Newbie here

[dakota4x4]

Hey there, looking to increase my mileage in my Dakota from 14 to better. Love my truck and don't want to depart with it.

[GasSavers_BEEF]

I have a dakota too. what engine do you have? what have you done to it? does it have oversized tires?

mine is a 2wd with the 4.7 and 5spd short bed, reg cab. I was getting 22mpg out of it before I did the rear diff swap on it. now I am hitting around 18.

If I had to guess I would say you had the 318 which ironically gets the worst gas mileage out of all the engines (just a guess).

another guess is that if your truck is set up like mine (exhaust, intake, gears, limited slip, sticky tires {maybe not the tires for you}) then it is really hard to keep your foot out of it. that is my biggest problem.

let us know what you have, if you have that motor, there may not be much as far as gas mileage that will help. also think that if you raise your fuel economy by 10% (which is huge) it is not even one and a half MPG.

do what I did. buy a beater CHEAP!!!! my mod (if you want to call it that) about doubled my MPG and cost only 2K. I find now that i spend more time with the car and trying to get better FE with it than working on the truck.

[dakota4x4]

It is a 3.9V6 and it does have oversized tires on it. I found out the hard way with a $200 speeding ticket. My speedometer is off by 8mph. I haven't done anything else with the truck. I am looking at way to save. I bought a K&N filter but the only thing I saved is that I don't have to change the air filter. That was a wasted buy. I changed spark plugs and ran synthetic oil and no change either.

[GasSavers_BEEF]

WOW!!!

you are getting that kind of FE out of a v6. that is craziness. are you compensating for your larger tires with your odometer? you may be getting better than 14 and it not be registering.

have you had your speedo fixed to where you are reading the right speed now?

I still think the best thing would be to get a little beater to drive around.