Glad we had water on board!
On a recent stay down in Oregon at Honeyman State Park a situation developed that made us glad we had fresh water on board. We normally travel with some water so we can use the bathroom or wash up whe...
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I like to fill up with tap water since our city's water supply is up in the mountains and is very high quality.
Just using rough numbers, our vehicle and trailer weigh around 10,000 lbs. 30 gallons of water is 249 lbs which is 2.5% of the total weight. Kinetic energy is directly proportional to weight so a full tank shouldn't lower our mileage very much since the wind resistance is the same. Even if it is 2%, that is about 1/4 MPG with our normal towing MPG of around 12.
Just using rough numbers, our vehicle and trailer weigh around 10,000 lbs. 30 gallons of water is 249 lbs which is 2.5% of the total weight. Kinetic energy is directly proportional to weight so a full tank shouldn't lower our mileage very much since the wind resistance is the same. Even if it is 2%, that is about 1/4 MPG with our normal towing MPG of around 12.
frankdamp wrote:
We have such good quality water at home (in the top five nationwide) we always leave home with the tank close to full - just enough short of full to avoid any siphoning out of the overflow. I don't see that 600 pounds additional payload on a 22,000 pound GVW rig that isn't close to its max, is going to make a significant difference in gas mileage.
Even if it costs 0.1 mpg, it's worth it to avoid drinking some of the skanky city water we've encountered. We usually fill a Brita jug from the potable tank when we aren't on city water at the CG, or turn the city water off temporarily to get drinking water from the tank.
