I towed for the first time on Saturday.....went down to Reynolds Ga at Silver Dollar raceway. Its about a 2 hour ride from my house....my truck has just under 5k miles on it. Under normal driving I did not even know the load was back there....the biggest thing I felt was a lot more stable. The truck did not move much at all over bumps and during braking. On the way down on 75 I ran between 70-80mph nice and smooth it averaged 12.5.....on some of the hills it would drop out of 6th to 5th. Once I got off the interstate I had 20 miles of back roads which were nothing but big hills up and down pretty steep pulls. I manually shut off 6th and left it in 5th ran about 60-65 and mpg's dropped to 11.5

Not to bad at all I am very happy with the truck! The load was not real heavy my car is only 3400 pounds and the trailer is probably 1800-2000 plus a few hundred pounds of tools and crap in the bed.

 

Amelio, which rear end do you have, 3.73 or 4.30? I will only be towing about 2000 lbs. more than you on a similar trailer. Your towing mileage sounds real good.

 

it's got 3.73......I don't tow much just occasionally to the race track....hopefully later this year I will be able to get a 24' v-nose enclosed trailer that's gonna bump up the weight a good bit but again I don't tow a hole lot during the year.

 

Good report! I'll say...that when you tow the 24' v-nose...you'll notice mpg's drop. It's just the wind resistance that you generate. Plus on the Interstate highways...you notice it more when the 18 wheeler's pass.

Yeah...I have a 20' v-nose enclosed. Still tows like a dream...but you do know it is there.


biz

 

Nice towing report!

I pulled my camper (bumper pull @ 6k loaded) this weekend and the truck did great. I fought a headwind the whole way to our camping destination (180 miles away) and the mpg was 9 running 65-70. ouch. The wind drag is what killed me on this trip.

Oh, and nice grand nash!

 

I like the Truck!

 

yeah the wind drag is the killer......I have not pulled my motorcyle yet but with my Denali I used to have I could swear it felt as heavy as the car just due to the tail gate being like a wind sail catching all the air! Fortunately my car site below the cab and I thnik most of the air goes right over.

 

We just completed a round trip to Florida with our truck. 2013 6.2 2wd crewcab Lariat, pulling a 22 ft Haulmark enclosed trailer that was special ordered extra tall to fit our car into. This is a square nose trailer that has the aerodynamics of a box car. Trailer grosses at about 7000lb. Going down, towing at about 62 mph, mileage was about 9, give or take a little. Coming back, I stepped it up to about 67, and mileage dropped to about 8, closer to 7 when we were going into some headwinds that were hard enough to keep me in 5th gear. For comparison, my 99 7.3 with manual transmission typically got a little over 10 towing at 60 mph. Was hoping for a little better mileage, but I can live with what I have. This trip was done with the transmission in automatic 95% of the time.

What is the opinion on tow/haul vs automatic? Better or worse mileage?

 

Leave it in tow/haul. Just my opinion, but it is there for exactly that. Shifts better under all kinds of acceleration and fuel mileage will be what it will be.

 

I always tow in Automatic mode in tow/haul....i would probably use manual mode in a real heavy application pulling a hill