Yahooooooooooo!!! Made my first real haul 250 miles thru the hills and mt.s of Arkansas. From Texarkana, Tx to Ruslleville, Ar. Truck done pretty gud noticed you cant get a fast jump with ur load or it will take forever to shift into o/d, with tow/haul on. only came out of o/d once the whole trip going up a steep incline outside of little rock. Camper and full load for a week was about 8,000 #'s. the disappointment is the fuel economy. I drove about 65 mph almost the whole way there and back. got to 75 once or twice during passing hard headed people wanting to race seems like during a pass. well going up there i got 11 mpg was disappointed thought that maybe b/c it was uphill. going back got the same thing. what gives i thought these trucks would still to get 12-14 mpg while towing. By the way the drop in K&N is a Drop out. Did i do something wrong or what? truck has 29k miles on it. no mods. What will help?

 

you're driving a 7000 pound truck(that's shaped like a brick) towing an 8000 # trailer(thats shaped like a barn) at 65 mph with a few runs to 75. what did you expect? slow down to 60mph, keep the rpm's under 2k, and the mileage will improve quite a bit.

i just got back from a 1700mile camping trip. 10k # trailer through washington, idaho, and montana, 100+ degrees outside, airconditioning on, 65 mph, 6% grades, altitudes from 2000 to 6300 feet, and got 10-11 mph. i consider that pretty darned good.

 

I only get 10-10.5 pulling my 31.5 ft fifth wheel travel trailer. I think its the 48re thats killing us. I don't know about you but at 70mph my rpms are at about 1950 so I don't think its the rpm issue. Don't know for sure. But I do know IT SUX!!!!

 

I think it's a profile issue, not so much a weight issue. Keeping the RPM's under 2k does make a big difference and once your 48RE is in lock-up it shouldn't be too bad.

I honestly don't think you can expect much better with a heavy high profile trailer. If you got 10-10.5 doing 70mph I think that's pretty darn good!

 

Went from ohio to south dakota and back.Grossing 22400 LBS pulling a 38 foot 5th wheel Hammer down from 65-75 mph depending on terraine and wind with no ac on got from 7 to 12.5.I ran app 3300 miles and spent 850.00 on fuel.

 

I pull all the time items from 10K fifth wheel to a 35' Donzi to triple axel gooseneck loaded with hay bales. I get 11.5 mpg going uphill down hill straight ahead and it never seems to get better or worse. I am 100% happy with the mileage and power the truck gives me while hauling items. I double pull my fifth wheel with a 10' untility trailer behind it loaded with my golf cart and still get 11+ mpg at 65 mph. Best of all my b uddy has a Ford and gets worse mileage and can't keep up with me pulling a smaller unit. I laugh at him all the time but he still says his truck is more powerfull and better on fuel. Go figure!!

 

2,000 # flat bed trailer with 4,500 # rock crawler I get between 11 to 12.5 when towing. That is a lot of mountain road driving. I take the back way to the Rubicon.

 

What the heck do you guys expect? 11 MPG is great towing mileage. Some gassers get half that when towing the same loads.

 

ya 11mpg grossing 20,000lbs isn't all that bad.... Get a std and you may see a mpg or 2 difference.....

Or buy the hemi and never pass a gas station

 

I recently went to Indiana camping and averaged 12.5 mpg at 70 mph. If I drop it down to 60 mph it gets around 13.2 mpg. With the trailer, truck, wife, and two dogs it is about 18,000# gross.
The last truck that I had was a GMC 6.0L 2500HD and with a travel trailer that weighed about 2,500# less, I was getting 7.1 mpg on the same trip.

 

Went to Virginia Beach from Grand Rapids MI. through moderately sized hills in Penn. and Va. Hauled full truck of wife 3 kids and everything except kitchen sink. Also towed 1995 22.5 CCR Crownline boat loaded with bikes and more junk.(approx. #7000) 03 QC with 5.9 CTD auto trans 4.10 gears 285 70 17 BFGs and topper no mods either 1900 mile round trip. 15.1 mpg at 70 mph there and 14.3 mpg on the way back at 75 mph. I didn't think this was to bad considering I also dragged a major snow storm along with me. When we woke up in Virginia Beach there was almost 2 inches of the white stuff. Should've towed the snow mobiles!

 

How many miles on your truck. I have noticed my mpg's increased about 1.5 better after passing 20k on the motor. I tow a #6500 boat in the summer. I was getting 12.75 last towing trip. Running empty this last weekend got 18.14, up from the normal 16-17 or so. Not bad for me, my old Suburban need another 40 gallons every 350 miles (8.75 mpg). With that setup I had to drive like granny because it had no power. My numbers are hand calculated and corrected for tire size, FYI.

 

speed kills the MPG

 

Hate to hijack,but did you run the smarty while towing?I left my house in olympia friday night with 11,000pd toyhauler headed for moses,on bobs recomendation i ran the stk turbo aftermarket injector on sw 3 and couldnt keep the egts in check,so back to stock and ran my quad on 60,got 15.3 over
but only 13 coming back

 

I have just under 90000 on my truck. You know, I never really noticed any changes in fuel economy after the so call break in at whatever mileage anyone states these diesels are supposed to loosen up or whatever. I havent been to disapointed with the diesel, though it sure is a lot better than the 95' with a 318. Just wish the fuel was still around 1.35 when I bought it