New GMC Sierra as commuter car

 Long story short my commute to work is 113 miles each way. Almost all of it is on a toll bypass highway, so almost no traffic. My company pays me a monthly car allowance, covers mileage and pays for tolls. After getting my bill for a couple of months they decided to give me a company truck instead. It's a brand spanking new GMC Sierra 4 door SLE with the 3L turbo diesel. It rides nice, it;s quiet and it gets 34mpg.  Can't find a downside to it other than I'd hate to pay the repair bills once it's out of warranty.

113 miles EACH WAY? Good god! If you're in 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year that's well over 50k miles every year just in commuting! 

brandonsmash said:

113 miles EACH WAY? Good god! If you're in 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year that's well over 50k miles every year just in commuting! 

four hours per day commuting is like a sixty hour per week job. Always.
 

Ouch. 

OHSCrifle said:

brandonsmash said:

113 miles EACH WAY? Good god! If you're in 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year that's well over 50k miles every year just in commuting! 

four hours per day commuting is like a sixty hour per week job. Always.
 

Ouch. 

I like to drive, I think that would cure me of that.

I'll be the first to admit that my commute sucks. I wasn't supposed to be on this project but they needed to parachute me in at the last minute. It's only for a year and a half or so. In any case it's taking me between an hour and fourty minutes and two hours each way. My old commute was 35 minutes to a commuter train lot then an hour on the train then either a fourty minute walk or a fifteen minute subway ride with a five minute walk. The nice thing about taking the train is I could read.

My hours are fairly flexible and I can work remote when possible. 

I would have my "camping gear" in the Sierra for those longer work days  where you were going to get home so late you almost needed to turn around and head back !

Or get a small camping trailer to leave at the job site :)

I worked in the western suburbs of Chicago (Lisle) and some dude drove in from New Buffalo, Michigan - 90 miles?

When I heard the guy drove in from Michigan I thought it was nuts but with everyone hitting high speeds maybe it was a 90 minute run?

I did the long commute for a while and it takes years off your life. I guess with books you can listen to and pod casts or maybe start learning another language or somthing it could be better but I was doing it with out ac and just a fm radio. 
 

Never again. 

I've done 2 hours each way commute too, I didn't mind it a lot for a long time but it gets boring after awhile

34mpg out of a full size truck is very impressive!

With that sort of drive time they should be giving you an apartment closer to work! 

113 Miles each way?  holy berkeley.

34mpg from a full size truck?  holy berkeley.

I do about 75 miles each way (1hr 15)... once a week and thats at about the limit of whats reasonable.  I enjoy my job and its a interesting niche.  If I could find a comparable alternative I'd leave in a heartbeat for a better commute.

115 each way for 1.5 years?  I'd be looking at accomodations in the area.

The Baby Duramax is supposed to be an impressive little beast. I'd love to have one but they are still more than I want to spend on a vehicle. 

I have a friend that gets 22-25 around town in his. 

On that long commute, it may never have problems. That's what the system is designed for. Lots of time to get hot and keep the soot burned out of the DPF. 

That truck wouldn't be a bad place to spend a couple of hours. 

There's a Sheraton hotel next to the site and I'm welcome to stay there if needed on the companies dime. I just prefer to eat a home made dinner and sleep in my own bed. This was the compromise we came to and the truck is actually a nice place to spend some time.  The fact that I don't have to pay for any of the operating costs is also a nice little bonus.

34mpg highway...WOW. What is the tank size?

yupididit said:

34mpg highway...WOW. What is the tank size?

So I'm converting from metric to freedom units here but it looks to be a 24 US gallon tank. That makes sense since the most I've filled it with is 85 litres.  The projected distance to empty tops out at 999 km. It starts counting down after the first 80km or so of travel.

Wait, so is that 34mpg imperial gallons?  So 28.3mpg US?

Even if so, still very impressive.

In reply to prodarwin :

You're correct, sorry I forgot to convert my average of 8.3l/100km to US MPGs. 

I thought you were in the US because you used miles. 28mg is still outstanding.

That's impressive mileage, but damn, that's 80 unpaid hours of work a month. A full on part time job, or two working weeks that should be at overtime rates. 

As long as you're happy, that just seems like ridiculously to much time to give free to any company.