Miles per gallon thread.

Fireballsocal said:
Neal and Bev are going to make this thread a sticky so anyone can get an idea of what to expect for fuel milage. Please post your hi-lo model # and year, your tow vehicle and any pertinent info such as automatic/stick shift and V8, V10. diesel, etc. And of course, your milage.
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This year the wife and I did an 8500 mile trip (2 days shy of 2 months) through 19 states, camping in 17 of those states. We pull our 2005 27T with a 2005 Toyota Tundra V8 4.7L w/access cab. The Tundra has a tool box which was loaded with 'stuff" which included generator, battery charger, and emergency stuff. The trailer had the typical things for a 2 month trip, plus a blender, toaster oven and several other appliances we don't normally carry with us. Our trip took us across the Rockies and up to New York, Massachusetts, PA, MD, VA, TN, GA, AL,MS, TX, NM, AZ and home. We averaged 11.92 mpg with a speed of 60-65 mph. Without a trailer...19 mpg.We saw five Hi*Lo's on our trip and had a chance to talk to a Florida owner in Mississippi.:)
 
Garry, were you using truck air conditioning and/or cruise control on your trip? Is your truck a gasser or diesel? What kind of tires are you running on the truck and were they inflated at maximum allowable level?

Thanks in advance for the information.

Dee
Summerville, SC
 
Dee Tillotson said:
Garry, were you using truck air conditioning and/or cruise control on your trip? Is your truck a gasser or diesel? What kind of tires are you running on the truck and were they inflated at maximum allowable level?

Thanks in advance for the information.

Dee
Summerville, SC
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Taken from purchase invoice, the tires are Michelin X Radial LT2 All Season, P265/70R16 111TORWL. Front tires inflated at 26, rear at 29, per Toyota. The A/C was on the entire trip, cruise control was used occasionally, but not very often. Truck runs on gas.:)
 
Garry, thanks again for the info. No doubt, you did quite well on your mpg for such a long trip with different terrains and so many variables. One further question, when you were towing in mountainous areas, were you ever uncomfortable with the truck RPMs and did the engine run hotter than you would have wished? After all, a 27-footer is definitely a load!

Dee
 
Dee Tillotson said:
Garry, thanks again for the info. No doubt, you did quite well on your mpg for such a long trip with different terrains and so many variables. One further question, when you were towing in mountainous areas, were you ever uncomfortable with the truck RPMs and did the engine run hotter than you would have wished? After all, a 27-footer is definitely a load!

Dee
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Dee, not at all on the RPM's. I never exceeded 4 and I did not use cruise control very much since it would stomp on the RPM's instead of a gradual acceleration. The engine did not run hotter at any time, even though I thought it would on numerous grades.
 
I drive diesel, so all your mpg's look terrible to me, however, without any baseline numbers they dont mean much.
What did you get not towing?
What did you get towing a full size comprable trailer?
The hilo are heavy, so are they really more economical than a lighter full height trailer?
 
With my F150 3.5L EcoBoost, I get about 17.5 MPG doing pure highway driving. When towing my HiLo, it drops to about 15.5.

Now, I'm only pulling a 17 ft HiLo, so the weight is only about 3500#, but, I pull it with the cruise control ON, at 65 mph where the speed limit is at least that high, and I've never seen the gear drop below 4th, even on long, 12+ mile, 6-7% uphill grades. The 3.5L EcoBoost is an incredibly powerful engine and the cruise control is very "tight", with little variance. I don't have to "help" it with the gas pedal when going up those hills.

The only disadvantage is maintaining speed on steep downhills. The engine is too small to give me good engine braking and I have to help it with the brake, or, slow down enough to get it to drop down to 2nd gear.

I DO believe a HiLo is considerably more economical to tow due to decreased wind resistance. Yes, a heavy trailer takes more fuel to get it up to speed, but once it is there, momentum tends to keep it rolling along and the only difference then is wind resistance.

I've seen how driving into a headwind effects my fuel economy, regardless if I'm towing or not. Pulling a high profile trailer is like driving into a strong headwind.
 
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I have a 2012 F-150 Crewcab with Ecoboost and it gets 17.5 to 18.5 mpg in normal driving conditions with up to 23 mpg on flat open road driving. While towing our 2310H that weighs about 4000# dry I have gotten 13 to 15 mpg depending upon where we go.

As Jack said, wind resistance is the big factor with fuel savings. Once you get over about 35 mph wind resistance becomes a bigger factor than trailer weight. The frontal area of the trailer is like holding a sheet of plywood up in the back of your tow vehicle. If you look at the Hi-Lo brochures that are listed in the Forum library, they show how the wind resistance comes into play on the Hi-Lo.
 
Fireballsocal said:
Neal and Bev are going to make this thread a sticky so anyone can get an idea of what to expect for fuel milage. Please post your hi-lo model # and year, your tow vehicle and any pertinent info such as automatic/stick shift and V8, V10. diesel, etc. And of course, your milage.
Click to expand...
I have a 2008 titan king cab 5.6 v8 automatic, I am getting 20 mpg at highway speed. i am picking up a 2006 Hi Lo 2706T it weighs 4365 Lbs. we have never had a Hi Lo before
 
Wow,, I wish I got kthat mileage on my 2010 Titan . With a decent tailwind I might get 18 on the interstate in spurts. Pulling my 2001 22ft tow.ite I get around 12-13 ..... On good runs. My trailer runs 13 inch tires which will reduce mpg a bit from say 15 inchers. Also, per the Titan Manuel, I Do Not pull in overdrive. That said, the Titan does a great job of towing . In general I have had to learn to live wit poor mileage overall with the Titan but I find my towing mileage is close to what others on the forum are realizing.
 
Just saw your post. I also live in Tucson and joined this site today. We just purchased a 2002 24ft. Hi Lo. It would be wonderful to get together to discuss our Hi Lo's. This is our first one as well. We owned a Palomino tent trailer when our boys were younger and had a blast.
 
A little over 18 mpg with some elevation changes loaded with a lot of gear but no water. '06 Frontier crew cab 2204T.
 
I can not speak to my mpg yet as I just towed my 2001 Tow Lite 26 TFB home. Out tow rig I'd a 1998 Toyota Land Cruiser. 4.7 v8, and 4.11 gears. I affectionately call it The Land Crusher! We see consistantly between 15.5 - 17.7 mpg.
Our prior trailer a 16.5' ultra light weight single axle weighed in at 3300-3400#( for comparison the Hi Lo title indicates a weight of 4085#). Our worst was 9 mpg and best was 11.1 . That little bugger pulled hard. In looking for a replacement I wasn't excited about getting less and fighting the wind more. So we looked exclusively for Hi los.
I am expecting to see better mileage as my rpm are 400 less towing the Hi Lo home. My experience towing our previous sob ( some other box) let us tow in overdrive. While not the easiest tow it hardly ever dropped out or hunted for gears. The temperature gauge never moved between towing or not, summer or winter, up hill or down.
We could feel the difference as we were coming up to speed on the expressway. The tandem axles added to the stability and while the weight was more we were accelerating very well. Land Cruisers strong suit is not being known as a tow vehicle but our initial pull home suprised us how much less strain we could feel on the truck. I still need to dial in the hitch. Once the trailer is brought up to level it should be golden.
So who knows what my mpg will be but at least we are going in the right direction.
 
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Neither of my last two trucks, a 97 f150 small block, nor my present Nissan Titan, recommends towing in od. At least on the Titan it is an issue with a notoriously weak rear end and concerns with transmission temps ( the f150 hunted) . At this point I find gas to be relatively cheap compared to shop labor costs on a rebuilt rear end or tranny and willingly sacrifice a mpg or two and keep it out of od. I have a couple of buddies, one with a relatively new Air Stream and the other with a 16' Casita- and both report the shapes seem to be pretty "slippery". There are so many factors that enter into gas mileage I find it pretty difficult to make definitive claims as to the gas savings on hi-los other than most people who have owned other trailers report better mileage with them. That said- for me it is the crosswind resistance and low center of gravity that is the big seller for me in terms of towing.

Rick

Rick
 
Just passing this along regarding use of overdrive when towing.

A few years ago I had to have the transmission rebuilt in my Dodge 1/2 ton pick up, 5.9L gas engine (with 120,000 miles on the odometer). When I picked it up at the shop, I asked the mechanic how I could get as much life as possible out of the rebuilt transmission. He told me three things that I'll always remember.

"1. Never run it in overdrive if you're towing anything, even a small fishing boat or jet ski. Never run it on overdirve if you're carrying more than 500 lbs extra weight, and kick it out of overdrive if you're going uphill.

2. Service the transmission as recommended in the owner's manual, that means fluid and filter changes at recommended intervals.

3. Upgrade your transmission cooler. (The Dodge had a "shared" cooling system where the transmission fluid and engine coolant ran through a shared radiator)."

I followed his advice and that rebuilt transmission ran an additional 198,000 miles before the truck was wrecked.

I'm with hilltool on this, the additional gas cost is a much better deal vs. a transmission rebuild.
 
We tow with a Chrysler Aspen 4.7L. Our Tow-Lite is a 2403 and tows wonderfully. Here in Florida the roads are flat to moderate incline. Our usual MPG is 18 - 20 Hwy. She is a dream to tow.


John Fargnoli, Hi-Lo, Tow-Lite 2403
2007 Chrysler Aspen 4.7L, Equil-I-Zer Hitch
 
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