The TV is a 2002 1/2 ton Avalanche 4wd w/5.3 and 373 gears. On the highway w/no trailer we average 17mpg at 70-ish mph. On this trip I was running 65mph and had to be in third gear most of the trip with the tach showing 2500 rpm. The 2002 Avalanche has a tow button, but does not separate 'drive' from 'overdrive'. This means I am either in overdrive or third. I tried riding in OD(@ 1700 RPM) but each overpass or mild hill made a downshift and after a tank of fuel is was only slightly better than 10mpg so I decided to just run in third and give the tranny a break. 

Anyway, I have brand new Goodyear Endurance tires on the pod and they have no visible wear on them after this trip. Brakes are not dragging and I checked both sides of the bearings before i left for proper tightness. I'm at a loss as to why I feel like I am dragging a sailboat with a spinnaker deployed behind me....or is this normal fuel mileage at that speed with my set-up? 

Many 1/2 ton chevy trucks passed me doing close to 80 pulling larger trailers and I wish I knew their MPG or Tachometer reading. Kinda thinking I should have bought a 3/4 ton Avalanche which has the 8.1 engine and a Allison tranny. This is my second 5.3 over the years and the last one was a 4Dr truck that also sucked when towing anything heavy....it was replaced with a 3500 Duramax 1 Ton which I still have. 

A gas engine is going to get around 9.5 to 11mpg towing an R-Pod.. as much as they look to be.. they are not very aerodynamic.

It takes X amount of horsepower to push the air out of the way.. regardless of 4/6/8/10 cylinders, turbos, blowers, etc.. it takes X amount of fuel and air to make that horsepower..

Reducing your average speed to 60 will help a little. Those people going faster, if they have gas engines, are getting the same, or poorer MPG then you are. We towed our 31 foot 7000lb Airstream back to back with our R-Pod 177 once.. mileage was the same +/- a couple percent, attributable to actual route and or weather..

Towing our Pod with a 5.4 Expedition, our usual stop and stretch stop is about 3.5 hours from home if headed south to the Smokeys and beyond.. We would take 18-20 gallons. Towing a 6,000lb Lance 2295, with a F 250, 6.2 gas engine, 3.73 gears, we take.. between.. 18 and 20 gallons at that stop. It is what it is.

Originally posted by Motor7 Thanks for the info...I feel a little better. You are right Furpod, the 'egg' fools some like me into thinking it's pretty aerodynamic. I wonder if some type of airfoil or vortex generator on the trucks roof would make any difference? Need to stick a bunch of surveyor tape all over it and get it into a wind tunnel...lol.

It's been done.. didn't help. In fact the first production runs didn't have the light bar spoiler. We had a fluid dynamics engineer in the group, he had already run tests of the basic Pod shape.. he found that the "spoiler" actually increased drag.. LOL
I no longer have the links to his tests, but wish I had saved them locally.

A couple owners have added a spoiler to the tow vehicle.. no conclusive evidence reported. I know of one owner who pulled a pod with 2 sea kayaks on the truck roof, he DID claim  to see a 10% or better increase, over routes he had traveled several times..

The EcoBoost has power to burn. At 60 MPH we're in top gear and a little over 1500 RPM.

When you say the 2014 has no issues climbing hills, what does that mean? Are you towing in OD? Does it downshift on overpasses? I'm not sure when, but sometime after 2002 Chevy made their trucks to allow the tow button to be in, and take the truck out of OD and put it into Drive. If I could do this I think access to that (hidden)300 rpm would keep it from downshifting a lot. 

I don't want to tow at 80 either......I'm good with 65. I felt like I was just out of the torque curve of my truck. I did a little digging and the 5.3 does not peak in torque until 4,000rpm. But, it's around 300lb at 2,000rpm. I will quote a post from GM trucks forum:

"That chart is showing about 300 lb./ft. of torque at 2,000 RPM. If that's true..then why does my truck downshift at every little hill? Why does it tow like crap? My previous vehicle was a Jeep Liberty CRD, and it made 300 lb./ft. at 2,000 RPM and it would never downshift at hills and it towed my trailer like a dream. I'm very confused here.... "

I'm that guy...confused. The Avalanche is on a Surburban frame with Suburban running gear. A long time ago in South Louisiana a co-worker was describing a lack of towing power to his car. He Said "It can't pull a greased string out of a goats arse" and that kinda describes my situation. Oh, the truck can get it done and did, ....but it just was not a relaxing 14 hour day yesterday. Maybe I am just used to the Duramax.....too bad the suspension on that truck will aid in spleen transplant after a day in the saddle. 

That's what rear spoilers do...they add drag to produce downforce.

Just FYI, I typically get between 10 and 14mpg  with mine, depending on wind, hills, and my right foot.

The difference is, with my 390hp V8, and 7 speed slushbox, the go pedal works quite well when I need it to, even when climbing hills.

That's what a wing is supposed to do. On a race car a wing creates negative lift at the expense of drag to increase downforce. Basically its an airplane wing flipped upside down.  

A spoiler on a passenger vehicle is usually supposed to reduce drag. It does this by "spoiling" the airflow over a surface, changing the aerodynamics. Rear spoilers if done right reduce the steep downward angle the airflow sees from the rear roof edge, delaying airflow separation. The same thing that trailer tails on trucks are intended to do.  The problem is that much of the time on passenger vehicles they don't provide any benefit other than (maybe) looking cool. 

I'm not sure if the spoiler on the back of an rPod falls into this purely aesthetic category or not. Sounds like from furpod's post the answer is yes. It would be interesting to try to do a coast down test with and without it and see for sure. It you find a few miles of flat empty road on a windless day, accelerate to about 65 mph, put the vehicle in neutral, and then film the speedo with your smartphone while you coast down to a few mph, you can put the speed and time numbers in a spreadsheet which will calculate your drag and rolling resistance. Best to do several runs both directions and average them. I did it with my car once and it was reasonably accurate but I haven't tried it with my tow rig yet.

Know, I drive tops just under 65mph. I'm the last one up the hill, typically. Cruise control only on the flats. I've been cross-country twice now (Canada and USA), so I've driven most all conditions.

I appreciate all the info from everyone and at least I know 10mpg is about right for my set-up and speed. Maybe a different TV is in our future, but for now it will have to do. I do like the Avalanche platform. It was innovative back in it's day and it's too bad they discontinued it in 2014. 

Greetings:

I've owned two pods, a 171 and now a 2015 179. I tow with a 2007 F-150 with the 4.6 V8, 8 foot box.  I get from 10 to 12.5 MPG towing at 60.  I usually drive on 2 lane roadways but do use freeways.  I stay in the right lane and let everyone go by.  I've had few problems with traffic.  Many trucks are driving at 65 or less.  I went to 8 ply tires which I run at 65 PSI.  They seem to improve mileage a bit.

Crankster78  

Around here on the freeway, you're a road boulder whether you drive at 60, 65 or 70 anyway, so for that economy difference, I'll travel at 60 and they can go around me 

Hear ya Fred! I'm the same way! Funny thing with me is 55mph is not my best speed for mpg.. I ran a road out in Olympia National that I could barely do 20-30 mph and my mileage (on the dash) jumped! Slow real slow is awesome! On the highway I've tested 55, 60, 65 mph and find 62mph to be the sweet spot. This is not from the dash, but from driving a tank of gas and dividing out the mileage.

All I'm saying is every tow vehicle has it's sweet spot. I know mine now. Test it as you drive a distance on a tank of gas. I also watch rpm's when climbing a hill. I'm constantly going to manual and dropping it back. My wife busts me with "The cyclist is passing us!" Me, "ya, but we will pass him on the downhill!"

V8, V6, gas or diesel.. Everyone has that sweet spot!    

 For me I also find 61 or 62 to be a good speed (no wind, flat ground) because the tranny downshifts much more  frequently above that speed, killing my mpg. That's not to say that  45, 50 or 55 aren't better for fuel efficiency, they are. But its a tradeoff between efficiency and speed, if efficiency was all that counted we could stay in one place and use no fuel at all 

One thing I learned is that, crazy as it sounds, there is a noticeable difference in avg daytime and nighttime mpg...presumably due to the fact that the air is usually calmer, cooler, and more dense in the evenings in my part of the country.

Most modern vehicles will give you that info on the dash. I have an BT OBD connection and have Torque Pro on my phone. But it gets it's information from the same sensors the truck readout does.. It does have the ability to read, track, and clear codes if needed, but so far, have not needed that much.

OBD sensor readouts offer many more options and advantages (like improved accuracy and granular control) than the factory 'optimistic' readings that are displayed on the dash.

And even with a really well-equipped, newer, higher-end vehicle with a comprehensive readout selection, there are still some sensors that the OBD device will probe that are not shown on the factory display.

Originally posted by furpod You also run into the fact that a lot of owners don't care..

But for me, keeping an eye on things is part of the deal, and without the proper gauges to do that, adding a $170 item that allows me to is no problem.

Instantaneous horsepower and torque readouts are interesting to watch...as well as transmission and catalytic converter temps. Instantaneous MPG readings that vary with road and load, and the avg mpg that is based on each trip since engine start, versus the average over the last several hundred miles (which is common with factory mpg displays). Engine oil temps, coolant temps, torque converter slip ratio, actual intake air temp, etc etc....

Most people: Yawn.

Me: Cool!

Something that might conflict with your information is here:

https://www.scangauge.com/x-gauge-commands/2008-nissan-xterrafrontier/ - https://www.scangauge.com/x-gauge-commands/2008-nissan-xterrafrontier/

When I got my Nissan Titan XD, I bought and installed a Scangauge, and it would not read the transmission temps as supplied from the factory. I sent the company an email and within a few hours, I had a reply with a link to a page with about a half dozen possible x-gauge commands to enter. After a few keystokes, it was working great!

YMMV but you might want to fire off an email and ask them about it.

I think I was able to do that once.

https://www.clubfrontier.org/threads/torquepro-app-tranny-temp-pids-anyone-get-this-to-work.89063/ - https://www.clubfrontier.org/threads/torquepro-app-tranny-temp-pids-anyone-get-this-to-work.89063/

https://torque-bhp.com/ - https://torque-bhp.com/

https://www.clubfrontier.org/threads/scan-gauge-ii-transmission-temp.78413/page-3 - https://www.clubfrontier.org/threads/scan-gauge-ii-transmission-temp.78413/page-3