Steve Kron is a miles-per-gallon pioneer. He’s not running a newer truck, and has added little in the way of electronics-enabled technology. He’s just an owner-operator with a distinct ability to look outside the box for effective strategies to increase fuel efficiency.
Taking a look at Kron’s real-life mpg data, the numbers speak for themselves. Utilizing the Fuel Gauges program to track his now more than two-million-mile operating history in the 2001 International 9400 you see above, he’s showing freakishly impressive results.
All have been achieved with the same truck.
Between April 2015 and April 2022, Kron's kept up an average above 10 mpg on around 583,500 miles. While his average overall speed, as in the display above, was 59 mph, running in the slow lane is not all there is to his success. Over that time he’s made more than 25 mechanical modifications around the rig aimed at increasing efficiency.
Just recently, after making some additional changes to the tractor, his mpg topped 12.
Kron’s history in trucking begins decades ago, when he drove older dump trucks before moving over-the-road around 1980, with the purchase of a used International 4070 cabover. Over the next 20 years he traded up to newer used trucks. In 2004, Steve purchased the 2001 International he’s in today. It’s powered by a 60 Series Detroit.
Kron’s always tried to squeeze a bigger and bigger return on the investments made in his equipment. One day in the early 1990s, a small exchange of information while parked with an owner of a new truck opened some new ideas about the possibilities. He was looking at the owner’s Cummins N14 -- that owner-op was averaging 7 mpg, a 2 mpg improvement compared with what he was getting at the time.
