Your Towing MPG

How do you like your trailer?

 

About 1,800 lbs. loaded for camping. Towed from about 700' to 3,500' through the mountains 250 miles. Truck averaged 14 mpg hand calculated. Ran 70 mph on the highway and 55-60 on major climbs.

Truck is heavy and has 4.88's

 

2016 TRD 4x4 Sport.
Apex Nano 21' travel trailer. about 3850 pounds loaded. Kept it in 4th, able to use the cruise, kept speed at 60mph. Chicago to Macinaw City, just under 500 miles. Averaged 12.5mpg each way. best tank was 13.2 mpg, worst was 11.8 mpg. Towed like a dream.

 

2013 RC 4X4. I got 19.2 mpg towing my pop up 200 miles going between 60-65. Return trip I got 18.2 going between 65-70. Didn't have the kayaks on this trip though. Can't complain about that at all

 

2017 TRD 4x4 Sport. Fill gas tank with mix of 87 and 93 oct gas. Pull 27' Ultralight Bunkhouse camper, loaded is approx 5800 lbs. No matter season, it will get about 9-10 mpg on hwy doing 60 max 65. On 2 lane roads staying around 50 will get about 11.5 mpg. I have had no issues with this truck towing the camper!

 

Just made an 1100 mile round trip. Camper comes in at 4200 fully loaded and ready to go. Worst tank was 11.3 and twice had 12.7mpg and all the rest were in between. Drove 58 mph going to the camp site and 60 on the way back home. Entire time was in 4th gear except when it went into 3rd going up some hills.

 

Unfortunately, you are wrong! Simply put, fraction and wind resistance force will both have impact on towing mpg. You only spoke wind resistance. “speed and aerodynamic” are the same thing, they both together cause the magnitude of wind resistance force. You didn’t mention the other factor, fraction, which is caused by the weight of the trailer when towing. So when you say “If the load has ZERO wind resistance, then it can be towed with theoretically ZERO increase in fuel consumption”, it is a wrong statement, you didn’t calculate “the load” fraction, so even zero wind resistance, mpg still will increase due to the increased fraction caused by increased weight, just not increase as much as when there is wind resistance. Let me give you an plain simple example to help you understand, based on your theory, hook up your truck on a mountain on a 0 wind day, you can pull the mountain without mpg increase!


There you go, I didn’t wanted to correct your physics at first, but can’t bear to see you showing off your half cooked physics skills in a truck forum, and attacking other members.

 

I think your over analyzing what he's trying to say. He's just trying to explain the wind resistance and speed have a larger effect on mpg than the actual weight of a trailer.