to buy or not to buy.....

10-12 mpg? Nice. I don't think you will touch that with any of the current gas Class A units out there now. With the newer emissions system updates and the additional weight of slides and materials used, I really don't think you will get near 10-12 mpg.

We did the same thing. We bought an older gasser class A and did a year of week and weekend trips. We made a list of "must haves" and started looking around.

It happened that we fell into the Safari that had most of the must haves and bought it at the end of the season. Sold the Monterey in the spring and now we're off to warm winters. That's going from a 28 to a 35. Big difference.

I didn't notice the difference in mileage. It's more of a perception than actual numbers. The gasser had a 40 gallon tank and the Safari has a 100 gallon tank. It's the distance between fillups that you actually notice.

So it's been suggested that my inquiry is a bit misleading as I didn't specify that the gas mileage quoted was based on Canadian gallons, not US, and that there isn't a V10 on the planet that will do that kind of mileage. Over the past three summers we've travelled over 30,000 miles, so I'm pretty confident that the figures I've quoted pretty much cover what we get, from no tow, little tow, to flatdeck carhauler tow. I've read one account (elsewhere) of a Fleetwood averaging 6mpg with a little tow, doing 55mph, but I think it's considerably longer than what we're looking at. I certainly don't want to drop to 6!!

Judy

Using your figures when converting to US gallons it appears you're getting just shy of 10 mpg. According to Ford that's at the extreme high end of what the V10 is capable of even in the lightest chassis.

When I asked a Ford rep how it was that some people were reporting 11 - 12 mpg his response was "Anyone claiming double digit gas mileage with the V10 needs to recheck their math". I guess he hadn't considered using the Imperial gallon as a unit of measure.

Considering the 1999 V10 was only 275 hp I doubt you'll be able to match the mileage with anything newer. The 275 hp version was only used in the 1999 chassis. The 310 hp version was introduced in 2000 and used until January of 2005. It was replaced by the 362 hp version which is still currently in use.

Our 2013 Adventurer has been averaging 7.8 mpg when driving between 55 and 62 mph while towing a 3750 lb. Jeep. If we were using Imperial Gallons as the unit of measure we would be getting about 9.4 mpg

A question as to where you are able to purchase fuel in the Imperial Gallon measurement. I thought Canada switched to the metric system in the early 1980's. We've traveled through Canada several times in the last few years and all our fuel purchases were measured in liters.

Thanks for the information on the various hp's of the V10. Yes, Canada is metric, but my brain is still imperial. My recipes are all in cups and ounces, I buy fabric by the yard, I measure distance travelled by the mile. Doesn't hurt that the mh speedo is in miles. :) I convert litres to gallons and figure it out from there. I've never been able to wrap my head around the 'litres per hundred kilometers' measurement.

Judy

I did haul quite a bit in my life and weight is not affecting mpg while on highway driving.
I had 10,000 lb forklift on my 10,000 flatbed and could not record mpg change.
Fact is that with heavy load you drive more carefully, meaning slower and that might offset higher consumption.
12mpg is what would make owner of pickups with V10 happy, but pickups are driven 70-80 mph, while 55 mph sure can save lot of gas.
Same happen with motorhomes pulling a toad. Owners report no change in mpg, what I believe is due to slower driving.
So don't worry about corians. They are not that heavy to start with.
I put about 500lb of granite in my vintage conversion and am not worry about it.
Love the convenience of cleaning the floors.

Kayteg1 wrote:
I did haul quite a bit in my life and weight is not affecting mpg while on highway driving.
I had 10,000 lb forklift on my 10,000 flatbed and could not record mpg change.
Fact is that with heavy load you drive more carefully, meaning slower and that might offset higher consumption.
12mpg is what would make owner of pickups with V10 happy, but pickups are driven 70-80 mph, while 55 mph sure can save lot of gas.
Same happen with motorhomes pulling a toad. Owners report no change in mpg, what I believe is due to slower driving.
So don't worry about corians. They are not that heavy to start with.
I put about 500lb of granite in my vintage conversion and am not worry about it.
Love the convenience of cleaning the floors.

Our experiences have been quite different. When I pull an end loader in a 10,000 lb. trailer behind my Ford truck there is certainly a difference in mileage. When driving solo I average 17.5 mpg with city and highway driving. When pulling the trailer/loader combination it's 90+% highway driving (at the same speeds as when solo) and the best I can do is 14 mpg.

We have a similar situation with our motorhome and Jeep. When driving solo the motorhome averages 8.3 mpg. When pulling the Jeep it's 7.8. Granted it's only .5 mpg difference, but there is definately a difference.

You are comparing trailer to low load on the truck.
I your trailer enclosed or flat?
When I was pulling my 4500lb trailer empty with my flatbed, I was surprised with no recordable difference in mpg. I figured out part of that was that we do have 55mph limits for towing and part that dovetail trailer lower the air drag of boxed flatbed.
Another sample, had 3000 lb forklift on my flatbed, but with tall mast. That thing did lower my mpg quite a bit.
So my experience, the weight added inside will show different mpg in city driving, but not on highway.
When it comes to highway, all that matters is air drag aka frontal area.

When I get 6.5 MPG, I get excited. If I run 55 to 60 MPH, I can get 7.5 but that's down hill with no head wind. I find it extremely hard to run that slow so I usually average a little better than 5 at 68 MPH.

If you are concerned about mileage and get over 8, keep what you have. You are doing really good!