Not sure I'm buying this when that truck is rated 14 city 19 highway and maxing out the towing capacity. How often are you camping? That's 13 gallons of fuel, so even at 2.50 per gallon you are spending $32.50 on gas. If that breaks the bank you may have bigger problems than 9.5 MPG....

 

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No way that Nissan got 14 towing 5k, I have friends who pulled boats with a frontier and got 10 if they were lucky and the boat was way easier to tow than a TT. I just pulled my GN 250 miles one way through Ky hills yesterday with loaded weight of 7k. My 5.0 got about 10 but traffic was heavy and I was up and down in speed from 60 to 75 plus.

 

Our 2001 4.0 V6 Explorer would get 9-12 mpg depending upon terrain towing 3100 lbs so 14 mpg with the Nissan sounds high. It would get around 20 mpg when not towing. We have the 2.7L now and have been settling in about 12.5 mpg when towing in hilly areas with the same trailer. My guess is it will end up being 10-13 mpg after getting more trips in that cover the mountains and coastal plain. As we intend to go larger with our next trailer I suspect the mpg will return to what we saw with the Explorer but with the larger tank we won't need to stop every 100-120 miles to fill up.

 

I'm not buying 14 mpg towing with a Frontier, either. RVs are sails, they push a lot of air.

That said, the F150 towing mileage sounds about right. We are in the 9-11 range towing our 27' travel trailer. FWIW, my 3/4 ton diesel "only" got 11-12.5 towing the same trailer.

 

I've seen as little as 7.5mpg towing a 5k lb trailer. I don't expect diesel like mpg when towing.

 

Modern diesel MPG isn't any better really. Go look at some of the Fast Lane Truck videos where they recently did the Silverado 3500 and Ram 3500 towing 5600lbs. I think it was 10-11mpg range for both. Regardless of weight, power, gears, any other crap people can come up with....I wouldn't call 10-11 extraordinary.

 

You can thank the EPA for that. More and more reasons to buy a gasser these days. So what if you're a few mpg's off.

 

I don't disagree.

 

I have a 2013 Crew Cab 5.5 foot bed Ecoboost with 3.73 gears as well. I pull a 31 foot TT that weighs around 6,000 loaded. With the trailer, three adults, and dogs in the truck I have averaged anywhere from 8.5-12mpg with the trailer. Flat crusing on the interstate is the only time I get around 12. Last trip this month I got 5 MPG going up hills for 30 minutes straight. Get a pop up if you're worried about a few extra gallons of gas, when i tow my brothers pop up I can get anywhere from 15-20 mpg on trips.