Towing questions
 

Gotta odd question. I'll be towing a 6k lb trailor with a few items inside. Overall the weight will be around 8k all said and done. I was curious if anyone else out there remembered the gas mileage they averaged during a long haul with similar weight. I'm hoping to average 330 miles in between each gas up. Thanks in advance.

Ok, my trailer empty is about 8500# +/-500 But it's a 40' straight deck, not sure if trailer type is important or if it's only the wieght. Anyway, with my mods on, I am averaging about 16mpg. Might be a bit better but that's including through towns and quite a bit of hills. That is also hand calculated, not on overhead. With my truck stock towing that, I would average about 12-14mpg.

Gotchya. I have a bone stock 2006 CTD. Still waiting for the warranty to fall to do the upgrades.

You got a little wait in front of you, till you can start having fun!

Holy crap man, don’t put gas in your truck, [nonono] use diesel! [roll]

All kidding a side I can get 15-16 towing around 5K. [coffee]

Hahaha well I enjoy mixing things up. Figure I'd see how far I can drive before I break down crying like a baby for screwin up the ride.

Obviously, you could average as low as 10 mpg and still go 330 miles on a tank full of FUEL. (Diesel Fuel, right!!) I took a 5200 mile trip to five states here in the west and spent $1300 on fuel. That's about $.26 per mile for fuel. I paid as high as $3.00 p/gal in CA and as low as $2.35 p/gal in AZ. I got as low as 8 mpg pulling in the mountains and as high as 14 mpg on the flat. I tried to keep it under 65 mph. I was bucking some nasty headwinds when I averaged only 8 mpg. I found that I had to stop for physical relief way before I had to stop for fuel. I was traveling mostly on the Interstate and generally would stop for fuel before I really needed it. Especially if I saw a truck stop with a decent price. And be sure to fuel your rig at truck stops that have a high volume of sales to ensure fresh product.

The trailer I am pulling is in my signature. The truck is still pretty new and now only has 8800 miles on the odometer. I am told it will get better mileage in time.

I average about 13-15 while towing. I have a little under 20k now, and I have seen an increase in mpg lately. I've been told that these trucks break in around 15-20k, and mpg will go up. (I've also been told that they don't break in until 60k.)

As far as type of trailer, taller trailers have more wind resistance, so would hurt mpg's about as much, if not more than, weight. I have a 14x7 utility trailer that weighs about 5500#. It's a box trailer like the landscapers use, and is about 8' tall. That's the one I average 13-15 mpg with. I also have a tow dolly which I use to transport cars to my cousin in Kentucky. I'll average about 16-18 with that, depending on what kind of car it is. He usually gets VWs and Audis, so I believe that I'm towing about the same weight or less as the dyno trailer, but with a lot less wind resistance. Towing the dolly home is like having nothing behind me, except that it makes a lot of noise. I also assume that I'll average 18-20 mpg unloaded, but I haven't driven a whole tank of fuel without towing something yet.

The set up I'll be pulling is a 25ft camper trailor (tow behind) and a 600lb cruiser (bike) in the short bed diagonally (and hoping it doesn't fall on its side). I figure I'll have a few odds and ends in the trailor for the trip. Right now I'm trying to convince the wife to do this run with me :D [roll]

The kind of trailer you have has more bearing on fuel mileage than the weight of the trailer... Cargo trailers are like pulling a parachute vs flatbeds can be heavy but have very little wind resistance...
I tow a 5K lb Tandem Cargo trailer and consistently get 14-15mpg's or I can tow a 5K Tandem 30' float and get 16-17 mpg's
But even at the low number I get about 400+ per tank of fuel.
I have a 60 gallon aux tank in the back that stretches me out to 1200-1500 per tank loaded!

I did about 1600 mile round trip in October and averaged 15.2 pulling a tandem axle car trailer with very little weight. It was very cold and of course it was winter blend fuel running through Montana and Idaho. Had mostly cold rain the whole time with a little bit of snow on the return trip.

In April of '06 my truck was bone-stock with 6k on it. I made a trip to Tacoma, WA from here in western CO; it was 2500 mi. round trip. I drove 3-4 over the posted limit 90% of the time and pushed a heavy headwind from Grand Junction, CO to Green River, UT with the cruise on on 78 mph. I was pulling the load (3600# trailer/load) you see here on the way out. The U-Haul was loaded with books, a piano, etc. Pulled a lot of wind against the U-Haul sitting back there like that.
http://photos.imageevent.com/skipjac...020%20copy.JPG
I dropped the u-Haul in Provo; ran with the empty (1500# trailer only) to Tacoma and picked up the load (4650# trailer/load) you see here and ran back down to CO.
http://photos.imageevent.com/skipjac...e/P4300047.JPG
I kept track of all fuel used and hand calc'ed it at 16.7 for the trip. I get between 18 and 19 now in mixed town/hiway driving with no load or trailer and 20+ truck only on the road at 68 mph and hand calc'ed. The truck has 16k on it now and is starting to loosen up; mileage and performance just keep getting better! :)

Nice rig, mj007! IMO, when Cummins bumped the power level to an advertised 325/610 on the CR for 2006, it sacrificed the fuel mileage a little. In general, horsepower costs fuel mileage. Coupled with the new 48R automatic overdrive transmission, I don't forsee these '06 Q-cabs with a long-box getting the same numbers as the previous years. Especially the manual 6-speeds. The single-disc lock-up converter clutch is pretty soft in the stock TCs and there is a lot of slippage going on under load. If I where going to do it again, I would buy the 6-speed. But that is water over the dam!:cool:

The type of trailer, rate of speed, hills, wind, it all affects your mpg:o . The '06 will get between 8 and 14 with a 7-8k cargo trailer while the '04.5's and earlier will get the 12 to 17 boasted (and rightly so). If you want better mpgs keep it between 1700 and 1900 rpm. I run 75 mph at 2100 and get around 10-11 avg if you go any faster all bets are off!! MPG drops exponentially with increased rpms.
:cool:

It's official I'm directionally challenged. I was heading to TN and ended up in WA?!?!?!?!?! Someone want to tell me where I took a wrong turn at???