Food for thought - bugging out long distance and gas/mpg

I just did a round trip from FL to WV and back. I went up with a 2011 F150 5.0L 4X4, This truck was empty of any cargo on the way. With a 36gal tank, I only had to fill up once 1/2 way. I picked up a 5 x 9 enclosed Uhaul trailer and didnt too much weight in it, just stuff with camping and fishing gear. My gas mileage got cut in 1/2 if not more just by pulling this trailer and contents.

So for those that are planning on hauling alot of gear and/or a trailer, Id suggest doing some dry runs with full gear. Just because your vehicle gets 30mpg, doesnt mean itll be that way fully loaded and in a SHTF situation, you might be stuck idling for awhile or crawling along.

Additionally, you have to factor in time spent in traffic with all the other people leaving town. 5 hours at 2mph if just as bad!

So you traveled in stealth mode by leaving the Blazer?

Fuel mileage cut in half???

Holy shit...that's a LOT!

No offense, but if you're using that much fuel, then it sounds like you need to work on your towing skills.

what towing skills? You hitch up and drive. I wasnt hot rodding around. Its 99% interstate, I was running 75mph and drove thru the nite aka lack of traffic. the trailer does add drag, not sure how towing skills are going to get around PHYSICS.

Yea those cargo trailers are nice, but they buck a lot of wind and kills your milage.

"not sure how towing skills are going to get around PHYSICS"


Well for one thing, if gasoline usage is to be minimized, what works for me is a towing speed of about 58-61 MPH for the trailer I've pulled maybe 70k miles and with several similar vehicles.

Night time is good. Pulling a trailer at high speed, considering the dynamics of the tow config, increases your chances of an incident, maybe exponentially over 60 MPH.

Risk management needs to play into your towing equation all the time.

Nope, you don't just hitch up and drive.

Take it easy on the gas when accelerating and take your time getting up to speed. Think ahead about your speed and going up hills. Try to plan ahead to maintain a constant speed. If you need to brake, again, take your time getting back up to speed.

I lose a couple MPG when I hook my 2000 lb camper to my tow vehicle...not half.

Like I said, no offense, but if you're doubling your fuel consumption, then you're doing something wrong.

Not necessarily. Look at what you are suggesting. Completely change your driving habits to make an apples to oranges comparisson of fuel consumption. The whole "I only lose 4 mpg when towing with my smallblock gasser" argument never holds up and here is why: Because you are comparing an unloaded vehicle driving normally to a loaded vehicle driving for economy. If he did as you suggested when unloaded, he would get significantly better normal fuel economy, then when he hooked up, he would still be getting half of what he got unhooked. Physics is physics when towing with gas. You can minimize the effects by driving abnormally, but its still physics.

However, when towing with diesel, physics is torque and torque simply doesn't give a shit. It goes; uphill, downhill, loaded, unloaded, doesn't matter.

Agreed...it is physics.

And yes, you will increase fuel consumption.

But not double it.

That comes from poor towing habits.

die tryin:

One of the things friends and I have done over the years is travel to hunt moose. Picture four or six guys, in a few trucks, hauling anything from canoes and ATV's to tents, food, rifles, sleeping bags, tools, and all the other stuff needed for a DIY moose hunt in October in northern Ontario. If you think about it, this is pretty much a small scale bug out. We packing all the same kidns of stuff a bug out would require. One difference: our time frame is usually 10 days, not six months. Therefore things like ammo are usually 40 rounds instead of 4000, and food is less in quantity.

These heavily loaded vehicles suck. Acceleration sucks. Braking sucks. MPG really REALLY sucks. We are gasing up often, and burning up a LOT. A 500 miles trip with loads like this can be a chore.

In contrast our hunt this year is just a buddy and I heading 23 hours north for Caribou. We are travelling light in a f150. No trailer. No boat. No canoe. No tons of food and gear. Its pretty much just rifle, boots, ammo, a little snack foods and a small rubbermaid rough tote with some sleeping bags and survival gear. Since we are using an outfitter, and not DIY, we don't need the tent and all the other shit. I cannot positively vouch for teh difference but I am betting its HUGE: Driving will be easier. Gas mileage will be significantly better. It will be little different than heading to florida with nothing but a suitace in the back (only we'll be heading north).

Having done this on smaller scale before, I know that the driving and mileage issues are massive. And this is with free and uncluttered roads. My little experience caravaning the whole moose outfit to NW Ontario leads me to believe that the large scale bug out with the loaded Suburban and a trailer full of stuff is very nearly totally unworkable should roads, gas stations and all the other supoort networks not be running 98% or better.


(Slightly off topic but one year we elected to drive to a remote pick up site for a fly in hunt. 99 measured miles of the roughest washboard road. It took seven hours to do, and left us feeling really beat to shit. Broke two leaf springs on a trailer. After only eleven miles of this shit I tried to grab a beer from a cooler. In those 11 miles the printed lables on the cans had worn off, leaving all cans a bare aluminum, and the vibration had caused about 35 out of 48 cans to literally run through the can sides, leaking all to hell. And this trailer was largely empty and unloaded. It was worse returning with a moose in the trailer. Bugging out with a trailer full of crap? I have my doubts.)

And when towing a snowmobile trailer I've seen a ford King Ranch go from about 16 mpg to 10mpg. Not half, but surely a significant amount.

I suggest that you get a trip computer such as a Scan Gauge and use it to monitor your real time mileage. I did this with my FJ Cruiser and learned that the gas consumption was MUCH worse at 75mph than at 70. Also makes a big difference in how you drive in the hills, for example setting the cruise in the hills kills your gas mileage, especially when towing.

http://www.scangauge.com/

Get a bigger tank?

My son and I did a 4 wheeling trip to Moab a few years ago. We found that we needed to cover miles and miles of horribly washboarded roads, the kind that loosen fillings and make trucks fall apart.

This was in a Tacoma 4x4 with LT265/75R16 tires. I light vehicle with heavy duty tires, it was miserable. We dropped the air pressure in the tires to 10-15 psi and that made all the difference in the world. I was ready to abort the trip before we tried lowering the tire pressure.

I'm kinda surprised you didn't pop a bead doing that.

Standard pressure around here for jeep trails is 12 psi.

things to do that can help. may be a little but it all counts in the end. an empty truck bed and a trailer is mileage death. need better wind control. cover the bed or if at all possible a shell for the bed which will help the wind flow over the trailer better. I drive semi and mileage really counts. the less space between the cab and the trailer the better. yes truck shells look crapy but you don't have to have it on there everyday!
with your current setup, 75mph its just asking for bad mileage. just try a few different speeds and compare. with the price of fuel even if you improved by 2-3mpg it still helps.

And what happens when you get to the first bridge full of out-of-gas traffic?

ETA: That's a question I've always had in regards to BOVs but maybe this isn't the place to ask it. It isn't meant as an insult or anything.

I have an '02 Sierra 3/4 ton crew cab 4x4 w/ a 6.0l gas. It gets 11 mpg, city or highway or mixed, empty or towing my 6000+ lbs tractor, around this area.

I have an '02 Excursion 4x4 7.3l td. It can get 21 mpg, w/ my wife driving. Best I've done is 13.6. She tends to do exactly the speed limit whether she's in town or on the freeway. I do the limit in town, but am always in a hurry on the freeway and do btwn 80 and 85. Slowing down w/ the big diesel makes a huge difference. I've only towed my smaller tractor (1500lbs) w/i and the mileage didn't change noticeably.

If we have to bug out we'll go in the Ex w/ a small trailer behind us w/ fuel and food, as well as being stuffed to the gills. We will be going slower than the speed limit unless it's life or death if we don't go faster.


RE: what do you do if the bridge is blocked, you better hope there's an alternate route. I've printed out routes to all of our possible BOLs. I have a minimum of two routes to each BOL and sometimes three. At least one of these routes is on secondary or tertiary roads.

Since somebody mentioned physics, I'll just mention that the power required for a given speed is a function of the velocity cubed in terms of aerodynamic drag.

Put another way, doubling your speed multiplies the power required by a factor of 8. Now, match the speed differences to the power and torque curves of the engine in the vehicle of interest and you can get a rough guess as to what the difference in your mileage will be. (All that is neglecting road friction which increases with weight and other mechanical losses, some of which increase with speed and/or RPM).

Like one of the other posters said, open truck bed and trailer towing is bad juju for airflow. Think smooth streamlines like you see in the commercials.

Also, some vehicles, trucks like mine especially, have an "overdrive off" function that doesn't allow the transmission to downshift to the lowest gear if you're towing. That can chew up gas, too.

Tires and conditions depending 18 PSI is plenty low enough for my SUV.

Off-road on Xpeditions I get 6 to 8 miles per gallon. My trip computer reads both MPG and GPH (gallons per hour).

They are handy and I diagnosed a couple problems and paid for it!

One was a lightly seated plug on the transmission selector switch and da other was... uh, the same thing IIRC.

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