Fuel Economy towing the Camper trailer,what to expect

GreenDog,

My Triton has a 3.0L V6 motor and I get around the 17-18L/100km out of it when towing my trailer

Cheers Kev

Hi Geendog,
we had an old 88 Paj V6, we kept the services and oil up to it, but the old motor was a bit tired. We got between 20 to 22 ltr/ 100 towing our 900kg camper down the Hume to Victoria.

Fuel consumption is an individual thing that varies alot due to tyre type & size, if a roof rack is fitted, weight & type of trailer, head or tail wind, weight of assesories, load in the car, speed of travel, steepness of hills & of course how much people exagerate. (Not that anyone would ;-)
Simply load it up, go for a drive & that will give you an excellent indication of actual fuel used. What consumption should one be happy with?? Well that will vary I suppose as to how much money one makes :-))
Cheers Craig...............

We towed an 8'x4'6" tandem trailer empty over a distance of 650klm and returned with 2 engines / 2 gearboxes and a complete diff assembly and got exactly the same fuel consumption both ways.

We have done the same trip several times empty (no trailer) and used very much the same amount of fuel, as we fill up at the same servo when doing that trip.

Even towing you do have down hill runs where you are not accelerating and you do get better fuel consumption and the extra weight will push you further.

That to depends on wind catch area also, the bigger the frontal area the more drag.

It also depends on the driver and the way he uses the towing vehicle to pull.

Try and watch how many Lt's per 100klms you are getting and work around that.

Find the best average and you will get into a rhythm of smooth towing.
Don't get caught out on long flat roads and think you are slowing and put your foot down just to waiste fuel. This bring a lot un done.

There is a section on this exploroz site where people send in their fuel usage history on trips they have done. It's interesting, have a look at it.

Not much of a guide but my empty 4.2 diesel GQ gets around 12l/100km cruising on 110. With a fully loaded car, roof rack, trailer, fuel and water cruising at 90 in 38 degrees i get around 16-17l/100km.

Barnesy

Greendog,
Until recently we had a 93 NJ Pajero 3L V6 and regularly towed things including a CT of about the same weight as yours.

With me driving and not pushing hard we would get around 13 - 14 l/100k w/o trailer and 17 - 18 l/100k with trailer on. If I pushed it or the wife was driving you can add 2 - 3 l to the above figures. These figures varied little over many trips and years. Typically travelled ~90k/h when trailer on.

Now have a 4.2 TD 100 series and it hardly knows the trailers are there and get ~ 13l/100k.

Must update owner profile.

cheers

Hi Greendog

While there are clearly many variables a good rule of thumb to start with these things is to consider fuel consumption varying with your weight.

So if you Paj is 2500kg trip ready and CT is 800kg then start with an assumption that fuel use will increase by 800/2500 or nearly a third.

I.E. similar to reply 6 from Alistair


Robin Miller

Thanks to all that replyed to my post as one said the only way to find out is to load her up and go for a drive,thanks to all .cheer's GREENDOG