RV Life: The Staggering Cost of Fuel for 3 RV's Across Country!

Welcome back to Happily Ever Hanks. It's 2023. It's almost summer and the camping season is almost here. We thought what better time to talk about some important deets like trucks and towing an RV than right now. What the heck are we talking about? Well let me fill you in. We just finished a cross-country caravan with our friends and we decided at the beginning of the trip that we're gonna measure, like we're gonna test all the trucks basically. We're gonna collect data on them to see which truck is best. You might be asking yourself well that's almost impossible to collect data and compare all of them because there's just so many variables in all of it. I think it's a pretty darn good time. Almost perfect I might say because we all have very similar RVs and we all have different trucks. Which means we can do a side-by-side comparison of like fuel economy, total cost of what we actually spent in fuel, truck upgrades, some great advice on towing an RV and how to do it better and more safe. There's a lot to cover. I love that you brought that up about the rigs being the same because it's the closest we probably will ever be to having similar rigs. It's not like one of us has a toy hauler and the other one has a teardrop. We all have fifth wheels that are about 35-38 feet in length. Here's the best part. If we're going to be flat out honest with y'all, there's never going to be a perfectly shining light example of what you need for your specific scenario. But if you want as close as you can with good side-by-side comparison, I think you're in the right spot. When it comes to buying a truck, everyone's always like the chicken or the egg. Do I get the rig first and get the truck for the rig or vice versa? And that is just so tricky because you want to make sure that your truck is able to tow what you got. Do I get a diesel? Do I get a gas? Do I get a single rear wheel? Do I get a dual rear wheel? And then you'll start reading all the comments below this video and being like well there's 5,000 opinions out there as well. Kind of take some notes as we're going along because we're going to be like finding out some interesting details regarding all the gas consumption that we did along the way. What people actually ended up paying in fuel at the end. But if you've been following us for any time at all, you realize it just wasn't a straight shot all the way across the states. We did so many adventures over these past few months including going up to Mexico and Roswell. Heading down to the beach and camping on the beach for a couple nights. We went up into the mountains of Rio Doce and we went skiing and snowboarding. We've been doing it all. And I think it's a great opportunity to collect some truck data because we've been through snow, mud, dry desert. We've been through forests. We've been through any terrain you can possibly think of. Lots of sand. Lots of sand. We're still brushing off all the sand of our RVs and trucks. Oh man. Yeah we really went through lots of terrain didn't we? We did. The trucks were like, geez woman give us a break here. Let's kick it right off by going into the details of each truck in this experiment. Our truck is a 2017 GMC Sierra 2500 Denali. It's a 6.6 liter Duramax turbo diesel. A lot of you guys have also been asking, we noticed you have a lift kit on it. And what size tires do you have? We got a four inch Fabtech lift kit on it. This was placed by the dealership when we first bought the truck. And we have 35 inch BF Goodrich all-terrain tires. It's a four-wheel drive truck and the hitch I am rocking in the back of D is a B&W Companion fifth wheel hitch. The second runner up is Devin. They are rocking a 2019 Ford F250. It's a Lariat 6.7 liter power stroke diesel. The tires that they have are Firestone Transforce 275 65 R18s. Wow that's a mouthful. It's four-wheel drive as well and he also has a B&W fifth wheel companion hitch. Our other partner in crime Keith has a 2019 Ford F350 dually. It's a 6.7 liter power stroke diesel as well. His tires are Bridgestone. They are the LT245 75 R17 four-wheel drive. And he is rocking a Reese Goosebox hitch. So that means it is a gooseneck in the back of his fifth wheel. Moving right along, here are some of the upgrades that each truck has. Starting with our truck. You should share. You should actually wait and share the upgrades until after we share the data. Oh okay that would make sense. Yeah we'll get back into the upgrades is what you're saying. Okay well you're leading this caravan so we'll get there. No pun intended. All right so all the trucks are diesel. Yeah. It would have been great if one of the trucks was gas and we would be able to compare gas versus diesel and cost because that's important to a lot of people. I just think I know there's a lot of opinions out there you know if you have diesel way more expensive of a truck than gas. They also say once you have diesel you never go back to gas as well. So take it with a grain of salt. We're just gonna share our thoughts on owning a diesel truck. Maybe give you a little insight there and we'll try to be really objective when it comes to the diesel owning it and some pros and cons to go along with that. I did learn recently that having diesel because of all the extra elements you need for diesel it reduces your payload capacity because it weighs more. So basically what that means is you have less to work with meaning you potentially are gonna have to buy a smaller or lighter weight RV because the diesel weighs more and it can't handle a heavier load than maybe a gas could. A gas truck. Being completely objective yeah the diesel is gonna weigh more the gas is gonna weigh less but then there's a catch-22 because the diesel can tow better and it's like a powerhorse compared to the gas. I mean I think you're gonna be hard pressed to find a lot of people that say the gas is gonna outdo a diesel. There's a lot of opinions out there here's my opinion the diesel is the way to go in that route just be careful with the weight make sure you're not buying too heavy of an RV. Well here's my opinion okay that no one's really asking for. I'm asking. Gas is great but going downhill in a gas truck can be a little scary because you don't have that exhaust brake to like hold the engine back. You're more likely to burn out brakes and I've heard people saying I got a gas truck but I'm nervous when I go out west. Yeah we've never had a problem with owning a diesel truck and going downhills with the diesel engine exhaust brake that Rene was talking about it takes like the compression of the engine and it just really helps decrease that load going downhill rather than just fully relying on the brakes. And another thing is gas trucks do they really retain their value as much as the diesel? A pro of owning a diesel truck is you're not going to take as big of a hit in depreciation meaning the value of the truck is going to remain higher than a gas truck would over years of owning it. Those engines last a good amount of time as well. They do. They are the workhorses of like the towing industry basically. A diesel is meant to run, run, and do some more running. If you're enjoying this video and what we're saying so far make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. It's absolutely free and we bring you new videos every Thursday helping you to transition into the RV life and show you the true roots of what actually happens out on the road. Uncensored. Looking at it objectively however a gas truck yeah it's gonna do fine for certain scenarios. Would we go back to a gas truck after owning a diesel? No. No. I was gonna say no too. But I think if you have a gas truck and you live in a state where there's not many mountains I'm thinking of places like Michigan or Indiana and you're just going out for weekends and you're towing like a smaller camper. I think gas is fine. Yeah and if you're already rocking a gas just go for it. I mean that is totally okay. We're not attacking anyone out there. We used to own a gas truck ourselves. So like we said before it all just depends on your certain scenario, your financial situation, all the above. We're really talking up the diesel like it's amazing but there's cons to everything in life. One of them being that diesel is harder to find versus gas out in the road. You really have to be diligent about looking for diesel fuel stations. Yeah and it's more expensive. I mean it didn't used to be that way but now it is. It's the reality of it. You're going to be paying a lot more for diesel than you are gas. Another thing you have to look at filling up is DEF. The death. Which is diesel exhaust fluid basically. All the new trucks have this feature where you have to add DEF. It's such a pain but hey it's part of the game. What you basically do is you put DEF into your truck. Not in the diesel tank but in a separate tank and it helps with like reducing emissions out into the environment. It's just a new thing that all the diesel trucks have. And with the DEF comes extra pricing as well. You're going to have to be buying more DEF along the way. Gas trucks you don't have to worry about that. So that's definitely a con of owning a diesel. You have that tip to share on DEF. Why don't you let them know. Oh yeah that's right. What we've been doing is we stopped buying all that DEF at the grocery store. Basically Walmart's truck stops like inside the convenience store. We stopped buying it in there and we're just refueling it at the pump itself. Higher volume truck stops they go through that DEF like no tomorrow. And I think we're assured that the DEF is going to be fresher and have less chance of actually sitting for prolonged periods of time at the actual pump rather than inside the grocery store. Another con to having diesel which Carl here is not going to like that I'm making him bring up the story. Is if you're not paying attention and you put the wrong fuel into your diesel truck. You know what I'm saying. If you accidentally put gasoline into your diesel engine. Yeah when we first owned the diesel truck I accidentally put a gallon of gas into it. There's a really good explanation for the reason I did it. You probably want to hear it but I don't want to bore you. But I'm going to bore you anyways with the story real quick. We pulled in at the time to a Pilot Flying J into the RV fuel lanes. We were so used to using the open roads program that we always use. Which is where you actually fuel up with the truckers over in the diesel lanes. It's all diesel over there. So we were so used to doing that all time. This is the only time we didn't do it though. We went in the Pilot Flying J RV lanes where they have gas and diesel. And their gas happened to be black nozzle right. Which is pretty normal. But they're black nozzles on the other one where the open roads program happened. With all the truckers. Yeah the truck lanes. I didn't realize that. It's all black handles. Yeah because you're getting diesel anyways. I got confused. I started pumping gas in. Luckily did not start the truck at all. I realized what I was doing. Stopped immediately. And we had to call for a tow truck. Yeah to get the tank dropped. Cleaned out. Got all the fuel lines cleaned out. It was not good. That was a several hours and a $600 detour we took that day. And if you guys are wondering what would have happened if I would have just stopped fueling the gas. Filled it up the rest of the way with diesel and ran it. Well gas and diesel are very different. And they're compounds of like what they're made up of. And it could destroy your engine. I mean it's really bad for diesel trucks. So do not take the chance. If you're ever in a similar situation. Do not start your truck if you accidentally pump gas into it. Or just turn it over. Yeah don't even like turn the key slightly. Because it's going to pump a little bit of fuel into the fuel lines. And it's just it's not good. Not a good scenario. If anyone else out there has done this by accident. Please comment below. So you could just make Mr. Hanks here feel not alone. It was one time. All right that's enough talking about gas and diesel. I'm gassed out. Wow nice. That was good. Thank you. Let's circle back and talk about a few other details with the caravan. Before we give you the final results. I sat down and I mapped out how many miles we towed this entire trip. I mean I literally mapped from every point. Like actual towing. Every single time we took it to sleep somewhere. We went a total of 1,887 miles. We have some tips on how to make your towing experience better. These tips aren't just to like make your towing experience better. It's also to like improve your fuel mileage. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Pay less for fuel. Everyone loves that. And the best part is everyone can reap the benefits of this section. Because whether you have a gas or diesel. It's all applicable. I have one to share to start. And we've talked about this in past videos. But don't travel with excess water. That's a great point. Because each gallon of water is roughly like eight pounds. Another one that you can do is actually making your sure your tires are to the appropriate psi as recommended by your tire manufacturer. Believe it or not. If you have an underflated tire or an overinflated tire. It can affect the gas mileage you're getting. If you have a travel trailer. Really consider getting a anti-sway bar system for that. Weight distribution hitch. Also just proper weight distribution throughout your RV. If you have a ton of heavy stuff in the back of your rig. You're going to be running into more issues with sway. We tend to put all of our heavy items in the front. And it also just helps those items not get slammed around your RV. And you recently just said something about 60 something miles per hour. Yeah. I would watch your speeds. Like anytime we take off for a trip. We never go above 65. We're usually around 60-63. I think most blowouts occur. Because people are speeding. Yes there's 400 arguments out there about different tire manufacturers. But I think speeding is what kills most people's tires. And then the second reason is miles per gallon. The less you speed. The less you spend in fuel. I mean also velocity. The faster you go. The longer it takes for you to stop. That's true too. And when you're driving. You're getting onto the interstate. Or you're coming to a stop. Slow to go. Slow to stop. You don't need to be slamming on your brakes. And you don't need to be like flooring it to catch up to speed. You'll eventually catch up to speed. It just puts extra wear and tear on your tow vehicle over time. We always stress slow and steady wins a race every time. Any thoughts on as you went along sharing the fuel economy? It was a little hard as we went along and took pictures. Because sometimes one of us would use the truck for an everyday driver. And then others wouldn't. So meaning we would be towing the RV. But then maybe we pull over and at night we would run to Walmart real quick and then back. So there was a lot of external factors that we had to go back and account for. But overall I'm pretty surprised with the results. And some other variables though we want to share with you before we go over the results. Keith and Rainey's situation. They have an extra vehicle. Now we didn't track the beep-bop car. The little gas cars data. But they use that for their day-to-day stuff. With us and Devin and Jeannie, the truck is our day-to-day truck and towing. So we decided it was only fair to track like the miles from start to finish. So each truck, the miles varied. I think like Devin went the most miles because he had to take Jeannie back and forth to an airport. And it was like an additional 400 miles of driving. Keith drove the least amount because they have the beep-bop car to get around. So what we decided was to also track everyone's fuel receipts. So that we could really compare like how much they spent in fuel to the miles they went. What I'm going to do is pop on the screen the data that we have collected here. And as you can see this is showing each truck how many miles were recorded from Slidell, Louisiana all the way through the caravan to where St. David, Arizona I believe. Is where we all broke apart. Yeah. And that's where we stopped the data collection. We also have there is what everyone spent on fuel whether it was open roads or private fuel stations. We collected this data. We told you a lot of information. And if you decided oh I'm just going to skip ahead and get the data right now you're going to want to go back and watch this entire video because we share a lot of variables and things the information you're going to need to make the right decision. Yeah because if you're just now looking at the data you're going to be like well what about this? What about this? What about that? What about that? You know it's like like we said before we're trying to keep it as concise as we can with all the external factors. But I think this is pretty accurate and pretty insightful. Yeah. I was surprised about the fuel economy itself. Not much difference in between all the trucks. There's so much controversy on having a lifted truck towing. You tow with a lifted truck it's worse fuel economy. Looking at the results it's not that much different from the other trucks and the big tires. So the lift with the big tires everyone's like oh your towing is going to be awful and your fuel economy is going to be bad. Well we have anything but that. We've been doing it for six years now. This is our sixth year of living full-time in our RV with a lifted truck towing trailers, towing fifth wheels and no complaints here. This is not us saying go get big tires and lift your truck to make it better. They just like want you to see all this data we collected so you could be like hmm interesting. Well the information we haven't shared yet is all the upgrades to the trucks. Like what has been done to make the towing better for all the other trucks. It's true. Let's start with ours. Are you ready for it? Nothing. Nothing. We literally bought the truck as is from the dealership in Illinois. It was lifted. It had the big tires on it. It was all covered under warranty. I would say the only thing that could be considered an upgrade is the fact that we took our mud tires and made them all-terrain tires. You wouldn't know we changed the tires because they still look like beefy cool tires. That's actually a good point. I forgot about that part. But it's not really like a towing upgrade. You know what I mean? We did do it because of towing but it's not really an upgrade you really like hear about. Yeah but to be completely transparent I mean I guess those tires that we currently have do increase your fuel economy better than the mud tires that we previously had. Are you trying to say I'm a liar? I don't know. I just love being honest with people. I don't want people to watch us and be like well you're not telling us all the truth. We're laying out everything we possibly can think of right now. Other than that though with the tires there's just nothing I can think of that our truck has that we upgraded. It's all stock. Same with the RV. You know with the actual suspension everything is stock on it. Right. And we love it that way because when we first got into this lifestyle we were like looking at all the upgrades that we had and we're like well we can't afford all that. Can we just make do with what we have and yeah you can. Let's cover uh the upgrades that Devin and Jeannie have. What what are they called first? Timbrin? Timbrin yeah. It's like a bump stop like it just helps the compression down like it will just kind of not sag so much. It's not really air in an airbag right? It's um like a rubber spring. Like they don't really consider an airbag but it does help with suspension. They shared an article with us. We're actually going to put that in the description so you can take a look at that. It compares the Timbrin to airbags. I mean based on the data you see with the like price of the fuel and amount of miles he went. I think it's a pretty good upgrade. And it's reasonable. Reasonably priced right? Yeah because I thought I thought his setup was going to be the worst when it came to towing. Yeah. Not the worst but I thought that he was going to be paying the most in fuel. Right and it wasn't that way. What about Keith? What did he upgrade? Keith um said he also put airbags. Okay so they both have airbags and we don't. Yes no. But I feel like that would only help improve really the comfortability of towing itself. You know with some factors of like keeping everything in a flush. Yeah. Tow like straight rather than towing nose high. Yeah they say the more level you tow the better. Yeah so yeah we're paying the price a little bit with our lift kit and towing nose high slightly. But that's just our personal choice. You guys got to make the best decision with what you have. And no need to stop here. Go back watch our other videos. It's the best way to support us. And if you're new you can get all caught up with the whole caravan trip and the data collection that we did. Bye. See ya.