I just bought a new 02 dodge 3/4 cummins auto Larime sb for 31,590 I think I got a good deal on it?<br>any way what am I looking at, the good and bad things.<br>breaking it in and so on. fuel mileage in town and on the road pulling about 6,000 lbs on a open car trailer. I need your input<br><br>Alan

 

I got mine in July and hooked up my 6000 lb. camper and left Indiana for Colorado. It had 1100 miles on it when I left. I lost a APPS sensor about half way there and an axle seal about half way back. Those were fixed. The mileage was around 9 MPG pulling the camper. You should get more due to less wind resistance. I have about 7600 miles on it now and am happy with the truck. It's getting 21 MPG empty now. The break-in goes like this. Drive it like you stole it! Don't baby it. Pull as much weight as you can. Pass all power strokes and duramaxes that are in site. I did change the oil at 3000 miles after the trip. Don't get too discouraged at the mpg. It'll get better with miles. So will the performance. This is a great site and will become habit forming. Just don't ask what &quot;bomb&quot; means. If you learn about it, it'll to cost you money! Welcome and good luck.<br>

 

I got mine in August, got about 14 mpg empty at first, changed the oil at 1200 miles and then went on a trip from KC to San Antonio, about 1700 miles round trip. On the way down, it bumped up to about 15.5 or so mostly doing 75 on the highway. Got 20 doing 55 between San Antonio and Oklahoma City. The trip was to pick up a car, and it had trouble on the way back, so I pulled it on a U-Haul car trailer from OK City to KC and got 14.5 doing that. Now at about 6,000 miles on the odometer it's up to around 16-17 mpg running empty, about 200 miles per week mostly back and forth to work, which is 3 miles of highway and 1 mile of surface streets in either direction.

 

I agree with rattle_rattle, DRIVE IT HARD 8)<br>I just finished a trip a few weeks ago with a 20 foot utility trailer and a little race car, just a little over 6000lbs gross. I ended up with 14 mpg going up with no wind and 13.5 coming back in a heavy wind. The trip was about 450 miles one way, and at one point coming back late Sunday caught myself behind six semi's, so I figured perfect time to test the little cummins, just put the foot to the floor and when I was done passing, the speedo said 90mph These little trucks love to driven hard, after the trailer came off I coundn't believe the difference in power and MPG driven empty compared to before the trip. Good luck with your truck