Truck for a 5000# travel trailer
This is my first post to this forum. I'm sure many of you have seen this type of question posted before, but I'd appreciate your input. My wife and I retired last year and bought a 2011 Gulf Stream...
Forum Discussion
Trnrbrnr wrote:
Thanks to all of you who replied. My comment about cruising at 2k RPM should be explained - my observation when going uphill was that the engine would be turning around 2k RPM at a speed probably in the low 50 mph range before shifting down to third gear. And then on the steeper long section, speed would continue to drop into the 40s unless I allowed the transmission to shift down again, which I did not. So I would drop speed down into the low 40 mph range, which is too slow for me. I'd like to be able to at least minimize downshifting, indicating that the engine is safely below its limits.
Since the transmission was overheating, I gather that it is not able to handle that sort of load, especially on hot summer days.
I am looking forward to traveling through the mountains of Colorado in mid- to late summer with no worries! Thanks!
Why didn't you allow the tranny to shift into a lower gear? That's what it's supposed to do to for the engine to stay in it's power band and to make more torque to the wheels. The only way to minimize down shifting is to buy a truck with a high power high torque engine in the lower RPM's. That is a perfect description of a diesel engine.
What makes you think the transmission was overheating? 220's in the hills in hot weather is perfectly acceptable and no problem at all for hours and hours at a time.
In short; your truck was doing exactly what it was designed to do. Let it do it's thing and you will be fine. If you want more performance at a lower RPM then get a diesel with some good horsepower and you will be even more happy.
