Towing and Fuel Mileage?

[blownnjucied94]

I just did a 1400 mile round trip, Omaha - Dallas - Omaha. I was a little disappointed to say the least with my mileage... 10.39 mpg round trip...

I had a 24' enclosed trailer in tow. I had a 1990 Nissan pick-up (3000lbs, tops) in it on the way down to Dallas, and Buell Blast (360lbs) in it on the way back. the trailer is a Pace 24' tandom axle. I got roughtly 9.5-10 on the way down, and 11 on the way back

does this sound normal? I had the cruise set around 65 mph most of the way. I tried to keep the rpms around 1750 - 2000 while cruising.

[ruizhernandeztrust]

A single digit when towing isn't uncommon. All depends of driving habits, speed, load, axle configurations, road conditions, etc... The important thing (at least for me) is how well my truck works for me. Your MPG will turn back to normal after a while.

[Tuscany]

I had just pulled about a 10k load with mine about a week or so ago with my tow file and only managed around 10 mpgs.

[blownnjucied94]

wow, ok, guess i shouldn't worry. I really babied, left it in tow/haul mode and left the cruise on.

just did some looking and the Pace curb weight is around 3800, the nissan was around 2800 plus ~ 1000 of misc cargo between the truck and cabinent in the trailer... somewhere in the neighborhood of 7.5k...

the truck pulled amazing, the trans temp never rose about 175, the max EOT i saw was 225, and ECT was 220.

I was running one of IDP's tunes.

[ruizhernandeztrust]

Originally Posted by blownnjucied94

wow, ok, guess i shouldn't worry. I really babied, left it in tow/haul mode and left the cruise on.

just did some looking and the Pace curb weight is around 3800, the nissan was around 2800 plus ~ 1000 of misc cargo between the truck and cabinent in the trailer... somewhere in the neighborhood of 7.5k...

the truck pulled amazing, the trans temp never rose about 175, the max EOT i saw was 225, and ECT was 220.

I was running one of IDP's tunes.

I'm glad you're happy with your truck. Our trucks are work horses ready for action.

[blownnjucied94]

One thing that annoyed me was downshift schedule. It seemed it downshifted to easy. There wer e a ton of hills that it would downshift right at the crest, overshoot target speed then coast back down. It seemed to downshft at 66% load in fifth. Does anyone see pros or cons to adjusting downshifts?

[Tuscany]

Cruise control on our trucks also kills MPG. Also if you would have drove it without cruise control than you could have better chose shift points by how hard you were in the fuel.

[Frankf250]

Just to chime in I just towed my 18' car trailer with my 2004 mustang GT on it 1800 miles and hand calculated I got 14.3 MPGs. That's going 70-75 the whole time. No cruise control. And running Vivian's tow tune. Before the tow tune I did the same run and got closer to 11.5


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[Frankf250]

And the tow tune from her kept me real cool.. One really long hill got my temp to 217 oil and 212 coolant. Usually never went about 207 and 200. Love that tune. Also shifts great


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[blownnjucied94]

Originally Posted by Frankf250

Just to chime in I just towed my 18' car trailer with my 2004 mustang GT on it 1800 miles and hand calculated I got 14.3 MPGs. That's going 70-75 the whole time. No cruise control. And running Vivian's tow tune. Before the tow tune I did the same run and got closer to 11.5


Sent from my Autoguide iPhone app

how does this tune compare to IDP's tow tune? I have IDP's street, agg. street, and tow. I had the street tune loaded. my understanding was that tune was acceptable upto 10K worth of towing. I'm guessing I should have ran the "tow" tune?

Just to throw this out there, I am NOT trying in anyway to bad mouth IDP. I am a newbie to the diesel stuff.