Gas Mileage

[grill-n-go]

15 mpg @ 70 mph on Florida flat interstate 87 octane w cruise control.

To give better info, I made the same trip with my TM and without it. Going from Norfolk to Harrisburg, Pa. With my TM I got 16MPG without it I got 21MPG

I tow with a 2006 Toyota Tundra. It's a pig on gas on a day to day basis - 13.something mpg. When I tow, I get about the same. I'm figuring that's beause when I'm towing I'm usually doing highway driving. When I'm not towing, I'm doing city driving. But I have clocked by MPG on highway driving with no TM and it seems to be about the same with our without the TM being towed. Anyone else find this? BTW, my Tundra tows this thing like a charm. I sometimes forget it's back there [guess I don't look in my mirrors enough....

[ShrimpBurrito]

I get 18-20 MPG on the highway with my Sequoia doing no more than 70. Towing on the highway, I get the same as you, 13-15 MPG.

Dave

[Bill]

For some reason that I can't explain, the mpg of our new Explorer is getting better as time goes on. We now have over 12,000 miles on it, and over the summer (very little towing), the built-in mpg meter has gradually crept up to almost 19. I don't remember when I last reset the meter, so I'm not sure how much towing time is included in that number.

In about 6 weeks, we'll hitch up the TM and start our yearly 3000 mile trip from Maine to Arizona via Rocky Mtn National Park. If I remember, I'll reset the meter at the start of the trip, and see what kind of mileage we get with the TM behind. And if the brain cells are really working, I'll separate the two halves of the trip - the flatlands (everything east of Denver) and the hilly part (Denver to Phoenix) - and see what effect that has. Should be interesting.

Bill

Our 1997 Suburban (103,000 miles) 2500's 12.5 avg mpg pulling our 5,000lb 3326 at 55mph is about 2 mpg less than w/o the trailer at the same speed. That's the average around town and highway. Highway only at 55 mph the spread stays about the same but is about 3mpg higher.

Joe, my '06 Tundra averages 14.7 towing and at least 17 mpg without. You reminded me of a friend I convoyed with last month (a 2500 GMC) who complained about his bad milage and we discovered he had been towing in 4WD. At least he had a reason for the bad mpg! Since new, my overall mpg is 16.1.

I did a little spearminting (that is a Ricky Ricardo word ) on a recent trip to the factory in Lake City, Tennessee. I filled up in Staunton, VA. and drove to close to Knoxville on I-81……big time hill country through south west Virginia and east Tennessee. On this leg, I left my cruise control on most of the time, and OD off probably 75% of the time. When I thought the transmission would shift out of OD, then I would manually turn it off until it looked like I might get a reprieve. I used 89 octane, as I had read somewhere that more octane will give you better gas mileage. I drove right at 65 mpg most of the time, and little bit more than that in Tennessee when the speed limit was 70. I got 14.4 mpg…..I was not happy with that, as I have gotten 15.3 on similar interstate driving.

The next leg was from there to Lake City and back to Rural Retreat, VA. for my next fill up. I had 87 octane in my tank this time. Same speed, but instead of keeping my cruise control on and maintaining the speed on the hills, I manually worked the throttle, and lost a mile or 2 per hour on the bigger hills……just enough so the OD would stay locked in. I probably used cruise control 35% of the time, and kept the tranny in OD 75%. My mpg that tank was 16.3 mpg…..which I was pleased with.

That said, there were some other variables on the 2nd tank. I probably lost a little mileage due to getting set up and leveling in a campground. I also probably lost some mileage through several stop and go work areas/bottle necks on I-81 on this leg of the trip. I might have gained a little mileage because I had ~50 miles on the truck without the Trailmanor…….but I was driving in some stop and go traffic, and also some very curvy mountain roads around Lake City, and I doubt that my truck would get much better than that 16.3 mpg bobtailing in those conditions, anyway.

I am still driving on the 3rd tank of gas, so I can't figure that 1 in.

From now on in similar conditions, I think I am going to use the cruise control less, and try to keep it in OD more.

Chap

[Joesjunk]

On my 2003 V8 Tundra towing the TM I get between 16 and 17 MPG at 55 to 60 MPH. At 65 or 70 MPH it drops to 14. W/O the TM it Runs about 15 to 16 in town and 19 to 20 on the interstate. Remember that the TM tires are rated at 60 MPH.

[arniland]

This summer we did ~8,700 miles to the west coast and back, all but a few hundred miles with the trailer behind us. There was significant in-town driving, but primarily open road. We held our speed to 65 mph max. We had made roughly the same trip last year with the same Yukon TV, but without anything in tow. We recorded virtually every drop of gasoline that went into the Yukon. The mileage this year dropped 2.9 mpg over last year's trip, 12.2 vs 15.1. We paid an average around $4 per gallon. If you calculate what the lowered mileage cost us, it was less than $550 additional to have the TM with us for a 6 week trip. Of course we paid only for campgrounds, not motels, and we ate home cooking, not fast food and restaurant. Clearly the TM saved us money. But more importantly, we enjoyed our living quarters and quality of life. We plan a similar trip next summer. If something happened to our TM, we would just go out and buy another. I guess you could characterize us as happy campers.

Arn