Best Gas Mileage for Trucks
The people that tended to rank good gas mileage as the most important thing in their purchase decision are not usually looking for pick-up trucks. The best gas mileage for trucks took a back seat to other design factors.
The people who tended to purchase trucks usually have more interest in the work capacity of the truck than they do in the EPA gas mileage figures. Since the truck makers understood this, their engineering efforts mostly went into such things as payload, pulling power, and even size and toughness. When people looked at the best gas mileage for trucks, they were most often really looking at the best of a fairly bad set of figures. In recent years, as gasoline prices skyrocketed, this has changed a little bit.
The unfortunate thing about the trucks vs. gas efficiency problem is that many tradeoffs were necessary. It was just common sense. If the small economy cars suddenly decided that they needed to have pulling power, off road toughness, and large payload capacity, they were going to suffer in economy. For the trucks, it is going just the other direction. As they move toward more economy, they are being forced to pay for it by reducing the very things that attracted truck drivers in the first place.
Despite this gloomy situation, some trucks are emerging as leaders in the battle to reduce gas use with a minimum sacrifice of good truck qualities. One interesting thing here is the name of an American truck on the leader board. When you look at the best economy cars, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan dominate the list. Since they make trucks as well, you would expect to find these names on the top of the “best gas mileage for trucks” list. However, right up on top is the Ford Ranger pickup.
The Ford Ranger pickup scores 21 mpg city and 26 mpg highway which are fairly respectable figures under the EPA’s revised testing methods. It is important to remember that this figure is for the 2 wheel drive, 4 cylinder, 2.3 liter model with a manual 5 speed transmission. This illustrates the fact that such things as four wheel drive and bigger, more powerful engines, and frills such as automatic transmissions will always have to be paid for in reduced gas mileage efficiency.
The next two on the list are the Mazda B2300 which actually ties the Ranger with 21/26 mpg with a similar power and transmission size. The Toyota Tacoma has a slightly bigger engine at 2.7 liters and pays for it with a 20/25 mpg figure to take third place. One good way to really look at trucks and even cars is what is called the “bang for the buck” method. This is simply a way of working sticker price, and other features, into a formula with EPA gas mileage ratings to find the best compromise.