Tuesday 17 February 2015

Ram 1500 and F-150 battle over fuel economy

In the US, fastlanetruck.com (flt.com) has carried out road tests on the Dodge Ram 1500 versus the Ford F-Series F-150pick up truck to assess the fuel economy of vehicles.

In the tests, carried out on a calm day on February 13 2015 over a 33-mile route on a 65°F day in Denver, Colorado, with both 4x4 vehicles running on cruise control at 65 mile/h, the V6 diesel-powered Ram returned 30.1 mile/gal against 27.8 mile/gal for the gasoline-powered F-150. In both cases the fuel economy was taken from on the vehicles’ trip recorders.

The Ram 1500 is powered by the VM Motori 3-litre V6 diesel engine while the F-150 carries the latest arrival in Ford’s powertrain armoury – the Lima-built 2.7-litre V6 EcoBoost.

Both engines carry compacted graphite iron (CGI) cylinder blocks provided by Tupy SA, the world’s leading supplier of CGI cylinder blocks and cylinder heads for both diesel and gasoline engines.  

The power and torque ratings for the Ram 1500 truck with eight-speed automatic transmission were 240bhp and 420lbft respectively.

The power and torque ratings for the Ford F-150 with its six-speed automatic transmission were more power lest torque, namely 325bhp and 375lbft respectively.

Significantly, the Ram 1500 was the heavier of the two vehicles by 920lb – that is 5,840lb against 4,920lb for the F-150.

The EPA fuel economy for the Ram 1500 is 19/27/22 and 18/23/20 for the gasoline powered F-150.

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1 comment:

Alan Bunting said...

The fuel economy advantage of the diesel would have undoubtedly been far more than the 8.3% recorded if the test had been more authentic - specifically if the vehicles had been loaded to their respective gvws, rather than empty. TFLTruck appears to be a 'boy racer' publication, so perhaps one could not expect a more realistic appraisal.