Gas mileage while towing R-pod 151

Simple! Wind resistance is the answer. 70-75 mph has much higher wind resistance than 60 mph. It isn't linear. It is more like exponential the way wind resistance increases with speed. It takes much more force to overcome wind resistance at 75 mph than at 60 mph. Add the headwind to that and you might have been fighting the equivalent of going 80 to 85 mph. No wonder that your mileage was only about 7.3. I tow an RPod 179 with a Nissan Frontier and limit my towing speed to 60 mph. On our recent trip to Florida, we were getting 11-12 mpg. We were fighting winds on the way down and it was not much better on the way back because the wind had switched, so we had a cross wind with some headwind vectoring also. Although the RPod looks like it should be quite aerodynamic, it isn't as much so as one would wish..

When we were towing with the Ford Escape, I added a PurpleLine Aero Plus wind deflector. That helped significantly. However, when we changed to the Frontier, it does not help as much because it is located too far forward to be of use. If we had a truck cap that would allow me to place it toward the rear of the cap, it would work much better, but we don't.

Terrain means everything to mileage as does your rpm's, how hard your engine is working. Keeping the rpm's down and not being the first over the hill makes a big difference. Even just driving up a mild slope on the highway and the TV down shifts to 5th, I manually kick it back to 6th gear.

When we go, we go for up 6-8 weeks and will go into Canada. Gas mileage and keeping the cost down is very important to us (especially in areas of high costs).

I average 14mpg when towing. I track this not by the digital meter, but by mileage/gallons at the pump.

Note: Check your tires for spec's. Adjust air pressure for road and temperature conditions. Check your speed rating, at 70-75mph you may also be driving over it..

MHO 

Some of us keep ir thermometers in our tool kits to check our brake temps. I find it a very useful tool and use mine to adjust my brake controller to get a good balance of brake temp between the TV and trailer brakes after a long downhill grade. 

The biggest help on hills is probably going to be trying to get as much of the energy you put in while climbing back when you go down. Going more slowly up will allow you to pick up more speed going down without having to use your brakes or engine braking which will save fuel overall (because you can coast longer) as well save your brakes. 

And yes, generally engines are more efficient when running at lower rpm because there are less friction losses from the more slowly moving internal parts so keeping in a taller gear as much as possible will help. 

So, drive like a trucker in the hills and like grandma on the flats ad you'll be amazed how much less gas you'll burn up.