I’ve had several of those little pickups (S-10, D50, two Colorado’s & a small Nissan). The way I drive and haul stuff, I seldom got up to 20 mpg. More like 15 or so. The Nissan with a full load at 65 mph would get 5 - 7 mpg.
My newest is a 2018 full size F150 that gets 20 easy, it’s comfortable, hauls larger loads and has all the power I’d ever want.
Never again will I have a small truck.
I always got 25+ MPG on my 1995 Toyota pickup and my 2001 Ranger still gets it.
I had a full size Chevy 15 passenger van with a 460 and got in the high 20s mpg. My son wrecked it, and I replaced it with a lighter duty and a 350. The smaller engine only got into the teens and the power curve was non-existent.
Bigger is often better and they’re are significant reasons to develop large vehicles. I never could figure why larger vehicles weren’t first on the hybrid path—trains proved the value of that technology the last century...
“Never again will I have a small truck.”
Here here.
I loved my old Toyotas. But they were for roads where people passed other people at 60mph. Mine got anywhere from 30 to 20 (2wd truck or my very, very heavy 4Runner) mpg. But then the gas changed.
Last I drove one was in 2010. It would get about 10 mpg and barely get out of it’s own way. The engine was perfect - the 22RE with 120k on it was barely broken in.
The gas today is utter garbage. If we were running 1980 fuels in the 2018 cars they would be getting about 200mpg and have about 200hp without a sweat.