Thread: TD5 Fuel Economy

Just got back from a trip out to Big Red (around 4000kms) round trip and when working out overall fuel use for the trip it came out at an average of 8.8kms to the litre. Most of the drive was on bitumen sitting on 100/110ks with plenty of night driving at 70/80ks due to the roos.Probably a maximum of 800ks of good dirt road in the whole trip all travelled at 80/90klicks, and playing in the sand at best 20ks overall.Truck was carrying 2 blokes @100kg each and about 300kg of gear. No roof rack only 2 rhino bars with nothing on them. I was wondering what mileage other owners were getting out of their fenders? Note that we were driving from tank to tank most of the way, with no stops and no traffic etc. It seems a bit short of the claimed 11.5 km/l. Vehicle is an 03 model with 25000k on it.

I'm in central QLD, so went out thru Emerald to Boulia(all bitumen) and south to Bedourie then to Birdsville(a lot more bitumen on this stretch, probably over half) the road had been graded and was good for 90kmh easy.The road out to Big Red in good nick, easy 25 mins from Birdsville.Big Red was fairly simple east to west, but a fairly steep and loose drop after the crest and zero visibility of whats coming the other way until your over the top.Only had 5 days to spare so we only went out another 30ks or so, the rest of the dunes were much the same.The track was fairly rutted betweeen the dunes but nothing ridiculous.Big Red west to East was a different proposition due to the depth and amount of loose sand, we tried the bypass track(turnoff about 1.5k after BR)and chose the 2nd track from the right as all others had a good crest of 2m or more of windblown sand, and there was no way you could get over(bull bar just dug in). 3rd low seemed to be the go but you had to nail it in the bends in the track, had tyres down to 20psi and with that we were out driving a difflocked cruiser. Just remember that there could always be someone coming the other way, you cant see jack, even if they had a flag. Road backfrom Birdsville to Windorah was fine, and after Windorah its all bitumen, but at night between Quilpie and Charleville a roo every 100 meters(I kid you not)