needed a new TV, I would buy a Ram 2500 with the Hemi.  It gets decent fuel mileage and doesn't suffer the ill effects of emission equipment.