TT Gas Milage

[Bzeitham]

We are beginning to look at travel trailers. One consideration is the cost of towing the unit. With the Middle East situation and with the government saying that our highways are seriously underfunded, I can certainly see fuel prices easily being $4 to $5 a gallon.

My question is do the light weight, not pop-up or fold down, travel trailers get much better milage than a full size TT?

Thanks in advance...

[nolra]

I have never gotten less than 20mpg on a trip. The Casita has rounded corners, less frontal area to start with and I'm pulling it with a pre smog gadget diesel. I hope to keep this combo for a long time! (-:}

[Community Alumni]

Tequila wrote:

A friend of mine in the oil industry in Louisiana explained it all to me. Oil is an international commodity. Apart from taxes, countries really do not control it. You can drill all you want in the US or Canada, the oil will go onto the international market to the highest bidder, not be used to lower domestic prices. It's a bummer, but the way it is. It also acts opposite to most other commodities where supply & demand control prices. With oil extra supply often means more demand which means higher prices. You can sort of see how this happens by looking domestically at what happened when prices were low. Conservation went out the window, and people went out & bought gazs guzzlers like Hummers, and the price went up. Mind you on a global scale, cheaper oil means more expansion in manufacturing (esp in China) which in turn raises the price.

Bingo. The US is actually the largest oil producer in the world. We overtook Russia and Saudi Arabia recently because of all the shale fracking going on in North Dakota and Texas. Now there's a ton more smaller companies exploring and extracting oil out of the ground than ever before. It doesn't matter where the oil comes from really, it's always sold internationally to the highest bidder. There's no one country or president that could even control the price if they wanted to. What people have to remember is oil gets pulled out of the ground by oil companies. They take those barrels to market and say, "Who wants it," and the bidding starts.

What happens on the Gulf Coast also affects prices. The US is also the worlds largest refiner and 40% of that capacity is on the Gulf Coast. This is why oil prices rise when we get hurricanes down here. When platforms and refiners shut down because of storms, the prices suffer. Then there's speculators who exist purely to make money off the change in price of oil. It gets pretty complicated quickly. Bottom line, the only way to lower the price of gas is to do it personally and the only way you're going to do that is by using less of it. When RVing you're going to use a lot fuel; there's no doubt about that. But there are steps you can take to reduce how much you use which in turn helps your pocketbook.

[APT]

Budget for 8mpg for all gas engines for any high walled RV. Then you may be pleased when you get 9mpg. If you budget for 10mpg and get 9, you won't be so happy. Expectations....

[jamnw]

I pull a 28ft TT with a big square front with a 2000 F250 7.3L diesel.

I avg 18mpg unloaded and 11mpg towing. That said, I've gotten as low as 8, and as high as 13 towing. A lot depends on how you drive.

In a hurry, gas mileage will suffer. I also get better mileage if I turn OFF the cruise control.
Between 55-65 mileage is good. Go over 65 and it goes down.

[dodge_guy]

Lantley wrote:
Dodge Guy your numbers remind me of why I went from a V-10 X to a 7.3 PSD X. My mileage went from 7 MPG to 11 MPG. with your 1.5 MPG improvement you calculated $200 savings. I gained 3-4 MPG savings. I figured I saved a conservative $200-$350 a month when camping. Granted the 7.30 PSD X cost a bit more that your wing. Nevertheless the PSD X almost paid for itself in fuel savings.
Increasing MPG by a small amount does produce significant savings.

Yep. I bought my X back in 06. Back then the diesel version of mine was approx. $7k more. And trying to find a clean low mileage 7.3 was hard even then! Back then i paid 02 then i paid $19k and it had 17k miles in it! Diesel would've been nice, but i wasn't needing one. And i only worked 10 miles from home, now i'm 1.5 miles away! Diesel wouldn't be good for my current commute. And it's fun passing the diesel guys in the hills when they see that little V-10 badge on the fender! :B

[Lantley]

Dodge Guy your numbers remind me of why I went from a V-10 X to a 7.3 PSD X. My mileage went from 7 MPG to 11 MPG. with your 1.5 MPG improvement you calculated $200 savings. I gained 3-4 MPG savings. I figured I saved a conservative $200-$350 a month when camping. Granted the 7.30 PSD X cost a bit more that your wing. Nevertheless the PSD X almost paid for itself in fuel savings.
Increasing MPG by a small amount does produce significant savings.

[Bzeitham]

Thanks for all the input on TT mileage. After hearing all this, I'm wondering if a 5er is less efficient since it is higher than a TT? We have pretty much decided against the 5er because of all the steps in one but would be interested in your thoughts.

Thanks again...

[JJ_Haulers]

I agree with everyone else that frontal area (size) and wind resistance (speed) are the biggest mpg killers in the flats, but in the mountains your combined weight comes into play. In the flats I keep the speed down to no more than 60 mph, but I try to get a little momentum when approaching a hill by speeding up a bit.

[Bruce_H_]

11.5 mpg on a 2300 mile trip towing a 3500 lb. travel trailer. It is 7' wide and lower than many trailers, so less frontal area than most.

Bruce

[JJ_Haulers]

We also get right around 10 mpg when towing. We have a V-nose TT dry weight 4,950 lb. pulling it with a 1/2 ton Chevy 5.3.

[DarrellQ2001]

Trip this week from Richmond, Va. to Myrtle Beach =8.5 MPG with Toyota Tundra 4WD towing 7500 gross trailer with cruise control set at 70 MPH.

[ktmrfs]

EcoBullet wrote:
Fuel economy while towing travel trailers is much more about frontal area wind resistance than weight.

x2. I have a 7x14 cargo trailer loaded weight 6,000 lbs and a 35' outback close to 10k loaded. 7x14 has noticeably less frontal area. However the difference in towing them over the same route is less than 1mpg on level roads and between 1 and 1.5mpg over hills. I suspect if they both had the same frontal area (two similar TT), the mileage difference would be even less.

weight comes into play on hills and on accelerating. For practical purposes weight is a non effect at steady speed on level ground. It has a minor effect on rolling resistance and a few other things but frontal area and wind drag dominate.

The Hybrid pop ups are an entirely different story. with dramatically lower frontal area hidden by the TV, the mileage hit vs. unloaded is much lower. We have friends with a trailmanor and fuel economy is much better.

[dodge_guy]

SprinklerMan wrote:
Do yourself a favor , make sure your propane tank cover is secured down , I moved my deflector back a foot , made a big difference , so big that I sucked the cover off my tanks .

Ya, I`ve read about that. It didn`t even pop up in the 800 miles I drove. it is pretty tight around the tanks. thanks for the tip though!

[SprinklerMan]

Do yourself a favor , make sure your propane tank cover is secured down , I moved my deflector back a foot , made a big difference , so big that I sucked the cover off my tanks .