GM 6.0 gear searching.....

ericpatt wrote:
Help??

While this may have been covered to some extent on this forum or another, I'm looking for suggestions for my 2012 Suburban 2500 with the 6.0l engine.

Towing my boat(04 Nautique) it's awesome. Hardly know the boat is there.

However, when hauling our 30ft camper it's a different story. Camper weighs 6900lbs empty. Fully loaded it's probably close to 8000 not including wife, 3 kids, dog and misc stuff in the truck. Can't keep it 60-65 without it searching for a gear it "likes". I usually downshift manually but tach is constantly at 3k.

What to do? Love the truck. Kids are happy in back and plenty of space. Called a couple shops.
1 suggestion was to modify computer?
2 suggested cold air intake, tuner, & exhaust?

Does any of it work??

There's got to be something I can do. Slowing down only makes me feel like a traffic hazard. Would like to be able to pull at least 65 mph on the highway....

There's nothing wrong and I wouldn't do anything.

1. You have the six speed... Tow in 4th gear if need to. You should not be screaming the motor at 65-70 mph. I have a 4 speed trans and I tow in 3rd....lol.. My rpms are not much over 2600 rpm. I do have 3;42 rear.

You have 3'73's and that's only a couple hundred rpm difference. 3000 rpm's is nothing.. You don't want gears to hunt... So lock it in 4th or 5th..

My 3rd gear is a 1:00 ratio. Your 4th gear is a 1;15 ration.. That's what I would tow in. All the other gears are overdrives.

2. You have tow haul mode. Use it. It will hold the gears longer. Use it and try it in 5th and 4th. If it starts hunting tow haul will/should keep it from shifting longer. You may get away with 5th gear @ a .85 ratio with the 3:73 rear...

3. All a tuner will do is the same thing the tow haul mode will do.. Change shift points. And the factory t/h mode also locks the torque converter sooner or as soon as possible to run the trans cooler.

4. Cold air kit??? Waste of money. You will net 0.... Nil.... You'll just be sucking hot engine air into the intake...

That 6.0 as well as the 5.3 like to rev... Towing the hills im up in 3500-4000 rpm territory...

Unfortunatly I get 9-10 mpg towing... I think the suburban with the 6.0 gets 10-14 not towing....

Good thing I think you have 39 gallon tank...


Moral???

4th gear, tow haul, and have fun. Watch the trans temps and dont let them get up past 200f too much or too long. Change filter and fluid in trans more often if towing a lot and trans gets hot. Ler er' REV!!!!!