Cowpie

They do drink gas, for sure. But I have done several looks at prevailing costs via NADA and other sources on used HD's in both gas and diesel, especially since the diesel emissions game came along, and while the gasser will always be lower in value than the diesel version, the spread gets tighter as the vehicles get older. So the gasser is not loosing nearly the percentage of value as the diesels of the last 5 years. It is getting harder to truly justify a diesel, given the complexity and emission stuff. They do still have their unique niche that cannot be topped by a gasser, but very few folks actually fit into that niche. Of all HD pickups out there, very few are being used to yank around super 5th wheel RV's over Vail pass and such that would justify having a diesel. What most folks actually do could be accomplished quite well with a 6.6 gasser in the GM stuff and the 7.3 gasser in the Ford stuff. If my wife can tow my 20,000 lb semi truck tractor thru heavy mud spring thaw gravel roads, over several hills, two miles to the nearest highway with my 2015 2500 6.0 gasser like she had to do last spring, then I think it suffices for my lighter trailer towing and snowplow work I do with it.

Problem is, though the Dmax is getting better fuel economy, the actual fuel cost per mile is the same since diesel is higher priced that gas. So there really is no appreciable benefit in that regard. Towing would be the only advantage, and then it all depends on what one is towing.

Matter of driving style. A driver can influence fuel economy by 33%. Fleet studies have shown that. Same vehicles and different drivers. When I was using regular E10, I could average about 14 mpg with my 2015 2500 6.0 with slightly oversized BFG KO2 rubber and back end dropped 2" for all miles... town, gravel, rural, highway, etc. Highway trips of 95% highway, I could get 17-18 mpg. Not quite getting that now due to using E30 fuel, but the cost is lower so the actual cost per mile is about the same. About the same cost per mile if I was using a diesel getting better mpg, so since I don't need a diesel, I don't have one. Just in my semi truck.

My 3/4 drive socket set is far superior to my 3/8 drive socket set also. But then why do I own both? I have tools for the job I need to get done. Just that simple. My 3/4 ton pickup is better at tasks around my property than my semi truck is. It is also better at making quick part / oil runs, pushing snow, etc. But on the road, my semi puts a 3/4 ton pickup to shame, even a diesel version. I guess, why do I also own a John Deere Gator? Wouldn't the 4x4 pickup suffice? Nope, not in all situations. A pickup is just a tool for me. Pure and simple. And I have different tools for different jobs. Oh..... my semi truck IS my daily driver. When I go to work, I walk out of the house and get in the Semi. I don't drive to work with car or pickup. But that doesn't negate the fact that pickup truck OEM's have not kept pace with the developments of the heavy truck OEM's while at the same time inflating prices at a higher percentage than heavy truck OEM's have. Anymore, even the wild creature comforts that the pickup truck OEM's put in their pickups is being matched, and in some ways exceeded, by the heavy truck OEM's. As far as use on the road, my semi truck is far superior and comfortable to drive than my pickup. I have given thought to going to a single drive axle and cutting the frame shorter and using the semi to yank around a 5th wheel RV I may opt for in retirement. At least in the semi truck I will have air ride seats, a built in refrigerator, 10" GPS navigation, Bose surround sound, etc that it already has. Heck, I can literally get up out of the seat and switch drivers with the truck moving down the road if I wanted to. And the visibility is far superior than any pickup truck.

The average mpg of commercial semi trucks has almost doubled in the last 20 years. Doing the same work on the same terrain in the same weather. And the average HP and Torque of engines has gone up as well. Meanwhile, the average trailer length has gone from 48' to 53'. Even with all the diesel emissions stuff that got piled on just like the pickups got. And there was no government CAFE stuff forcing OEM's to improve mpg of semi trucks over that period. The heavy truck OEM's did it to gain market share. They did it to improve customer cost benefit ratios. They put their R&D people to work. The OEM pickup manufacturers cannot make the same claim to have doubled average mpg in the last 20 years of pickups within any class. A little bit of an uptick, but certainly not doubled. And it wouldn't have improved much at all if the pickup OEM's had not had the government breathing down their throat about fuel economy. My '98 2500 454 averaged 12-13 mpg for all miles . My 2015 2500 6.0 only gets about 1-2 mpg average better fuel economy than that for all miles. And the new 6.6 gasser numbers have not added much to that. If the pickup OEM's had accomplished the same thing as heavy commercial trucks, the average MPG for all miles of a modern 2500 gasser would be at least 20 mpg. That average including highway, city, hauling, everything. Diesels in pickups would be averaging in the high 20's mpg for all miles as well, not just highway mpg. The average price of a new pickup has virtually doubled in the last 20 years though. Even while the average price of a new heavy commercial truck has only gone up 50% in comparison. So the pickup OEM's have exceeded the cost growth compared to heavy commercial trucks.

Does anyone realize how lame getting that kind of mpg is? Today, my 70' long, 13.6' tall, 32,000 lb semi truck hauling 26,000 lb of cargo in a 53' trailer got about 8.7 mpg for the day. And that motor now has 1,046,619 miles on it. A pickup, even a gasser, yanking around 8500 lb of trailer should beat that by quite a margin. GM is really not getting things right.

The primary reason I have used E85 almost exclusively for the last 3 years in mine is, even with the lower mpg, it is still a lower cost per mile than regular. In the last couple of months, the price spread between fuels is not as good, so I am now using E30. I get almost as good of mpg as with E10, yet the cost is lower. So I am still coming out at a lower cost per mile than E10 and certainly E0 regular. And E30 still has a 93 octane rating so I get the benefits of that. Runs great on it.

20% off total vehicle price. There is a standard destination charge that is applied to all similar vehicles irregardless of the actual transport fee. As a commercial trucker myself, I could easily haul 6 full size 3/4 ton pickup trucks (7 full size 1500's) in one load and there is no way in hell I am going to get $1600 for each of them, even if they go across the nation. A typical transport truck is lucky to see $2.50 a mile and load/unload time compensation. Most transport runs are less than 1000 miles. But for the sake of argument, let's say they average 1000 miles. At $2.50 a mile (probably less than that), it comes to about $2500. I will be very generous and add in 1 hour of load/unload time per vehicle, which is probably about $50 per hour, for a total of $300. So we are at $2800. Take that and divide by 6 trucks and that comes to $467 a truck actual destination cost. Keep in mind, I am being very generous in both the per mile rate and the 1 hour load/unload time per truck. Those destination charges are as inflated as the prices for the trucks themselves. The average consumer isn't up to speed on the destination charge stuff, so the dealers can foist inflated destination charges on them. If I could get $1600 per truck to haul them, I would race out and buy a car hauler truck tomorrow morning. Heck, I would only make one run per week and still be raking in the revenue. Imagine.... 6 pickup trucks paying $1600 each to haul, throw in the load/unload time, and that is $10,000 a load. Let's say 40 loads a year, that is $400,000. There is no way in hell a transport truck is getting that kind of revenue even hauling Rolls Royce cars, let alone pickups from tightwad GM.

Well, none of the 2500's with 6.0 have 8 speed transmissions. The 6L90 is the trans. In fact, even the new 6.6 gasser in the 2500 only has a 6 speed, albeit a beefed up version of the 6L90. Even then, it does sound like your's has some issue going on. I have no problem yanking trailers around with my 2015 2500 6.0. It pushes snow like it isn't even doing any work. Heck, my wife used it to pull my 20,000 lb Freightliner Class 8 semi truck tractor that was buried in the spring mud on our rural gravel road last spring. She had to pull me 2 miles thru that muck, up and down hills, to the nearest hard surface road. Pickup acted like it was an average day out in the country. Wish I would have had a friend take video of that when it happened. I was just trying to keep the semi tractor on the road and the wife was white knuckled doing the pulling in the pickup. The semi was sliding around on that stuff, but the pickup tracked real well. Has BFG KO2 tires on it. I'll keep mine.

It seems strange that any dealership would not want to move vehicles, strike or not. They own it outright or their floor plan financier is going to hit them for interest on the vehicle as long as it sits on the lot. Either way, they are out money until they move the vehicle. GM doesn't ship vehicles to dealers out of the goodness of their heart. But then, it is a gambling thing. A dealer will bet the odds that someone will come along that will buy for almost full price. In this case, it worked. Doesn't mean the buyer got taken. They didn't if they are happy with the sale. Each person has to live within their own comfort zone.

TN05, give it a try for a while staying out of 6th and see what the results are. On the rural, rolling hill highways in my area, I typically run in manual mode 5th, keeping it out of the top OD. Keeps the RPM's around 21-2200 at 60 mph with my 6.0 / 4.10. When using regular fuel in that scenario, I would typically get an average of 14 mpg for all miles (in town, rural highway, gravel roads, hauling, etc). I only let it go into 6th when I will be out on the interstate and going 65 or more. 17-18 mpg on road trips. But I have 4.10 and 33.2 tires. You have 3.73 and 34.5 tires. You will just have to play with things and see what works best. But I will be willing to bet you should see an improvement in mpg if you keep the RPM's a little higher in most situations. Cliff

Yeah, I am really surprised that GM felt the need to depart from 4.10. It might be from a mpg mindset, but usually that doesn't play out as neat as the folks in cubicles think they will. 12 mpg is really lame. I do that well running E85 in my 6.0L. When I have done road trips using E85 exclusively, I have gotten 13-14 mpg with 95% highway. The newly designed 6.6 running E10 should get that on a bad day. On road trips with my 6.0 running regular E10, it has averaged 17-18 mpg with 95% highway. I may not expect the 6.6 to get better than that, but with its new design and direct injection, it should at least match it. Heck, on road trips I could get 16 mpg with my '98 2500 454. There must be something we are missing here for the new 6.6 to get such lousy mpg. While it is a different motor than the 6.0, from what I have seen of the HP / Torque graphs on the motor, some similarities remain. Just like the 6.0, it doesn't reach 90% of torque until about 2100-2200 RPM. So if the 3.73 is keeping the engine RPM's significantly lower at road speed, it is taking more fuel to overcome rotational inertia and fuel economy suffers. Just lessons learned from running commercial heavy trucks for several decades. I have a spread sheet that I use to calculate road speeds based on tire rotation, trans gear ratios, and diff ratios. From what I can tell, and assuming the 6 spd in the 2020 2500 has the same gear ratios as the 6L90, with 3.73 and stock rubber on 18" rims (about 32.8 tire diameter / 637 revs per mile), the rpm's would only be about 1850 at 70 mph. If running taller rubber, the RPM's drop even more. So much so that the RPM's are way outside the optimum range to be efficient. It is taking more fuel to keep things moving. The motor is essentially lugging the truck along. I did a calc using 285/65R20 which are 34.5" with 602 revs per mile. RPMs' would be about 1750 at 70 mph. That is going to really be terrible for fuel economy. The engine is having to really suck fuel at that low of RPM to keep things moving. Overcoming rotational inertia is killing fuel economy. Whereas with 4.10 ratio, the RPM's would be around 1950 at 70 mph. A lot closer to the optimum of the motor but not quite there. So the 34.5" rubber is having a negative affect for sure. And tied with 3.73 the results are terrible. Cliff

I guess I feel the 1/2 tons are way over inflated on price. I have seen several examples of new 2020 crew cab 2500's with the new 6.6L gasser (equivalent performance to the 6.2L Ecotec), listing for around $49K and being driven off the lot for around $40K... roughly 18% off on average. I find it difficult to imagine that it costs more to make a 1/2 ton than it does a 3/4 ton. Especially since the volume of parts used to make 1/2 tons makes individual components cheaper. But then, the 1/2 tons are where OEM's and dealers make the most profit per vehicle. That is one reason I really don't consider the 1/2 tons anymore. Not enough value. My 2015 2500 LT Z71 listed for $49K and I took it home for $38K, no special sales event, no wild incentives or rebates, mid model year like now.

If you can handle the price, and it is the exact vehicle you are looking for, and you like the vehicle, there is nothing wrong with the 16% you got knocked off. One does have to factor in the demand for a particular vehicle in an area. Everything is a balancing act. What you want vs what is available vs what most of the buyers are looking for vs dealer volume, etc. Heck, even time of the month can be a factor if the dealer has a lot of their vehicles paid for via a financing arm floor plan. I am a more basic vehicle kind of guy. Heck, I rarely turn on the radio in my vehicles, I have no use for Sirius/XM. I hate taking calls when I drive even though I could via hands free. I would rather use my iPhone for navigation, traffic, weather, etc as it does a better job than any of the vehicle display stuff so I have little use for the stuff that goes on in the 8" display except the backup camera thing is nice to use. I can comfortably live without tire pressure monitoring. I do so every day with my class 8 semi truck and have with my vehicles from the 1960's thru 2013. I have never turned on the heated seats in my vehicles yet... the 2015 2500 or the 2017 Equinox. Even at -20F. No real need. My vehicles reside in a heated garage when not in use. Heated seats just happened to be part of the package on the vehicles. Something I had to pay for that I don't need, like so many other things. So my choices are much more broad and I can get some better deals, there are a lot more dealers to choose from that have what I actually want. I prefer white exterior color and that broadens the selections quite a bit to make a very good deal on.

The new Gas To Liquid (GTL) that SOPUS (Shell, Pennzoil, Quaker State, et al) has jumped on board with a vengeance is a base oil made from natural gas. Group IV PAO is made from ethylene gas, making it dependent on crude oil / natural gas also for its base stock. Yet, GTL is classed as a Group III. And in sample testing, the GTL base oils perform virtually the same as the Group IV PAO's. So for the average user, there is no appreciable difference that they would glean from a higher priced PAO. And PAO has a lower natural lubricity than a mineral derived oil, so it requires additional lubricity compounds. And PAO is is very non polar, meaning that it has a lower natural solvency, lower additive solubility, lower lubricity and film strength. PAO is top tier when it comes to oxidation stability. PAO still depends on Group III or Group V in the mix for additive solubility. The former being less expensive. In reciprocating compressors, PAO can form hard deposits. It still would seem that the average user is not going to benefit much from using a primarily PAO based motor oil. It isn't a bad thing, but it is not heads and shoulders above Group III base oils. Each group has its own unique pros and cons. So it still seems to come down to the quality of the add pack that makes the most substantive difference. Esters can provide substantive lubrication at extreme temps and make for a good boundary lubricant. But the addition of Molybdenum and Boron in a semi syn or full syn base oil can accomplish the same task, especially in relation to the average user. And it is interesting that SOPUS, Amsoil, Schaeffer, and others put a considerable dose of Moly and Boron in their add packs. So yet again, the average user is probably not going to see any appreciable benefit from using an ester based motor oil. The bang for the buck just isn't there. All the above is why I just use a Group III (75%) and Group IV PAO (25%) blend. Cost is more reasonable and it is more than capable of getting the job done.