Avalanche as a Tow Pig?

In reply to NGTD:

stay away from Hemi Rams as well. Friends of ours pull a 20' enclosed at around 4500lbs. 8mpg towing at 70. sure, it has the power, but stopping for fuel every 250 miles is terrible.

Well towing I think your going to have crappy mileage regardless.

My minivan with 3.5l v6 gets about 10mpg towing

The Dodge Ram 2500 Crew Cab I just rented got like 8-10mpg towing the same trailer

It also got 10mpg empty while the van can get high 20s highway at 65-70

So in regards to mileage whatever you buy probably think of empty mpg and how often and how much you want to be able to tow. I hear you on the budget I like them but they are more expensive than I can spend right now.

Bobzilla wrote: In reply to NGTD: stay away from Hemi Rams as well. Friends of ours pull a 20' enclosed at around 4500lbs. 8mpg towing at 70. sure, it has the power, but stopping for fuel every 250 miles is terrible.

5.7 Hemi Ram was my rental, it was a dog even with a 3500lb trailer, was only getting 8-10mpg and only had like a 23 gallon fuel tank

In reply to Jaynen:

doesn;t have to be. Find the right combination of parts and you can easily havea 15mpg towing rig with an open trailer and low 20's empty.

Bobzilla wrote: In reply to Jaynen: doesn;t have to be. Find the right combination of parts and you can easily havea 15mpg towing rig with an open trailer and low 20's empty.

My Explorer will do that. I got 15.5 mpg pulling the Honda on an open trailer on a trip back in June. I wasn't running 75 mph though! Kept it around 55-60 mph.

In reply to NGTD:

Personal feeling is that it's irresponsible to be towing with a half ton truck at those speeds (75-80). Not saying I haven't done it. But bad things happen fast and at that speed can be catastrophic to yourself and others around. Most trailer tires just aren't built for that type of load + speed IMO.

/soapbox.

With that said, a longer wheelbase truck will tow much more comfortably than a shorter wheelbase SUV like your exploder. That comfort level leads to higher speeds etc. Even at over 5klbs our truck pulls and handles well.

In reply to Bobzilla:

I agree with you on both parts. I take my time when towing and if people want by me, I wave them by.

I also do want the longer wheelbase of a truck or van to tow with. Having used a friends Tundra it was much more stable.

Apexcarver wrote: seems like everyone I know with one has had issues with brake lines rotting out.

How is that different than any other vehicle ever?

Granted, I've done a lot of Chevy truck brake lines, but this is mostly because there are a lot of Chevy trucks out there. There are also a lot of Camrys and Corollas out there and I've done a ton of brake lines on those, too, to the point that I pretty much have the process nailed.

Gas mileage when towing seems to be a weird thing. There's the "it got 8 mpg no matter what I did" crowd and then there's the "it gets 15 mpg empty and 20 with a 10k lb trailer" crowd...

Personal experiences:

E450 box truck with a 6.8 V10 pulling a Jeep on an open trailer, about 16k lbs combined: A steady 8 mpg at 60 - 65.

Jeep pulling another Jeep (loaded backwards) on an open trailer, about 11k lbs combined: IIRC, it got about 11.5 mpg doing 55 - 60, which seemed pretty good at the time.

Bobzilla wrote: In reply to NGTD: stay away from Hemi Rams as well. Friends of ours pull a 20' enclosed at around 4500lbs. 8mpg towing at 70. sure, it has the power, but stopping for fuel every 250 miles is terrible.

Okay, this is kinda funny.

So I'm following EvanB home from Iowa. He's in his Montero towing his Miata. I'm in teh Volvo towing my tire trailer. We left during the awards ceremony and we're pulling a some-nighter to blast our way home so we can get to work on Monday. We're maintaining an average speed of maybe 75-80mph, and I'm doing everything I can to conserve fuel (no accelerating uphill, minimal speed changes in general) and I end up calling him to ask him if he needs gas yet because I effectively have only 8-9 gallons of "safe access" fuel (maybe 12 gallon tank) and at the speeds we were driving I would be lucky to get 250 miles from a tank, and my range meter went to zero miles about ten miles back...

Hauling ass t othe last rallycross, it registered only 25mpg. But I did travel 230 miles in a hair over three hours, with an extra long pitstop, and a lot of city traffic to kill the average speed.

NGTD wrote:

Blaise wrote: PS congrats on the divorce!

That's the spirit! This is going to cost me a lot of money but I might be able to retain my sanity.

The saying goes: Why are divorces so expensive?

Because they're worth it.

Back to truck stuff. What's your budget? Given the divorce (or just generally being low on cash like me), I've found it very difficult to beat the 'work truck' category. This guy was $1500:

Needed a tie rod end, a seat, and added a hitch and cooler but I'm into it for less than $2500. 4.8, 4L60E, 2wd. Roll up windows are just fine because it has AC and cruise. Even if I put 4.10s in it I'll be into it for under 3k.

I've actually thrown around the idea of upgrading (because we're all deranged and cant not think of such things). Why not get something with an extended cab, 4wd, and maybe a 5.3? So I priced it out:

New: Over 40k. 5 years old? 20k. 10 years old. 10k. 15 years old: 5k with over 200k miles. And problems. And Rust.

Sigh. I think I better get used to keeping this old girl a while. It's hard to justify spending that much on a frame with an engine to pull your fun car... versus upgrading what goes on the trailer itself.

In reply to Blaise:

The goal is to find the truck combo people don't want. Like the F-250 and F-350 with a V10. Half the price of a diesel for an equally capable truck, just because all of the people who want to DD it want the better fuel economy of the diesel (which would take a long time to make up the purchase cost difference if it's only used for truck stuff and parked the rest of the time).

In reply to rslifkin:

not just personal experience. You have to take into account that GM alone through the 2000's you could build 100 different trucks with the options of engines, transmissions, rear ends, 4x4/2wd, reg cab, crew, ext, long bed, short bed, super short bed, etc.

On our Sierra we had differential options of 3.23, 3.42, 3.73 and 4.10. 4.3,4.8, 5.3 and 6.0L for engines. Regular cab, extended cab or crew cab. Manual or automatic. 8' bed, 6.5' bed or 5'8" bed. 4whl disc or disc/drum. This is just for 1500's (half ton) trucks. 500+ options for different trucks not taking into account the interior options, colors or wheels. That massive amount of options for a 2wd truck..... so of course there's going to be different experiences on fuel economy. It's why I love domestic trucks... you get what works best for you, not what package some suit said you should buy.

In reply to Bobzilla:

Agreed, there's definitely a wide range of performance. But the far ends of the spectrum of what people claim are so far out of the realm of realistic that there's a lot of BS in the numbers people give.

For example, it would be awfully hard to find a pickup that gets 8 mpg on the highway empty and especially one that does that but still gets 8 mpg with a big trailer behind it. And the people who claim better mpg with a trailer are either doing 50 with trailer and 90 without or they're just flat out lying. It can't possibly take less energy to move more weight with more aero drag.

In reply to rslifkin:

I disagree..... find a carb'd 4.10 rear end old truck.... it'll be an 8mpg everyway you attack it. I am DD'ing one right now.

but the "better while towing" is BS.

Even carbed with short gears it should still burn more gas to move more stuff. Might be the difference between horrible mileage and even worse (like 6 vs 8), but if there's truly no difference then there's probably something wrong tuning wise that's causing the engine efficiency to be much worse under light load than heavy load (like overly rich primaries on the carb, disconnected vac advance, etc.)

rslifkin wrote: Agreed, there's definitely a wide range of performance. But the far ends of the spectrum of what people claim are so far out of the realm of realistic that there's a lot of BS in the numbers people give.

I think it's just people trying to justify a purchase. I suspect diesel owners pad their #s a lot for that reason.

I did the math. I got 12mpg towing with my $1500 (ok, lets call it $3k all said and done) 4.8 Silverado.

Let's pretend a $20k diesel actually gets 20mpg towing. And let's assume maintenance costs are the same (lol). And that my truck is worthless and the diesel will always be worth $10k.

That's a $7k cost differential that's super biased towards the diesel. You would need to tow ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND MILES to make up the cost difference.

In reply to rslifkin:

i'M NEVER Putting a hitch on this truck so I'll never know truly.

Blaise wrote:

NGTD wrote:

Blaise wrote: PS congrats on the divorce!

That's the spirit! This is going to cost me a lot of money but I might be able to retain my sanity.

The saying goes: Why are divorces so expensive? Because they're worth it. Back to truck stuff. What's your budget? Given the divorce (or just generally being low on cash like me), I've found it very difficult to beat the 'work truck' category. This guy was $1500: Needed a tie rod end, a seat, and added a hitch and cooler but I'm into it for less than $2500. 4.8, 4L60E, 2wd. Roll up windows are just fine because it has AC and cruise. Even if I put 4.10s in it I'll be into it for under 3k. I've actually thrown around the idea of upgrading (because we're all deranged and cant not think of such things). Why not get something with an extended cab, 4wd, and maybe a 5.3? So I priced it out: New: Over 40k. 5 years old? 20k. 10 years old. 10k. 15 years old: 5k with over 200k miles. And problems. And Rust. Sigh. I think I better get used to keeping this old girl a while. It's hard to justify spending that much on a frame with an engine to pull your fun car... versus upgrading what goes on the trailer itself.

I would like to stay under $5K CAD (I'm in Canada). The van I kinda like is $6500, so it's stretching. This would not be my DD. I have an 03 Golf for that.

This is what I am considering:

2500 series (3/4 ton) - 6.0L, 4L80E

Looks like it has a lot of potential.

That van seems like a great idea if you don't mind not having 4wd. High top vans are so useful, and great paddock support vehicles.

That van is ideal. Bonus over avalanche: no transfer case or 4x4 extras to break, beefier rear axle, beefy 4l80e, torque.

I have an '03 Suburban 5.3 4L60E. Had the trans rebuilt a couple years ago, it was beyond toast, guy said it was the worst trans he had seen drive in! Yea me! Did the works to it beast sun shell, 5 pinion planetaries, shift kit. Then used HPTuners to set the trans parameters to keep it alive. Towing a 26' enclosed trailer with it, it is a strain. I put a massive trans cooler on, air bags in the rear springs and am currently pulling the 5.3 and putting in a 6.0 with a cam, headers, late model intake, and tune. That'll help. I only tow in D, tow haul mode. 12-14 mpg.

Don't know if it has been mentioned but they did make a 2500 Avalanche. Only came with the 8.1 but it did have the 4L80, same as the 2500 Suburbans. They aren't super easy to find, but when I was looking for my Avalanche they were not commanding a price premium over the 1500s.

watch out on hightop conversion vans. HAd a couple years ago and they are so damn top heavy and a lot of cases are at their max GVWR unloaded. We had a G20 hi-top, door tag rated at 8000lbs gvwr (it was a 92). Unloaded, full tank of fuel it weighed 7700lbs on the truck scales. 2 people and no luggage and you were overweight. We put two sets of springs under that thing in 9 years.