Florida to Upstate NY (Saratoga Springs)
2017 22 Ft. Class C Ford E-350 Super Duty Triton V10 flat towing Ford Fiesta (2600 lbs). About 10 MPG in Florida (flat elevation) I-95 to I-87 Eastern Seaboard Route is flat elevation but crowded a...
Forum Discussion
AlwaysDreaming wrote:
Do any of you seasoned drivers put your rig in neutral and coast the down hills at 80 MPH and then put it back in gear at 60 MPH?
Never; please don't even think of doing that. You want engine braking going down hills lest you get going too fast and lose control, or overheat your service brakes and then have no good way of stopping. No big rig would coast down a hill in neutral (well, certainly not more than once if they survived.) The general rule is to use whatever gear allows you to maintain a safe speed with minimal use of the brakes, applying them in little bits to adjust the speed. Often that turns out to be the same gear as you needed to use to climb the hill going the other way.
Many motorhome tires are only rated for use up to 75 mph.
AlwaysDreaming wrote:
What is your interstate cruising speed? I would imagine there is significant MPG increase at 60 MPH as opposed to 70 MPH?
There would be some increase for sure, it's hard to predict exactly how much. Usually there's some speed where it just seems comfortable to drive, which sometimes depends partly on what the surrounding traffic is doing. I probably tend to cruise around 65 mph in my class C on the interstates, though it's not a hard and fast rule by any means. Going up some of the hills it's of necessity slower.
