It's a Team's Life
It Depends!!!
It Depends has always been our stock answer on what we have to have for pay per mile and now we add this reply when asked how fast we run….
We know what we have to have for pay on each mile we drive when everything is optimized such as no freight, no tolls, and flat land. We also know what our fixed expenses are each day we sit without a load. When we start adding in variables our rate per mile increases accordingly, we have over time has one thing pretty consistent and that has been our speed of 58 mph.
We started running this speed with our last truck, which was geared, to run very slow and the habit stuck. Our 2012 Detroit Diesel DD13 and the aerodynamics of the Cascadia has a wider range of speed to stay in the engines sweet spot.
We have been running a speed and MPG test with Henry Albert who has slowed down from his customary 65 mph to 60 and we have speeded up to 65 mph. We have both come to the same conclusion “It Dependsâ€. The truck and motors like to be driven for the conditions and the load not at a set speed no matter what!
I found myself listening to the motor while driving much more then I have in the past and I realized that the motor does talk to us through sound. The motor is very quiet and usually sounds as if we are idling down the road, which was very disconcerting when I first started driving the Cascadia. I often found myself looking down at the gauges to make sure the motor was actually running!
When the conditions were perfect for the high range of speed to be 65 mph where applicable we had an over the 11-mpg fill-up. When I should have driven the motor the way it was asking to be driven and I ignored the sound our lowest fill-up was a low 10-mpg. While all of these mileages are good we want to get the most we can for our money and our time and we will continue to perfect our driving and listening. We purchase our fuel and since this is one of our biggest expenses we want to get the most we can for our dollar.
During the next weeks following the Mid America Truck Show
in Louisville we will experiment more with speed while listening to the motor
and paying closer attention to conditions.
This should be fun to see how far
out we can stretch our fuel mileage in the future.
Henry has posted his DD15 Engine reports (DDEC) on his site some different results then we experienced.
Bob & Linda Caffee
Leased to: FedEx Custom Critical 

TeamCaffee

Saint Louis MO
Expediters 7 years been out here on the road 12 years
Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle; 

Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;

Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;

Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.