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Date Posted |
Forum
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RE: Tow Vehicle Upgrade?
Slightly less gas mileage of course, but otherwise, no negatives. It's nice to have the extra traction, even if its just on surfaces like wet grass.
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Cabriolet86
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10/09/08 07:30am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Tow Vehicle Upgrade?
I imagine you'll see 1-3 MPG reduction overall, but it should tow with a nice bit of power now too. I'd make the trade.
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Cabriolet86
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10/09/08 06:43am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Poor gas mileage
With the 6.0 gas and the 4.10 gear ratio, that's as good as you'll get. To answer your question about another truck that'll give you better gas mileage, no, there is nothing as capable as your truck that will give you better gas mileage. If you go down to a half ton truck with an economy gear ratio (IE: 3.42), you might pick up a few more MPGs.
For me, it was never worth the tradeoff. The gas mileage was simply the price you paid for wanting to live the RV hobby lifestyle.
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Cabriolet86
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09/22/08 06:49am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Have you towed with...?
Your mileage difference will be minimal, but you will see a difference in power.
Conversion vans are great, but often times are marginal for towing simply because of the extra weight that conversion vans carry around with them with the high-top roofs, seats, tvs, etc. I had two before finally going the pickup route.
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Cabriolet86
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09/05/08 06:57am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Tow vehicle advice needed
Not a lot. The 4.7 V8 combined with the economy 3.55 gearing will be pretty anemic. If she can't do a popup, they make plenty of smaller, sub 20' single axle trailers that would be just fine with a truck like that. I'd probably be looking for a trailer under 3500-4000 pounds loaded weight, not empty weight.
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Cabriolet86
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08/26/08 06:37am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Allison trans 5spd to 6spd
If it does cost $1700, its not worth it for the 6th gear. In tow-haul mode with my fifth wheel, it'll RARELY shift into 6th gear anyways.
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Cabriolet86
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08/25/08 07:50am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: How many people have downsized their TV?
I took advantage of the people downsizing and bought a bigger truck! But I have quite a few family friends who've have sold/are trying to sell bigger rigs for smaller. My wife's cousin is trying to sell their newer camper, get rid of the payments, and buy an old, cheap camper. That way they can afford to keep the truck.
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Cabriolet86
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08/21/08 09:46am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: DONT DO THIS WHEN TOWING!
I had teens. They wrecked cars. I paid out of pocket to fix them so to not be killed by insurance rates. Those are the facts, and not on carfax!
Except that most bodyshops report to CarFax.
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Cabriolet86
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08/20/08 11:14am |
Towing
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RE: DONT DO THIS WHEN TOWING!
I don't think that's a Georgia "G", I think that's a Green Bay Packer's "G". Notice it's yellow and green?
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Cabriolet86
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08/20/08 09:01am |
Towing
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RE: Can we tow this?
The number one cause of sway is the tongue being too light. Your camper should sit level, with the front of the camper slightly down. Take your setup to the scale, your tongue weight, as mentioned, should be 10-15% of the total camper weight.
Don't get frustrated, when we had our first popup, it took a good half a dozen trips to figure out the best angle, way to load the trailer, how much water to have in the tanks, etc. And every camper is different! One popup we had had a water tank at the back edge of the trailer. You couldn't load it with water because it would throw off the tongue weight. The next popup had the tank over the axle and didn't matter if it had water.
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Cabriolet86
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08/19/08 06:23am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Black Tank Valve Seeping
I replaced my black tank valve this spring for $12. Took about 10 minutes to undo the 4 nuts/bolts and put the new one in.
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Cabriolet86
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08/18/08 01:49pm |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Screen Door Kit
I just went to my local home center, bought plexiglass, cut it with a utility knife to size, and then used heavy duty velcro to attach it.
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Cabriolet86
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08/12/08 07:46am |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Jeep/Coachmen
No way on God's green earth that I would hook those two up. Hire someone. WAY too long, WAY too heavy for a Grand Cherokee.
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Cabriolet86
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08/11/08 09:25am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: FUSE OR WHAT
There is an inline fuse on the line running to the jack motor. Also, check your connections at your battery. My battery has two red lines and two black lines hooked up to it. This spring I forgot to hook up the second set of lines.
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Cabriolet86
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08/11/08 09:17am |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: 2008 Ford diesel - low MPG?
All of the new 08+ diesel trucks do very poorly in gas mileage because of all the extra emissions equipment that they had to add on. Good to hear of a dealer giving realistic numbers on the trucks.
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Cabriolet86
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08/06/08 08:10am |
Towing
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RE: Wheel Heat
Heat on the center of the wheel could be bad wheel bearings.
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Cabriolet86
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08/05/08 07:36am |
Towing
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RE: Info about Ford's new Scorpion Diesel
That sounds cool but why up the HP/Torque? Why not get the mileage up to were a diesel should be? Sounds like Ford still has not pulled their heads out from their backsides, along with the other Two of the Domestic Companies. Come on guys we need MPG NOT MPH get it right for a change! I know your reading this!
Don
The new Scorpion is for the HD trucks. If you want the gas MPG, you can get the new light duty diesel that will be available in the F150. I believe that will have HP in the high 200s, torque in the low 500s with gas mileage in the low-mid 20s on the highway.
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Cabriolet86
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08/04/08 12:03pm |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Am I OK with this tow set-up?
I did the math and it looks ok
You did your math wrong somewhere. Here are the specs from Wildwood's site:
Dry Ship Weight 4,850 lbs.
GVWR 7,520 lbs.
So that means, your trailer weighs between 4850 and 7520 pounds. I'd be willing to bet it was towards the higher end of that range. No trailer weighs what the dry weight is. It doesn't matter how your TrailBlazer is equipped, none of them were ever rated to pull 7520 pounds.
Plus, if you have the short wheelbase TrailBlazer, a 26+ foot trailer is going to probably cause you some issues.
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Cabriolet86
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08/01/08 07:58am |
Towing
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RE: When should you shift gears
One of the major reasons for having an automatic transmission is so you don't HAVE to think about when to shift gears. The computer which controls the tranny does the thinking for you.
But transmissions can't see hills in advance; you can. If you see a hill coming up that you know will downshift anyways, you can manually downshift your auto, or hit the gas to manually downshift it. In anticipating the hill, you won't scrub off any speed. If you let the transmission do all the work, you'll lose 5-10 MPH before it ever downshifts.
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Cabriolet86
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08/01/08 07:54am |
Towing
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RE: too much down shifting?
I know the weight police are going to crucify me for this next suggestion but that's because they don't know how rear end ratios really work... If your truck had the 3.73 or a 4.30 ratio, you wouldn't have this "problem." With the 3.73, you'd leave it in 3rd and cruise at about 3000RPM. With the 4.30, you'd be in OD cruising at about 2600RPM.
So 3000 RPM is comfortable, but 3300 RPM isn't? You're not going to see VERY noticeable gains going from 4.10 to 4.30, and its at an expense of $1000-1500.
I towed a 9000+ pound fiver with my 6.0 gas engine and the 4.10s. You just need to practice "driving" the truck. I learned that at 60 MPH in tow/haul, in "D", I could leave the cruise control on, and if a hill was coming where I know it would downshift, I would tip my toe into the gas a little bit and give the engine some power in preparation for the hill. If you let cruise downshift, you'll lose 5-10 MPH before it downshifts.
With a little practice, its really a great towing engine. And if you don't want to mess around with manually shifting all the time or giving it some more gas, put it in 3rd and drive at 3000-3500 RPM all day. You won't see any changes in your engine temps at all, it's designed to run at that. You will notice some MPG loss.
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Cabriolet86
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07/31/08 08:40am |
Tow Vehicles
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