I've taken my Excursion on a bunch of trips, but relatively short (200 miles each way for a weekend).

This weekend, I took a parts car I had down to my friend in North Carolina. It was a 1400 mile weekend trip.

The car and trailer weighed about 5500 lbs. Not a whole lot behind the Excursion. The V10 and 4.30s worked great. The truck pulled with lots of power, and the V10 performed smoothly and flawlessly. It's no diesel, but I knew that. The engine likes to rev. Even with the revs, it doesn't pull like a diesel. Going down I-26 to Asheville, NC, I had to downshift to 2nd and let the engine scream to about 4500 (it sounds good up there!). 4.30s are the gears to have if you have any hills to deal with while towing.

The mileage was 10.8 on the way down, and 12.6 on the way back (with the empty trailer) going 70 mph except on the hard uphills with the trailer loaded. Really not too bad all things considering.

The trip was comfortable and uneventful, as expected.

The main thing I learned is just how much more expensive this has gotten. I was doing my friend a favor by towing a parts car I was done with down to him. For trailer rental and gas, it cost about as much as I would have charged him a few years ago when I was doing auto transport if he was a customer. My prices would have to go up over 50% to make the same profit margins. Ouch! Gas prices have gone up!

 

Sound like u had a good trip! What kind of parts car where u towin and how long was that trailer?

 

I'd say 10.8 towing 5k is good-great!!! I get about 10.2-10.5 towing my trailer with about 4-5k on it. Atvs or bikes mainly.

 

All of the oil companies currently announcing record profits thank you!

 

It was a UHaul trailer, so I guess those things are only about 16'. My old trailer that I used to tow was a 20', and that is the length I prefer towing. However it got stolen, and I don't see much of a need to buy a new trailer.

The car I towed down was a '94 Jaguar XJ12. I bought the thing as a parts car (engine didn't run). I pulled the engine, pulled some other necessary parts, and told my friend (who has the identical car) that he could have it for the cost of bringing it down to him.

Once we got down there, he had also bought a '72 Mercedes 280SEL with the 4.5L V8. A real sweet deal he found on Craigslist! We went up this neat mountain road that turned into a gravel road that turned into a mud road. Had to use the 4x4 to get up to the house (truck got all nice and dirty), picked the car up, brought it back to his house.

I was very pleased with the mileage I got while towing. The engine definitely performed well and as expected, but if I intended on doing more towing than I do of this weight or higher, I would want to get a diesel.

The dead shocks made a difference, but it still wasn't bad. I am looking forward to putting the Bilsteins I ordered on. They're supposed to arrive tomorrow, but it will be at least later in the week before I get around to putting them in.

 

what speeds where u maintaining on the hills and what kind of grades where u pullin on?

 

We came up I-26 west and got onto I-40 west near Ashville around 1:30 Saturday afternoon. We were coming back from Hilton Head Island, SC driving a Black/Tan 2000 Excursion with a tandem bike tied down on top.

It would have been funny if we passed you guys, although I usually spot an Excursion going down the road and I don't remember seeing any pulling any U-Haul car trailers.

 

Bill, on the way back home we took I-40 east to I-77 north for the return trip, plus we left around 11 AM, so it's highly unlikely you saw us. Still, a funny coincidence!

Matt, I tried to keep the truck in overdrive as much as possible. On the mild hills, the engine was able to maintain that, usually without dropping speed (70 mph).

On some hills it downshifted to 3rd, but usually that was the cruise control being overzealous. If I was modulating the pedal with my right foot instead of letting the computer do it, I was able to keep the thing in overdrive lockup on the same hills. The cruise control, I noticed, would let the speed drop off too much before putting some more gas in it, and then go too hard, causing a downshift. This may have been hard on the engine and transmission, but the thing seemed to love it.

On one hill, a long 6% upgrade, I had to downshift to 2nd and hold it there, at 55 mph (~4000 RPM, as I recall). I still had plenty of pedal left doing that, but it wouldn't do the grade in 3rd gear, and forget about overdrive. If I had been in the Dodge diesel, I would have expected to downshift to 5th gear from 6th, and run 60 mph at around 2500 RPM.