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!
The transmission overheated because you didn't allow it to do what it's supposed to do and that is downshift... ;)
Sure, the rpms will go up, but that's what the engine and transmission are designed to do... Perfectly normal.
What you did was lug the heck out of it, the engine was never in it's peak power range, and the torque converter on the trans was probably unlocked, which would cause the temp to rise very fast..
You did more "damage" to the engine/trans by lugging it like you did then letting it rev to 3500 rpms or more..
Good luck!
Mitch
