Idling engine while towing questions
..We now have two toads: DW's daily driver, a Kia Sedona van (that has Remco lube pump to allow towing), and my daily driver, a Ford Fusion Hybrid (flat-towable from the factory, woohoo!) Reality is...
Forum Discussion
Lantley wrote:
Wow what a tale. Now if you would have only stuck with a towable RV your family could travel cramped up in a crew cab pickup like mine.
But you would not have any lube pump issues! LOL:B
Don't have to deal with the lube pump with our Ford Fusion. :)
..If I had stuck with the towable RV, instead I'd have to deal with......................Well, I won't go there, hahahahaha! :)
I like your creative out of the box thinking. But the idea of running two engines doesn't seem practical. I understand you don't plan to do it often, however I'm always a bit agitated when we drive two vehicles to the CG to carry additional passengers that won't squeeze into the crew cab.
I'm sure I'd be real disturbed if I were burning even more gas by towing an idling car.
..The gas aspect is the least of my concerns with this approach, Lantley. Its only going to be idling, using very little fuel, even when going 65 mph. Would be getting incredible mileage, hahaha! :)
I'll be more concerned about not being able to see the gauges on that engine (temperature, oil pressure, etc.) while its running. But, a small, portable wireless video camera and monitor will solve that, and may be something we look into if we do this idling thing a lot.
Or better yet: Let one of the kids ride back there with a 2 way radio in their hand, and make them watch the dashboard! Oh, wait, I guess thats illegal. Drats! ;)
..But then again I didn't witness the spraying hose drama.
Yeah, its a case where its hard to 'un-see' that, haha. I'll get over that eventually, and we'll probably be fine towing the van. Like I said, though, in the meantime, the Ford Fusion is aweseome. :)
Will
Not sure if this info is still needed but you most definitely are pumping fluid through your transmission cooler at idle and it is scary that the dealer could not answer that question. Very scary. The only thing I would question is if your getting enough lubrication at high speeds and the reason I do is most trucks won't let your engine RPMs drop down to regular idle if you slip the transmission into neutral while driving down the highway at higher speeds it keeps them up above 1000 and the reason why is to ensure good lubrication to that transmission at those RPMs now that being said I have driven many of vehicles that will let the RPMs drop all the way down to regular idle at high speeds when slipped into neutral. My initial opinion on your situation is that you would be okay and I would believe the manufacturers take that very thing into consideration while tuning the vehicle they do at least with the GM trucks. I hope I shed some light on it for you and did not just cause more questions.
