Gas mileage MPG report, Dallas to Houston and back

[texanjeeper]

We took a day trip to Galveston yesterday to enjoy the cool weather we're having. I loaded up the Gladiator with the bare minimum, no suitcases of clothes, just a duffle bag and some other sundry items. I kept everything under the new tonneau cover. I filled up before the trip and every fill-up on the way and back was using 87 gas at various prices between $2.79 and $2.89 per gallon. I'm using the app Fuelly for MPG calculation.

My first fill-up was in Ennis, the first city south of Dallas on I-45. I just wanted to get an idea of what the mileage was going between 45 and 65 getting out of the city limits. I got a reading of 22.5 mpg.

Next fill-up was south of Huntsville, we stopped for a bathroom break and I went ahead and filled up. I had been going mostly 75-85 mpg for this duration and my MPG for this leg was 18.5. We got to Houston and mainly stayed parked in front of Bubba Gump Shrimp, had lunch there and then went down the stairs at the seawall and enjoyed the day. Around 6pm we picked up and left and I filled up and I came away with 21.6 mpg from that leg of the trip.

I was determined to drive straight through on the return trip and follow the speed limits to the letter, which means I would be going mostly 75 mph between Huntsville and Dallas proper. However, just north of Huntsville, they had the northbound traffic completely shut down for some kind of construction. We had to divert down the frontage road and it was a 2 and a half hour addition to our travel. After I got back on I-45 north, I was still determined to have a straight drive through so I stopped and topped off the tank, believe it or not from Galveston to just north of Huntsville, I got 22.6 mpg in that stop and go crap that we had been stuck in. With a full tank, I finally drove straight through to my front door, and this morning I filled up and determined that I got 18.5 mpg on the return trip.

My observations are this:

1. MY Gladiator gets it's best gas mileage between 45 and 70 mph. Maybe 45 and 65 mph.
2. Making it from far north Dallas to Galveston is very do-able on a single fill-up, with a lot to spare.
3. Travelling in the Gladiator is, to me, FUN. It drives beautifully and my wife's back held up just fine in the passenger seat.
4. I saw a grand total of 6 Gladiators on the trip. Of course, mine was the best looking. The last one was at that last fill-up north of Huntsville at a Buck-ees. I stopped and talked to him, he said he was selling his Gladiator because he didn't like the way it drove on traveling trips. To each his own I suppose, I don't share his experience.
5. I need to find a place in Galveston I can take the Gladiator off-road in the sand. I'd love to take advantage of that when I'm down there.

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[Tufelhundin]

Awesome report and glad you had a great time! One word of advice, you have very good fuel economy now.

...dont....change...a...thing....


Best I could get stock was 17mpg a tank using cruise and going the speed limit. I miss those days, LOL!


Im hoping to make our annual trip to San Antonio this summer, I love that place. But we will be taking the wife's '21 WK2, it gets MUCH better fuel economy and is DECKED out. I get spoiled driving that thing. Makes me wish I would have got all the bells and whistles in mine. LOL.

 

[Summitsearcher]

We took a day trip to Galveston yesterday to enjoy the cool weather we're having. I loaded up the Gladiator with the bare minimum, no suitcases of clothes, just a duffle bag and some other sundry items. I kept everything under the new tonneau cover. I filled up before the trip and every fill-up on the way and back was using 87 gas at various prices between $2.79 and $2.89 per gallon. I'm using the app Fuelly for MPG calculation.

My first fill-up was in Ennis, the first city south of Dallas on I-45. I just wanted to get an idea of what the mileage was going between 45 and 65 getting out of the city limits. I got a reading of 22.5 mpg.

Next fill-up was south of Huntsville, we stopped for a bathroom break and I went ahead and filled up. I had been going mostly 75-85 mpg for this duration and my MPG for this leg was 18.5. We got to Houston and mainly stayed parked in front of Bubba Gump Shrimp, had lunch there and then went down the stairs at the seawall and enjoyed the day. Around 6pm we picked up and left and I filled up and I came away with 21.6 mpg from that leg of the trip.

I was determined to drive straight through on the return trip and follow the speed limits to the letter, which means I would be going mostly 75 mph between Huntsville and Dallas proper. However, just north of Huntsville, they had the northbound traffic completely shut down for some kind of construction. We had to divert down the frontage road and it was a 2 and a half hour addition to our travel. After I got back on I-45 north, I was still determined to have a straight drive through so I stopped and topped off the tank, believe it or not from Galveston to just north of Huntsville, I got 22.6 mpg in that stop and go crap that we had been stuck in. With a full tank, I finally drove straight through to my front door, and this morning I filled up and determined that I got 18.5 mpg on the return trip.

My observations are this:

1. MY Gladiator gets it's best gas mileage between 45 and 70 mph. Maybe 45 and 65 mph.
2. Making it from far north Dallas to Galveston is very do-able on a single fill-up, with a lot to spare.
3. Travelling in the Gladiator is, to me, FUN. It drives beautifully and my wife's back held up just fine in the passenger seat.
4. I saw a grand total of 6 Gladiators on the trip. Of course, mine was the best looking. The last one was at that last fill-up north of Huntsville at a Buck-ees. I stopped and talked to him, he said he was selling his Gladiator because he didn't like the way it drove on traveling trips. To each his own I suppose, I don't share his experience.
5. I need to find a place in Galveston I can take the Gladiator off-road in the sand. I'd love to take advantage of that when I'm down there.

Nice job!

 

[yoda13]

Great mileage

 

[texanjeeper]

I mainly bothered with this as a real-world MPG for my specific Sport-S Gladiator, but I hope it might help set expectations at something realistic when others are looking at what they might expect when travelling at certain speeds on the highway. While I love cranking it up to 80mph, and it handled beautifully at that speed, it's not the most efficient and I'll likely keep the speedo set around 70, maybe 75, on longer trips. I can live with that gas mileage.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Awesome report and glad you had a great time! One word of advice, you have very good fuel economy now.

...dont....change...a...thing....


Best I could get stock was 17mpg a tank using cruise and going the speed limit. I miss those days, LOL!


Im hoping to make our annual trip to San Antonio this summer, I love that place. But we will be taking the wife's '21 WK2, it gets MUCH better fuel economy and is DECKED out. I get spoiled driving that thing. Makes me wish I would have got all the bells and whistles in mine. LOL.

My wife gets 25 routinely with her 21 WK2 and she got 25-26 routinely with her 2018 WK2. She gets 24 average if I end up driving it. But she'll come home from one of her quilt retreat weekends and brag about her 25 mpg average. I've seen her 2018 do 27 when kept 55 and under.
I've found 65 and under to be the sweet spot for my Overland. Makes sense because of the exponential increase in wind resistance the faster you go and they typically used to say as a general rule, anything over 60 loses you mpg big-time. That was a fact with my other vehicles but this seems to be ok with 60-65. Over that and you can see the numbers drop. It was really evident when we were coming back from Indiana a year ago. Most of the highways were top speed of 55 and we were doing an easy 23 on those two lane back-highways. Then my wife hit the interstate with it, upped to 70-75 and the average quickly dropped to sub-20.

You did pretty well - real world. And the fact you are driving a TRUCK, and a JEEP truck at that, a tall brick in the wind, makes anything over 20 even more impressive, IMO.

 

[AverageDad]

I’ve only got about 700 miles on mine - mixed use of highway and city. Pleased to be at 20. That’s in a stock Overland with All-Seasons. I’m sure it will drop when I switch to all-terrains, though I don’t plan to lift it or go much bigger.

 

[Jeeperjamie]

Nice Job. I just got back into town from a 4hr one way, 8hr round trip to wrightsville beach and i got my MPGs to 18.1, or better yet my wife got my MPGs to 18.1 since she was driving. Haven't reset since putting the 37's on back in February, about 12,000 miles of driving on them. I am pretty stoked about averaging over 18 mpgs on stock 4.10 gears. This things a Joy to drive and ride in, plenty of power and getup and go for me.

 

[Jeeperjamie]

Well look at that, actually 18.2mpgs, if goes up any more i might consider going to 38's, my wife's gonna kill me

 

[db305]

We took a day trip to Galveston yesterday to enjoy the cool weather we're having. I loaded up the Gladiator with the bare minimum, no suitcases of clothes, just a duffle bag and some other sundry items. I kept everything under the new tonneau cover. I filled up before the trip and every fill-up on the way and back was using 87 gas at various prices between $2.79 and $2.89 per gallon. I'm using the app Fuelly for MPG calculation.

My first fill-up was in Ennis, the first city south of Dallas on I-45. I just wanted to get an idea of what the mileage was going between 45 and 65 getting out of the city limits. I got a reading of 22.5 mpg.

Next fill-up was south of Huntsville, we stopped for a bathroom break and I went ahead and filled up. I had been going mostly 75-85 mpg for this duration and my MPG for this leg was 18.5. We got to Houston and mainly stayed parked in front of Bubba Gump Shrimp, had lunch there and then went down the stairs at the seawall and enjoyed the day. Around 6pm we picked up and left and I filled up and I came away with 21.6 mpg from that leg of the trip.

I was determined to drive straight through on the return trip and follow the speed limits to the letter, which means I would be going mostly 75 mph between Huntsville and Dallas proper. However, just north of Huntsville, they had the northbound traffic completely shut down for some kind of construction. We had to divert down the frontage road and it was a 2 and a half hour addition to our travel. After I got back on I-45 north, I was still determined to have a straight drive through so I stopped and topped off the tank, believe it or not from Galveston to just north of Huntsville, I got 22.6 mpg in that stop and go crap that we had been stuck in. With a full tank, I finally drove straight through to my front door, and this morning I filled up and determined that I got 18.5 mpg on the return trip.

My observations are this:

1. MY Gladiator gets it's best gas mileage between 45 and 70 mph. Maybe 45 and 65 mph.
2. Making it from far north Dallas to Galveston is very do-able on a single fill-up, with a lot to spare.
3. Travelling in the Gladiator is, to me, FUN. It drives beautifully and my wife's back held up just fine in the passenger seat.
4. I saw a grand total of 6 Gladiators on the trip. Of course, mine was the best looking. The last one was at that last fill-up north of Huntsville at a Buck-ees. I stopped and talked to him, he said he was selling his Gladiator because he didn't like the way it drove on traveling trips. To each his own I suppose, I don't share his experience.
5. I need to find a place in Galveston I can take the Gladiator off-road in the sand. I'd love to take advantage of that when I'm down there.

if you want to get in the sand drive down the island to jamaica beach or surfside.

 

[db305]

Nice Job. I just got back into town from a 4hr one way, 8hr round trip to wrightsville beach and i got my MPGs to 18.1, or better yet my wife got my MPGs to 18.1 since she was driving. Haven't reset since putting the 37's on back in February, about 12,000 miles of driving on them. I am pretty stoked about averaging over 18 mpgs on stock 4.10 gears. This things a Joy to drive and ride in, plenty of power and getup and go for me.

what did you do to get that mileage with those tires? i was getting 18+ with the stock all seasons in mostly city driving, and then the rubi takeoffs made it drop like a rock. are you mostly highway/long periods without stops?

 

[Jeeperjamie]

what did you do to get that mileage with those tires? i was getting 18+ with the stock all seasons in mostly city driving, and then the rubi takeoffs made it drop like a rock. are you mostly highway/long periods without stops?

No 50/50 Hwy city driving. Before this trip I was getting around 17.2-17.5 never saw under 17 since the swap. I was getting close to 19 on the 35's. I got 37 12.5 17 Goodyear MTRs, they only weigh 72lbs a piece. I also took into account some aerodynamics when selecting my front bumper. I noticed when I removed the front pieces that lead from the stock bumper to the fenders that my MPGs dropped some, so I decided to pick a bumper that filled that gap back in. That's one of the reasons I went with the RR Spartan full width high clearance bumper, it closes that gap back in and i noticed when I did my MPGs went back up some. Other than that I really haven't done anything else. It's sitting like this and getting mpgs like this, another click

I'm only saying the bumper gap because I've noticed overlands and Rubicon's tend to get less mpgs than the Max tows do and they don't have that piece there that fills in the gap like the Max Tow does.

 

[Tufelhundin]

what did you do to get that mileage with those tires? i was getting 18+ with the stock all seasons in mostly city driving, and then the rubi takeoffs made it drop like a rock. are you mostly highway/long periods without stops?

I’ve said it before but JeeperJamie has a unicorn. That jeep does very well.

In the 22,777 miles on my JT I’ve avg 15.7. I got 17 stock with cruise most of the time at speed limit.

Kudos Jamie! That’s awesome… I’d probably get gallons per mile like a M1 Abram if i swapped to 37-38’s LOL!

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I was doing 22-23 pretty regular with the stock Overland tires. Then with the Rubicon take-offs, it went down to 18-19. Now with the General Grabber A/T tires it's back up over 20. Likely could be 21 again but my driving has been a lot of stop and go and some interstate at 75. Tonight doing 60-65 it was looking good into the 20s a lot of the time so the average should be better with these tires than the Falken A/T Rubicon tires.
Will be interesting to track the trip to Colorado Springs and back in a couple of weeks.

 

[texanjeeper]

I pretty much ignore the built-in MPG tracker in the Jeep because I've seen some wild fluctuations as compared to either doing the math yourself, or using an app like Fuelly which basically does the math for you. I'm pretty sure that driving a certain way, you could probably push the MPG on the Jeep console up if you really tried, maybe higher than you're actually getting.

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