What range of gas/diesel mileage does a Class A Motorhome get on the highway?
Asked by
LuckyGuy (
43865
)
April 29th, 2013
The owners say they get about 10 MPG of diesel but that seems incredible to me. My truck gets 15 mpg and it is ¼ the size of those behemoths. They are 40 ft long and can weigh from 15,000 to 30,000 pounds. They have a flat front like a brick being dragged through the air. How can they get better than 6 mpg?
If you have or had one, what has been your experience?
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8 Answers
How big is the engine? Sometimes bigger is better. You aren’t working it so hard for the task at hand.
I have always heard 5–6 max. Most of the big Class A ones aren’t the least bit aerodynamic – sort of like a Greyhound bus with fewer windows.
There is one (the Avanti) that gets 15 MPG, but if you read, you will see that it has things that most Class A motorhomes lack, like aerodynamics, to justify it’s claim of, ”... up to 70 percent better fuel economy than comparable Class A motorhomes.”.
A bit of other searching shows that 6–8 MPG is, indeed, typical… for diesels. Gassers don’t have the torque so (as @bkcunningham says) they have to rev higher and work harder.
All I can say is our 32’ RV got 9 mpg of gas.
@bkcunningham These usually have 350 CID diesels (Cummins or Allison).
@jerv Interesting . I see the Avanti is ” 12 inches closer to the ground and 6 inches narrower”. It also has a sloped front. I can believe it is better but still, I’d be hard pressed to believe 15 mpg! It still has a GVWR of 18,000 pounds.
I am going to make an estimate and figure a conservative 8 mpg on the highway at 65 mph for a typical 40 foot Class A. I can’t be too far off, can I?
Well, MPG claims are often inflated if for no reason other than real-world driving is nothing like the EPA test cycle.
For a typical 40-footer, I would say 8 would be a little optimistic, but doable if you are on level ground and not towing anything. I would guess closer to 7.
A few years back I ran into an English couple who were touring the US in a loaded Renault Camper that looked like and was the size of a UPS truck. They were getting 22 MPG highway when my 97 F150 was lucky to get 16 mpg. WTF!
@rojo See? It is claims like that that make me wonder. The laws of physics are hard to beat. Maybe they were always driving at 50 MPH – with tailwind.
@jerv Thanks for reminding me about towing. They are towing a Chevy Cruize too. That has to make the mileage even worse.
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