Here are the all-new 2019 Chevy Silverado 1500 Turbo and a 2019 Ram 1500 Rebel V8 eTorque. These two are very different trucks meant for their own purposes, but they both employ fuel saving technologies and had some issues with their reported fuel economy.
We are not comparing these two truck to each other. We are running them on the MPG loop at the same time to see the results.
2019 Ram Rebel
This Rebel is equipped with a 5.7L V8 that is rated at 395 hp and 410 lb-ft of torque. The eTorque electric motor is connected via the serpentine belt, and the total power is sent to the wheels via an 8-speed automatic transmission.
Previously, we measured the fuel economy on this 2019 Ram Rebel on the way to and from Moab, Utah. The Rebel you see here is the one we purchased several months ago as our shop truck and a long-term tester.
On that trip, we got 17.9 MPG on the highway. Ram and the EPA rate the truck with the 5.7L HEMI V8 and eTorque mild electric hybrid at 17 mpg city / 22 mpg highway / 19 mpg combined.
The Rebel had less than 1,000 miles at that point. It was not completely broken in, so we knew we had to do another test once we had more miles on the truck.
Once we have over 3,600 miles, we put it on our official highway MPG loop between Hudson, CO and Fort Morgan, CO. Here is our Comprehensive Highway MPG Guide for all trucks we tested over the years.
2019 Chevy Silverado Turbo
The new Silverado 1500 Turbo is the first and only full-size pickup truck with a four-cylinder gasoline engine. The 2.7L Turbo I4 is rated at 310 hp and 348 lb-ft of torque. This engine has cylinder deactivation and variable valve lift that can select between power or efficiency. The power is sent to the wheels via an 8-speed automatic transmission.
The Chevy Silverado 1500 with the turbocharged engine and 4×4 is rated at 19 mpg city, 22 mpg highway, and 20 mpg combined.
Car and Driver recently ran their own MPG loop with the 2019 Silverado Turbo and the truck returned 18 MPG, which was also less than a 21 MPG they got with a Silverado 5.3L V8.
Naturally, we had to run both of these truck again to get more real-world MPG data.
Part 2 – Highway MPG Loop
Result: The Ram Rebel returned a disappointing 16.8 MPG result. The Silverado Turbo surprised with a result of 24.1 MPG.
We soon discovered an issue with the way I drove the Ram Rebel in “part 2”. Thank you to all the comments and feedback from you guys – TFLtruck readers and viewers. So we ran the test again.
Part 3 – Highway MPG Loop (Again)
I made a mistake and intermittently used the manual gear shifting mode (with limit set to the top 8th gear) in the Ram Rebel during the “part 2” video. I did it in order to show the camera the currently selected gear. It was a mistake because using the manual shifting mode also disables the cylinder deactivation feature (MDS). We re-ran the truck in order to correct the mistake and get another result with the truck always using the normal “D – drive” mode and the full ability to run in four-cylinder mode or V8 mode.
Here is “part 3” of this fuel economy test series. The highway route and the procedure were exactly the same.
Result: Setting the cruise control at 70 mph and letting the truck do everything else came out to 17.89 MPG as calculated at the pump.
The Rebel got a noticeably better result of 17.9 MPG when left to its own devices and cylinder deactivation always enabled. However, this result is the same as we got in “part 1” on the way back to Denver from Moab. It is also 4 MPG less than the EPA rating.
