RV Mile per Gallon

[BigJohn]

Gang... I am curious what the rest of you are getting for miles per gallon....

But I have to brag on my rig.

I have a 2021, 24 foot, Class C that has the 7.3L Ford, V8 Godzilla engine.

This past weekend we did a 760 mile trip through Colorado to Taos, NM and back.... and.....

We averaged 11.6 mpg... I was astounded.

Yeah, sure... we did a lot of miles at 55 mph and 60 mph, but we climbed big passes (up over 12k feet) and we just cruised easy at times.

But WOW.... 11.6 mpg... that is awesome.

We even had the carrier and the motorcycle on the back.

 

[vwmaniaman]

My 27ft Coach House 272XL gets between 11-14.5 with the 6.8 V10 and my Roadtrek Versatille with 5.2 Magnum gets 16 mpg. My 2007 Dodge 1500 towing my 245 Terry 5th wheel gets 11.0 with the 5.7 hemi. I used to have a Revcon 32 Ft Prince and 7.5 was normal with a 454 and a RV cam. All the newer ones seem to get better mileage. My VCoach house has the full Banks Power kit on it so I think that is helping my mileage.

 

[ctechbob]

Not a motorhome, but a full 8foot wide camper.

9.8-10.5 keeping up with traffic on the interstate

11-12 driving slower on secondary roads.

You can argue with physics all you want, but you can't fight it. Takes a certain amount of power to move big bricks through the air.

 

[fsdork]

Around 10-11 mpg with our 6.2L F-150 pulling a 19' lightweight (3500 lb) trailer at highway speeds with varying terrain.

 

[Snagglefoot]

9.4 MPG towing a 9300 lb 28 ft travel trailer with a 3/4 ton Suburban with a 6.0 liter LS engine.

 

[wwillson]

9.5 MPG pulling a 37' 20,000 pound 5th wheel with our 2021 Chevy Duramax dually. I tow at 60MPH, once in a while 65.

 

[I<3oil]

/waits for CKN to post saying how he gets 43mpg driving 92 pulling a 25k trailer uphill in his Silverado before he got rid of it

 

[AZjeff]

6700 mile trip this spring from AZ to FLA to Pa to AZ used 670 gallons for 10.0 mpg, cruise @ 65, very few miles were not towing. GM 6.6 gas and Grand Design 2150 travel trailer. If I just went by the dash mpg it would be low 11s.

 

[wwillson]

If I just went by the dash mpg it would be low 11s.

Yes, the driver information center computer is biased on the high side.

 

[Nick1994]

That’s pretty good. I mean my ‘96 Jeep Cherokee 4.0L got 13 mpg all by itself on it’s last tank

 

[ctechbob]

Yes, the driver information center computer is biased on the high side.

Better than Ford's programming. It is all over the map. Some tanks it is low, some it is high.

It seems to get more accurate the more fuel you use. Towing it is usually within a couple of points, unladen and driven gently it gets further and further off.

 

[Jackson_Slugger]

Not sure who makes the Conquest (edit: I see it's Gulfstream), but they are making these things lighter and a bit better today using newer polymer materials that not only maintain integrity better & longer than they used to but have greatly reduced weight. I guess the kicker might be in the inevitable repair job later on down the line...

 

[varmint]

2000 chevy Silverado 1500 5.3 Liter towing 25' airstream TT 12 to 13 mpg

2004 Airstream 396 Land yacht 7.2 Liter Caterpillar & 2003 chevy malibu 9.5 to 10.5

 

[hemioiler]

I've gotten anywhere from 9 to 12 mpg depending on head/tail wind.

5.7 hemi towing 6000 pounds. Mix of rural and freeway, but never really beyond 63 mph for long periods.

 

[eljefino]

My 23' Jamboree Searcher, behind a Econoline EFI 460 and 4 speed OD trans, got 7 MPG, cruising at 45-55.

 

[wlk]

04 Expedition 5.4l 2v pulling our 23' (27' overall) 5500-6000# camper from PA - OH - IL - WI - MN - ND and back thru Iowa got 8.4 - 9.5 mpgs on ave for the 5k mile trip. Some 10s but some 7s too not hateful though. Ave speed on interstates were 60mph.

 

[chainblu]

13 mpg with 2000 Silverado 5.3 pulling a 24' Ultralite. 65 mph on the flats. In the hills- 10-11.

 

[Impatient]

I remember all the bragging by Sprinter T1N owners that their vans got over 20 mpg diesel. For instance:

2004 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter MPG - Actual MPG from 10 2004 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter owners

The most accurate 2004 Mercedes-Benz Sprinters MPG estimates based on real world results of 137 thousand miles driven in 10 Mercedes-Benz Sprinters

www.fuelly.com

of course these weren’t necessarily “RV’s.” Regardless, it coincides with the “physics laws” alluded to above. If you can cram your belongings, toys, and family into a 20’ high roof van, you can certainly save on fuel.

this reminds me of meeting a young couple with a 1 yr old near Depoe Bay, OR who had shipped their Sprinter-based RV (equiv to Wesfalia Sprinter) from Germany and were circumventing the USA (across Canada to west coast, then down to Mexico, then I forget where from there). They managed, and their setup was remarkably civilized…by Bohemian standards.

once saw an old VW Westalia for sale with a sign bragging about its history; had been across much of Europe, parts of Africa, then across much of Canada and US. Quote (more or less): during this time (in N. America), ”we” and our 4 () children lived in this van ().

another couple I ran into had taken their T1N from USA to Argentina and back. Actually, he left the van and his wife in Argentina for job reasons, leaving her to navigate the return trip in the van on her own. . Evidently they were still together, and happy. more recently I learned that getting across the Darian Gap (Panama-Columbia) is quite an “adventure” so I have no idea how she managed. I assume a ferry was involved.

fast forward to Chevy Silverado commercial where the omni-powerful pickup drags the 35ft fifth wheel up hellacious mountain roads to arrive at a pristine lake with NO ONE else around…yeah, right. Even pushing the limits of where a 20ft AWD or Quigley camper van can take you does not guarantee solitude. Plenty of Earthroamers don’t seem to make it much further than the riff-raff like my friend Micah and me do in our vans…well, his limits are beyond mine.

but I digress.

oh, I get maybe 16-17-18 mpg gas. I had hoped for 18-20, but Ford rather optimistic in their marketing.

 

[MSCH]

once in awhile a person can get an outlier tank of fuel where you really can't explain why it did so good or so bad... so you just chalk it up to erroneous readings and motor on. problem is that some people will you take that one all time best MPG reading and use that as their go to mileage when they tell everybody what kinda mileage they get..

here is a real world mileage report from my round trip from FL to Alaska and back thios year.. 16179 miles. 1355.2 gallons of fuel , $5726 dollars spent on diesel fuel for one round trip from SWFLA to Alaska. This trip total includes quite a bit of unloaded driving but best guess is about 11000 miles is towing milegage.... sorry I did not figure out a way to separate it, but I ended up right about 12 mpg for the complete trip.

 

[wander2039]

8.2 to 8.6 average.. 28ft with the 6.0L. We have gotten up to 10-11 several times, just depends on the wind. You will get better mileage in the mountains, you'd think it would be opposite but the downgrades really adds up.