NinerBikes wrote:
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My TV is a 2013 VW Touareg TDI Sport. 240 HP, 406 ft lbs. Tongue weight 300 dry on a 21 foot 7.5 ft wide TT that weighs in at 3700 dry. Bought the Touareg with factory hitch, 7700 lbs, limited by the unibody construction on all engines. Tongue weight is 770 lbs, max.
With propane, battery, etc, I run a 600# Equalizer Hitch. I probably have 300 to 400 lbs on board the trailer.
At this point, in 2 years, I have 16000 miles on it. I will not trailer if cross winds are much over 25 mph, I pull over. No equalizer hitch will help you in a cross wind if a big rig blows by you at 80 mph while you are doing 55... 21 foot of wind sail leaves you with sweaty hands and white knuckler moments, too much hinge effect at the trailer hitch point with the SUV having a short wheel base. Allows the trailer in a cross wind to have a lot of leverage at the pivot point, where the two vehicles are joined.
Out west, there is no way I'd go much over 21 to 23 or 24 feet, with a 5000 # Touareg, Cayenne, or Q7.
Trailer is a Palomino Gazelle G21.
3.0 Liter diesel at 55 -58 MPH and 8 speed transmission averages 16.5 to 19 MPG. I seem to manage to find some tailwinds most of the time from Los Angeles to Yellowstone.
I do slow down a bit going up the steeper grades in CA, NV, UT,ID and MT. Retired, no rush, don't believe in pushing my motor hard going up hill doing a lot of work. I try to keep fuel consumption at no more than 4 to 4.5 gals per hour of diesel fuel being burned when going up hill. Function of speedometer, and instantaneous MPG in the dash keeps me from running hot. Don't burn the fuel fast if you want the heat dissapaition spread over a longer time.
Thanks for that post. Very informative.
And your towing mileage #'s are just wonderful.
I looked long and hard at the Touareg when we had the old 4000# (56 sqft front wall) trailer.
But in the end went with the EcoB and only got 12mpgUS. Really wanted the bed of a pickup (and lower cost helped too). Now with the new 7500# trailer (64 sqft wall) and ~1100# tongue weight, the Touareg wouldn't have been enough anyway. But only getting 10 mpgUS now. :(
Still looking for a truck with better mileage though ... will probably have to be a diesel of some sort. The gassers can get fair mileage unloaded (my EcoB gets 20mpgUS), but not so much when towing.
The bigger diesels in the HD trucks are a bit overkill for us but tempting if they weren't so expensive. I maybe could match the EcoB's unloaded mileage and improve the towing mileage by 25%.
The RAM EcoD has similar engine specs as the Touareg, but doesn't have the payload we need. Like the Touareg it's just too little truck for our new trailer.
IOW there's now diesels available in the HD and light duty truck categories. What I would like to see is a medium duty ("heavy half") truck with a diesel. Maybe the Nissan with a 5L Cummins? We'll see ...
