Long-Term Road Tests

I guess the fuel economy you get all comes down to where and how you drive. I just traded my 07 Av in for a Malibu, ironically enough, for lower payments and better fuel economy. But the Av didn't get bad numbers for a 1/2 ton. In fact, the lowest ever was in the 16's, with the normal range being upper 18's to 20's, and the high at just over 23. One of the big differences was that I tend to do most of my driving at around 60 mph (in a truck, anyhow), on a 60 mile daily drive (total of both directions). Add more stop'n'go, cold / wet weather, and the numbers dropped a bit, less stop'n'go, warm / dry weather, and it was in the upper range. No matter the driving conditions though, throw in a heavy foot and the numbers stayed low. ;)

13~14 sounds right too w/my 07 F-150. Yes, we Americans are consuming too much of the earth's resources. Wish 1/2 tons already had small block turbodiesels and maybe 18 mpg. (w/c still sounds pretty bad for the volume of trucks sold in U.S.)

FWIW, the LT 04 F-150 averaged 13.4 mpg and the LT 04 Titan got 13.3.
 
Surprising consistency.

I'm glad that the factory paint wasn't the culprit. A million things can go wrong when painting a car, with most causes being inadequate surface preperation. I would definately have a chat with the body shop about that...

heres the blog post of the actual damage
 
http://blogs.edmunds.com/roadtests/641
 
the fuel tank side had a run in with a stop sign that put a long mark on the bedside from before the wheel to the 4x4 sign.
 
Knowing that. I'm willing to bet the paint shop screwed something up. causing the paint to let go of the primer. since silver is a hard color to match, i bet they had to do alot of blending. and something went wrong.

Nice catch, jdub and bigal. As the newbie on staff, I had no idea that body panel had been repainted back in February 2007 (and will always do more complete research on the vehicles I blog about in the future). Looks like our repaint hasn't faired so well after only a 12 months in the SoCal sun. <sigh>

Thanks for during that research...if the fuel door was repainted, then this is just shoddy bodywork.
 
Joe

I just did some quick research into old posts and I found this interesting bit.... http://blogs.edmunds.com/roadtests/Comments/899#cm
 
The bodywork done to the Silverado was indeed the driver's side and I am now pretty convinced that it was a shoddy body job. The run in the paint tells me that who ever did the work didn't really pay that close attention to what they were doing.

That looks like top-coat/clearcoat flake to me. And since it's around almost the entire TOP half of the fuel door, I'd say it has nothing to do with fuel spill.
 
If you had that side of the car repainted for some reason, I'd say they did a crappy job. If that's original, it's a testament to poor paint prep/quality of the paint job.
 
This isn't "25,000 miles worth of wear". The only time mileage truly matters on a vehicle is on the front end, side mirrors, and around the wheel wells. Those are the areas in which mileage starts to add up from road debris.
 
This is a ~1 year old vehicle living in Southern California. It has seen some snow/salt (IIRC from the pictures), but barely any...mostly just sunshine.
 
In the 90's, cars like the Neon and Mitsubishi Eclipse/Eagle Talon had alot of problems like that. It was unacceptable, but at least those were cheap cars.
 
This is an expensive truck. I think the dealership should cost a repair in this area. Due to the pattern, it'd be fairly easy to "prove" to them that this is not from owner error. Of course, they could whip out the manual where it states how often you should wax it...
 
:)
 
Joe

My dad averages almost 18 in his Silverado, but he's a pretty mellow driver. Not surprised to see Edmunds getting around 13.
 
I think the paint issue is related to the fact that they had body work done on that side. If I remember correctly it was the driver's side that had have some body work done on it and so it would be "afermarket" paint that is chipping and peeling and not "factory paint"...

Didn't this vehicle have a bedside painted? I can't remember which side, but the paint bonding might not have been the best. Then again, I can't remember which side got re-painted.

Looks like loss of adhesion, like the paint isn't bonding to the primer for some reason.
  
Hopefully the rest of the truck isn't like that, some older GM pickups, Neons, etc had the top coat flake off half the vehicle.

since its all around, i'd have to agree bad paint

"Is that about average for all trucks?"
 
It's about what my '94 Ram 1500 shortbed(5.2L V8, 2wd, 4spd auto) gets. Worst is around 11, best around 15.
 
On the other hand, the '80 Datsun pickup I drove in high school used to get about 27 in town.

"Is that about average for all trucks"
 
Nah, it's average for edmunds drivers.
 
My brother in law is averaging 18mpg on his.

Holy crap 13.35mpg? Is that about average for all trucks--the best selling vehicles in America??? Or is 13.35 unusually bad?
 
No wonder we use such a big proportion of the planet's resources.

poor quality sounds about right for a GM vehicle.

maybe the fuel door's got a flimsy hinge? it might be rubbing every time it's opened and closed.

All of the chips seem to be along the edge, and there are some behind where the door would hinge out, so I would say that this is a paint quality problem.

I can't imagine that would be due to "clumsy" fill-ups. I've rented a lot of cars which see way more careless and unfamiliar drivers, and I've never seen anything like that before. Plus, the pattern of the chipping doesn't appear to coincide with the design of fuel filler nozzles.