Tire Inflation Article. Interesting.

[Rawze]

Sorry, but I'll keep my drives at 120 psi cold. I broke them in at that pressure and they like it now that they have settled. They last a ridiculous average of 435,000 miles at those pressures and YES, we do see a few tenths losses in mpg when they get low. We also see a few tenths losses if a trailer has tires at only about 80 psi or so and its heavy. It is not unusual for us to put more air in them if we are taking the trailer half way or more across the country. -Keep in mind that we have every fuel reciept entered so that it can be tracked tracked state to state. The omputer shows us what is going on every time we enter a fuel receipt and how well or poor we did from the last fuel stop to the current one as compared to a million miles + of collected data of "from the last time you fuel in say Ohio, then Nebraska" for example. It is VERY accurate.

-- YES, we can see a few tenths easily like that because the computer also spits it out as a graph that at 0 is one mpg less, and at 100% on the scale, is only simply the peak of the last 100 fuel stops. I.E. -> We drop 0.5 mpg and it shows up as a 50% drop on the graph compared to the last 100 fuel stops. I did that on purpose a few years ago because I wanted a more accurate measurement of comparison.

Another thing it does is show us a list of the BEST "from this state to that state" averages and the worst from all 48 states to each other. That way we can work harder (slow down more) on the areas/regions/lanes we know cost us more fuel, and know we can speed back up a few mph in other areas to make up for it, raising our average overall both in optimized speed and in fuel efficiency.

We can also use that data to tell us what lanes we don't want to travel, and that sometimes taking a slightly longer route makes us more money. For example, running form Los Angeles to Chicago, there is the option of taking I-70 (2005 miles), I-80(2068 miles), or US-54 (2060 miles). Us-54 beats the pants off the other 2 routes in fuel mileage savings by quite a long shot. Remember, we use our total trip average speed of 48-50 mph (depending on load) to regulate how fast/slow we drive. We reset the GPS and YES the clock is still ticking, average speed steadily dropping when we are stopped (some GPS units will not do this, they stop the clock when you stop and I won't buy one of those models). If we fall behind because of stop-go traffic of the small towns along 54, then we go 63-65 through the areas where we know the best fuel mileage is and it all works out to always get us to the destination on time + maximum profits. <- We do haul UPS and fedex sh%it and YES we always deliver on time while only driving 55-58 mph, and rarely any faster.


When it comes to my #1 operating expense, I am not playing around. I track it like a hawk and anything that effects it, I am aware of it right away. Seems lately most guys take that last 0.1 mpg for granted, but when I started out with my own truck,.. fuel was peaking $4.50 a gallon in places.