10,000 Mile Review

The first thing that popped at me was the increased visibity with the wider wiper coverage. We started out n a rain storm and in a bit of a hurry. There was not enough time to go over everything. Just got down the basics to get the truck to Louisville in Time for MATS. It was raining hard and the increased wiper coverage was noticeable. Unfortunately the radio was stuck on the weather band and I did not know how to change it. All it kept saying was that it was raining - I knew that. Driving down the road in adverse weather is no time to figure stuff out and I was stuck in silence - of with the aggravation of having the weather band tell me what I already knew. It was raining. The next morning I was able to figure it out. The controls are on the steering wheel. That is incredibly convenient, once you know the "trick".

The next thing that I noticed was how the Detroit Assurance System operates. I counsel people that learning CMS will take about 10,000 miles. I have had CMS for over 300,000 miles and adapting to the Asuurance system took a bit, but I like the improvements. The biggest improvement is incorporating it into the A panel. It also seem to be less sensitive than my old system. The secret remains the same - out anticipate the system and everyone will be better off.

Driver input was a big part of the design plan, and it shows. Climbing in and out of the truck has been made safer with the new grab bar. Even the improvement in the cup holders cam from driver input. Having 3 larger holders in the cockpit is a convenience for drivers. Being able to fit a 24 ounce mug and not having it in the way of the toggle switches makes this driver happy. Look sround the cab and you will like the improvements.

The fuel economy improvement has been slightly better than I expected. My 2013 Cascadia had a lifetime fuel economy of 8.30. The engineers were boasting of up to an 8% improvement. I was a little more pessimistic because 2% of that improvement came from GPS predictive cruise, and I was fairly aggresive with momentum management. When I got the truck it had 1786 miles on it and an everage fuel economy of 5.8 MPG. The 30 MPH average told me that there was a lot of idling in that number. I have bumped the lifetime averages up to 8.6 and 49 MPH. When you subtract out that first mileage my average is over 9.3 MPG. I have seperated out as best as I could my purely operational tanks. That to me is a fairer measure. In those tanks my average is 9.02 MPG.

I keep learning more about this truck. Many drivers (me included) believe it takes around 100,000 miles for a driver to truly learn their truck. I wtill have not figured out all of the modern electronic wizardry of my new truck. I have figured out what I need to know. The momentum management of the GPS predictive cruise is more aggresive than I ever was. The truck behave fairly similarly with 45,000 punds in the box as it does with 10,000 pounds in the box. The downsped engine means that it is in the power band at a hihger speed which eliminates the lag at the bottom of the hill and it keeps the momentum up the other side. I look forward to getting back to you with my 100,000 mile review.