ROAD TRIP (real world MPG too)

[67ChevyRedneck]

Hey all. I went to charlotte this weekend for the autofair. It was kind of crappy and rainy last year. There was about 4 times as many people this year than I saw last year. The rain held off until late afternoon. It almost looked like a race day there was so many people.

The truck made it up without skipping a beat. The 350 purred at 2300 rpm's while the speedometer was showing something in the high 70's (Hey on I-85, it's "keep up or get run over.")

There was A LOT of "our" trucks for sale there. I couldn't afford a single one without a BIG loan. I also think that vendors for our trucks outnumbered all other vendors. If they didn't, it was close! I also saw Tim Christain again, and bought a bunch of parts again. Mostly the rear bumper to replace the one that got smacked last week

Made it back fine, it started raining, but not hard. I stopped off at the girlfriends parents house and when I tried to refire the truck realized the starter wire broke off. I replaced the end and she fired right up.

I finally have some real fuel mileage info. for the truck. I've checked my odometer and speedometer on several occations and it's consistently off by 9%, so I took that into account in my figures.

The truck is a 350 with 700R4 and 3.73 rear. Driving the truck to work and around greenville is essentially all city driving. I have to sit at a lot of red lights and don't see much over 45 mph. The truck almost never see's OD (I leave it in 3rd) when driving around greenville. After checking the last 5 tanks of fuel I'm consitently getting 12.7-12.9 mpg.

After finally getting to check "highway mileage" I filled the truck up before I left, when I left the show, and when I got back. I was able to check 2 tanks. I got 14.7 for one and 14.9 for the other. 14.7 was on the way up, there was no traffic and I was going 75+. The 14.9 was on the way back, traffic was heavier through charlotte and to the border and I slowed to 65-70.

I'd be willing to bet I could get 15.5 or so if I were to go 60-65. Not bad for a 3700 pound brick!