First long tow...
04-24-2014, 07:08 PM
#11
Senior Member
Well, there is more to it than just the steepness of the incline. You have to have enough speed, or room for speed, as well, to be in the engine's powerband. If you aren't doing 65+ mph, it will have to shift down to get into the powerband. It won't be able to tow up an incline lugging at 1300 rpm doing 55 mph, nor would that be good for the engine. That isn't an indictment on the engine, but just a matter of gearing.
04-25-2014, 08:16 AM
#12
Senior Member
I took about a 3 hour trip today hauling my 7x14 trailer that weights about 3000 pounds. The Ecoboost pulled it easily, even the steep hills I was able to pull in 4th easily. I averaged about 12.5 mpg for the trip, several steep hills both directions and generally up and down small hills most of the way. Does this MPG seem normal? I'm guessing that isn't bad for the terrain.
But, as others have said, wind and your driving speed can change everything when towing a high side trailer. Air resistance seems more important than weight.
04-25-2014, 11:31 AM
#13
Grumpy Old Man
My 7x14 Car-Mate cargo trailer with 6.5' inside ceiling height weighs 2,200 empty (1,900 axle weight plus 300 tongue weight). In late March I drug it 1,500 miles loaded to 6,100 pounds gross (5,400 axle weight plus 700 tongue weight) across the Rockies to Oregon, running 91 octane premium gas, usually cruising at 65 MPH. The lie-o-meter said 9.5 MPG average. On the return trip with an empty trailer and still cruising at 65mph, I still got 9.5 MPG average. Speeding up to 70 MPH with empty trailer didn't change the MPG per the lie-o-meter.
Hand calculating the MPG indicates the lie-o-meter is pretty close to accurate. On a couple of tanks and 300-mile legs, it showed one or two tenths less than the lie-o-meter.
Without the trailer and cruising at 79 MPH on regular gas, I usually average about 17.5 MPG. So that trailer whether loaded or empty definitely sucks some gas. Earlier towing trips proves that it gets enough better MPG running premium gas to pay for the difference in cost of the premium gas. So on long towing trips, I run premium.
Hand calculating the MPG indicates the lie-o-meter is pretty close to accurate. On a couple of tanks and 300-mile legs, it showed one or two tenths less than the lie-o-meter.
Without the trailer and cruising at 79 MPH on regular gas, I usually average about 17.5 MPG. So that trailer whether loaded or empty definitely sucks some gas. Earlier towing trips proves that it gets enough better MPG running premium gas to pay for the difference in cost of the premium gas. So on long towing trips, I run premium.
04-25-2014, 11:52 AM
#14
Senior Member
Have been comparing hand-calc'ed with it since we got the truck 62,000km ago and the difference over that time is only 0.08%
And I'm sure all the error is in the hand-calc'ed # of liters (or USgallons for you folks). There's no way I can fill up the tank to exactly the same spot each time.
Dunno why it's so accurate. None of my other cars have been (Chevy, VW, ...).
And using the two trip meters, it's easy to separate out towing and non-towing mileage. If you're into that sort of detail ...