Semi Trucks

Fleetwood Enterprises not only produces recreational vehicles, they also produce manufactured homes, folding campers, travel trailers and more. The company was founded in 1950 and had their initial public offering in 1965. Now a fortune 500 company, Fleetwood continues to produce innovative and affordable products for all kinds of travelers. While the headquarters is in Riverside, California, there is also a Fleetwood RV for Canada.

Class A Motor Homes

Among their most popular Class A motor homes are the Discovery, Providence and Excursion series. Fleetwood motorhomes are pricey but well worth it, fully loaded with features. The Discovery series has ceiling 84 inches high, captain’s chairs and recliners, dual roof-mounted high efficiency air conditioning, with solar panel and chill grill, a DVD home theater with surround speakers, sun visors, complete plumbing and electrical system and much more. Options on the Class A vehicles are also customizable; you can get full wall-slide technology as well as a Diesel engine.

Luxury Coaches

Then just in case the $200,000 priced Discovery series isn’t flashy enough for you, there’s the American Heritage Line, the American Eagle and the American Tradition. Like the Discovery series, the interior is loaded with a refrigerator and ice maker, a high definition plasma monitor, adjustable brake and throttle pedals, adjustable shelves, memory pods to customize your settings, power seats that have heat, massage and recline features, a solar charging system, cable ready TV and so much more. It’s not only bringing your home with you-it’s bringing most of your luxury vacation home with you on the road. Prices can approach $600,000 depending on your selected options. (After all, you want to be frugal when buying a million dollar luxury coach, right?)

More Affordable Units

But Fleetwood isn’t just in the business of making luxury vehicles. There are also gas motor homes such as the Flair, Storm, Terra and Pace Arrow series. Despite being far less expensive than the luxury models they still manage to make the home spacious enough for a complete workstation area. There are also mini motor homes such as the Tioga and Jamboree GTX series.

Can you imagine being happy with getting six to eight miles per gallon in your vehicle? Most of us would not be impressed at all, especially considering the cost of fuel these days. Yet for professional semi truck drivers, striving for increased fuel mileage is very important. Getting six to eight miles per gallon means the semi truck is operating very efficiently. Some of them only get four miles per gallon, and that needs to be changed because the drivers are simply throwing money away.

Those who drive for a company don’t worry too much about the cost of the fuel or how many gallons they get per mile because they get paid based on the number of miles they drive. Owner operators pay very close attention to these figures because they have to cover all the costs of their own fuel. In many cases this cost can be as much as 40% of the gross earnings per month.

There are some factors that will affect your fuel mileage in a semi truck that you really can’t control. They include the wind and the weight of the load you are hauling. The cost of fuel per gallon is also something that you won’t be able to do much about. There are some ways you can increase your fuel mileage though that aren’t going to cost you very much to implement.

Many semi trucks offer a heavy drag in order to pull a standard size trailer. These can be modified to still offer enough power but without the weight. Many owner operators like to add chrome and nice accessories to their semi truck. Try to avoid too much of it, especially those pieces that are quite heavy as they will add weight and increase the amount of fuel your truck consumes.

The amount of air in the tires will affect your fuel mileage as well. They should be routinely checked to ensure they don’t have too much or not enough air. If you seem to have a tire with a continuous air leak in it, have the tire repaired or replace it.

The amount of air that is moving underneath the semi truck is important as well. Too much air means you are fighting it as you drive down the road. There are special designed pieces you can place under your truck as well as on the roof of it in order to cut the amount of resistance you are driving against.

There are some hybrid models of semi trucks on the market right now that offer a great way to save money and increase fuel mileage. Since they will run on solar power during the day, the only fuel that will be consumed is when the energy cells have run out or the sun has gone down. You can expect to see many more hybrid semi trucks on the road in the years ahead.

Think about the weight of a semi truck before you purchase it because it is going to affect your fuel mileage. The heavier a truck is the more fuel you are going to need to move it. Sure, having all those accessories inside of the truck is nice, but if you want to make a decent profit you need to compromise. Make sure you have plenty of comfort since you will likely spend a great deal of time in your semi truck. However, you need to make sure you are getting one of the higher rates when it comes to your fuel mileage.

Incorporating these various types of ways to increase your fuel mileage used semi truck is very important. Even increasing it by one mile per gallon will significantly add up fast if you drive several thousand miles per month. The cost of fuel continues to get higher and higher so you need to do all you can to keep overhead costs as low as possible.