Oh I love this thread and all those who say "get over it" when I bitch about the horrible fuel mileage the 2021 3500 MegaCab Limited HO 4.10 truck gets compared to my previous 2020 2500 Laramie Longhorn.
Here's the "Get Over It" that is a crock... My "brand new" truck currently has >50K miles on it and it is six months old. In the past two weeks, I have driven from my Shop in Florence, SC to Eastern Long Island, NY to pick up a boat I delivered there last year. My new 3500 HO got a best of 10.75mpg pulling it to Redmond, Washington where my 2500 could hit an easy 12-13 mpg hauling the same boat. Sure the 2500 has 3.73 gears but I could pull the boat 75-80mph with the rated tires on the trailer with no issues and achieve 12-13mpg. With the 3500 HO, if I exceeded 70mph, my MPGs plummeted to 9mpg. I do not know what "empty driving" is but I think I have done it once before and the best I could see was 15mpg at 70-75mph... with a tease of 16mpg if there was a truck to draft behind. After my trip to Washington, I picked up a TinyHome in Portland, Oregon that I just dropped off in Portland, Maine earlier today. My BEST MPG was 11mph with a 50-65mph tail-wind from Wyoming to Nebraska but every other time I say between 6-7.5mpg the entire trip. My trip a year ago with the same design TinyHome netted a 10-11mpg fuel burn.
So, why is this so important...? Well if you add up the 7000 miles driven in the past two weeks, factoring an average of 11.5 mpg for the 2500 S.O. Cummins and a 2-way average of 8.5 mpg for my 3500 HO... we end up with roughly 610 gallons used by the 2500 and 824 gallons used by the 3500 HO, for a difference of 214 gallons of fuel wasted. At the Average Fuel Price of $3.75/gal we come up with $802.50 was the LOSS for this one round-trip to the West. To add to the insult, I have made TWO PacNW trips this month!! The FUEL LOSS ALONE is more than my Truck Payment!!
Now, let's factor in that right now, I am running full time, each week, exceeding 12,000 miles per month. Do you see where it is a REALLY BAD INVESTMENT to buy the HO if you do not need it in the long run? I bought the truck because I had the "opportunity" to get it a Dealer Cost with the HoldBack and struck a killer deal. I always wanted a MegaCab and heard the HO with the Aisin was the great combo.... maybe if you are towing 36K# and you never see more than 6mpg any day of the week. In my line of work, 15K is all I ever see or less... the Non-HO with the 68RFE ATS build would have been perfect with the 4.10 gears.
So what to do moving forward...? I am deleting the truck this week. Installing the Banks 4" intake and going to see what this truck can do working hard without the limitations of the BS installed upon it. If that doesn't help, I will pull the engine and install the non-HO pistons with head studs, re-tune it and get the power it should have at cruise.
Hope this long post helps those see the miles matter... even if you do not drive like I do, they matter in the long run.