The Gas-Mileage Thread

[barry]

Interesting; I pull my 5.0 with a Ford Ranger 4x4 and average 18.5 mpg when pulling. Every time I've weighed it I get an axle weight of 2850lbs. and a pin weight of 650lbs ( 3500lb total). I always tow with the overdrive off as I find the mileage to be better this way and never exceed 95 kmh. Pulling down the monotonous and flat I-5 to Northern California last September I got 19.75 mpg. I also pulled a 17B with this combination and found that I only lost 1 mpg when I switched to the 5.0 which to me is an excellent trade off given the extra room in the 5.0 and the fact that I can stand up in the bathroom.

Barry

[J Mac]

Originally Posted by J Mac

Just got back from a 3,221k trip in my Ford Ranger 4L 4X4 pulling my 17b.
Loaded with beer and steaks I would guess the trailer weighed in at around 3000lbs although that can't be verified.

Using:
16.47 mpg .....$.32 per mile or
14.29L per 100k.....$.20 per kilometer
Based on todays Garibaldi Highlands, BC gas price of $1.41.9 per Ltr.

The Coquihalla Highway, the Connector to the Coq, The Ice Fields in the Jasper Banff area, Midway just leaving Gran Forks heading to Castlegar and Hwy33 to Kelowna are gas tank robbers. We hit them all.

[kstock11]

I'm beginning to understand that it's not all about miles per gallon or kilometers per liter, but distance traveled per day. 100 miles equals about $25, 500 miles equals $125. My plans for travel (in retirement) are to spend my time enjoying the journey instead of rushing to the destination. My Escape (and campsite) will be much more enjoyable than any interstate.

[J Mac]

kstock11,
You're quite right!
A fellow at a dump station once said, "if you're going to drive one of these and tow one of those, it's best to just forget about mpg and enjoy the road".

[dave macrae]

A good friend of mine once said that if you are going to concern yourself at length with fuel mileage while towing you better sell the truck and trailer and move on. That being said I am greatful that I am not feeding some old big block motorhome @ 5 mpg.

[dbailey]

I think I have to adopt Dave's friend's attitude...

Just returned from our first longish trip and my fuel consumption was much higher than I hoped. Feel a little down about that...

Both the truck and trailer are new, so I'm still learning what to expect. But, towing on hilly highways at high speed cost a lot. The truck by itself on our local (fairly flat) highways gets around 10l/100km. Pulling the trailer locally, I've typically gotten around 13-14l/100km. But this trip we were about 17l/100km.

But if I'm looking for rationalization, i can just do the math; then it's not so bad... Towing the trailer cost us around $300 over what we would have spent just driving the same distance (3200km, an extra 7l/100km = 224 extra liters). Yeah, that's $300 worth of beer I can't buy, but I'd say it was worth $300 to have the trailer along.

I guess in hindsight, the most irritating thing was trying to keep up with our friends, who were towing tent trailers with smaller vehicles. They had no trouble getting 600 or 700km on a tank of fuel, while we had to fill up twice as often.

As a friend would say, "first world problems"...

[Jim Bennett]

We use the same justification, by valuing having the trailer vs the extra cost in fuel sometimes too. When just going camping, it is a no brainer, the trailer must come.

Rough calculations to take our trailer for a 4 night stay at friends, including going most of the way through mountain terrain, was going to cost us an extra $75 in fuel. To have our own "guest cabin" we happily decided to take it.

[dbailey]

Certainly the extra fuel cost is justified if the alternative is staying in motels -- typical rates we see have lower end motels about $50/night more than the camp grounds we typically stay at. That $50/night works out equivalent to around 500km/day of extra fuel cost. This last trip I felt we rushed a bit, and averaged 400km/day. Our typical trips will be less km/day than that.

[Jim Bennett]

We almost always have the option of staying in our friends homes, but if it is possible it is nice just to have a space of our own for comfort. I tend to get up before your average person and can easily make myself a morning coffee. Nice to for escaping to for a nap, or just for a break, either for us or our hosts.

[escape artist]

Hi: dbailey... Our towing gas mileage didn't improve much until we hit 40,000 K's on the odo. The other thing is keeping the speed to around 60 mph. That's hard to do if you're trying to fly in formation. Having your own B&B along for the ride is priceless. Alf
escape artist N.S. of Lake Erie

[LeonardS]

Doug,

As a fellow Nissan-2012-bought-in-2013 bargain hunter (your post tipped me off to those great deals), I did some fancy arithmetic based on how much fuel I could buy with the $$$$ saved and decided that I'd be ahead for at least a few years.

A few times when I was wanting to grumble about the cost of a fill up, I just calculated how much it might have cost if I got a nice ECO-Boost or whatever getting better gas mileage, figured out the difference to be roughly 15 bucks a fill up or so, and...it takes a lot of those 15 bucks to add up to the amount saved in the purchase.

I'm not towing any thing bigger than my Whaler right now, so my math reflects mostly just daily driving.