Curious here. We have a 99 F250 CC/SB 4x4, V10, 3.73 gears, auto. For those who have, towing a 20" enclosed with a weight around 7000 ,what can I expect for MPG on long cross CO runs. ? Empty I get 13.xx typically. Should I invest in OPEC

 

10 MPG

Hobo

 

For gas engines..... you need .45 pounds of gas per horse per hour.
If you use every horse available (310 horses) that engine needs 23.25 gallons per hour.
Now for more fun.... To double speed you need FOUR TIMES the power.
Yes weight is a factor, but so is frontal area. Frontal area more so in the long run affects efficiency.
Drive reasonable speeds and follow a tanker truck with a long hose.

As for MPG... your results will always vary depending on weather, terrain, truck loading, paint color, and the will of the truck gods because you drive a brick.

 

my 99 v10, 3.73 gearing and auto gets about 9 loaded light, and at your 7k+ itll get into the 7s and 8s. keep your speed down, and if your in any kind of wind or hills, turn off OD

 

So that mans to play it safe I have to gas up 20 times in 1500 miles

 

I got 11.6 mpg more or less with my 2016 F-250 pulling a 7,000 pound trailer. 6.2 gas engine/3.55 rear gears. 220 miles over back roads and hills.

 

Depends on what type of driver you are as well

i figured the v10 could do better than 13ish empty. My big a$$ dually used to get 14-15 in city and 17-18 hwy running 65-70 across/ around the country. that was back when I was pretty much stock, chipped and got my BTS tranny during the trip(main reason for the trip)
this was quite a few years ago too when the world wasn't as windy...I want to say around 14 yrs ago

 

Very bad mpg towing

 

These threads never cease to amuse me with some of the comments.

That said, to the OP, MOST gassers pulling an enclosed trailer of any kind are going to dip down to 10 mpg on a good day. With any headwind or hills it's gonna be less. Higher speeds also leads to lower mileage. It's that large frontal area that is a killer.

My advice is to set your cruise around 65 mph and stay in the right lane, and if it starts to shift a lot switch off OD. It'll scream but you've got the power to make up for it.

 

100%. I pull shipping containers behind a 6.0 dually with 4.10s, and it gets mid-to-high single digit MPGs no matter if it's a 5000# 20 footer or a 10000# 40 footer. It's physics, nothing else. I know some guys who always run the newest diesels with tuners, and they don't get much better than I do because nothing overcomes the power-for-drag math.

Set the cruise slow and listen to a good podcast

 

Having owned 3 cummins rams in years gone by I typically saw half the mpg when loaded as opposed to empty. Given my V10 does 13 empty, the thought of 6 or 7 mph with a 1500 mile each way trip x 5 with a 29 gallon tank is pretty depressing. I seriously considered picking up a 7.3 but at the current prices I can buy lots of gas, a in the bed tank, and first class hotel rooms on the trips. When a bud said the moving co charged them $35,000 to move them from NV to NM it dont look so bad.

 

V10 2V ZF5 and 4:30 gears on 35s here. Others have it about right. Expect 8-10mpg. I have seen as low as 6 mpg locked in 4hi and mountain passes in the NW with a camper on the back. Winter blend fuel. Truck usually returns 11-14 empty.

 

I saw some comments about cruise control...You should never use cruise if you want to maximize fuel economy.

the example of the shipping container can't be compared, those are one of the worst things to haul...even if they are empty, the design kills fuel economy and it has nothing to do with being a big rectangular box. I think it's more of the support corragates around it. i've hauled larger loads even 48k lbs and gotten better fuel mileage than an empty container. I've even hauled hopper bottom trailers loaded to 95k lbs and got killer fuel mileage for a semi.

The driver is in control of the economy they will get up to a point. It will be bad in comparison to running empty but the driver can help mitigate the overall loss

seems like the joint consensus if crap and you already know what to expect

 

There is so much wrong here I don't even know where to start.

First I'm going to note that I see you're discussing semis while we are discussing pickup trucks, most of which no longer have manual transmissions. Most pickups today have automatics, which are better left to the computer.

Cruise control does a GREAT job at balancing mileage versus power, and I've been using it while towing RVs and trailers for almost 30 years now. It has only gotten better at that as years have gone by, especially with more gears available in newer trucks. Keeping it in a higher gear while towing to 'try to get better mileage' leads to increased wear on the transmission and it isn't really good for the motor to be lugged like that.

When it comes to towing at speed, it is ALL about frontal area causing drag. Shipping containers are one of the worst because it's literally a flat brick. Some trailers have rounded corners, some have V-noses which effectively reduce the frontal area, but that frontal area is still the largest cause of drag. The drag also increases exponentially with speed. It has very little to do with the sides of the container.

The single biggest thing the driver can do to maximize fuel efficiency in ANY case, but especially when towing, is to slow down. Get the truck in its power band and let it sing along. Maintenance of the truck, tire inflation, synthetic oils, etc. will help, but the BIGGEST CONTRIBUTORS to lower fuel economy is frontal area and speed. Decreasing both of those as much as possible and safe nets you the best mileage no matter what you're doing.

What you CANNOT do is compare fuel economy of a pickup truck towing ANYTHING to a semi. They're two completely different animals. Pickup trucks are designed to get their best aerodynamics when they're unloaded and as-built, so putting ANYTHING behind them screws that up and creates larger frontal areas that drastically increase drag. Semis are designed to get their best aerodynamics when they're hitched up to a trailer, usually a standard hard-side. Any trailer that mimics that design, including hopper bottoms, will give drag numbers close to that standard design. The issue with shipping containers is that they usually sit further away from the tractor's cab than a standard trailer, because they've got to be able to be picked up off the trailer while still hitched to the tractor. This creates an increased gap between the cab and the trailer, which in turn adds to the drag forces that everything sees.

It's physics. It's ALWAYS physics.