Having just come back from 2100+ miles towing a trailer across country with my 2010 Sport I figured I'd write up my impressions and seek some thoughts from others...

Here's the trailer setup:


I believe it is about 20' long plus a 4' V front, all aluminum. The trailer is finished on the inside with paneling, flooring, and cabinets. Empty the thing is a beast that squats the truck down level (without airbags), so my guess is that it is 3000# or more empty, with tongue weight pushing 600# (cabinets are in front). We had it loaded with another 3500# of cargo, plus the bed was packed level with luggage and supplies, and there were four good sized guys in the cab. I estimate about total cargo weight (trailer, stuff in trailer, stuff in bed, people in cab) at about 8500#. The pic above shows ride height fully loaded with 30# in the airbags. Not sure I needed that much in them. Guess I'll have to play with pressures next time.

The roads we took were about 2/3 interstate and 1/3 mountain driving, much of which was extreme mountain conditions. I tried to keep it to 70mph on the interstates and obviously much less on most of the mountain roads. Some of the more extreme mountain roads we were over were: Chief Joseph Highway and Hwy 14A from Cody to Sheridan (WY) through the Big Horns. Grades were as high as 10% up and down, with some especially long pulls on 14A.

Here's a sample of Chief Joseph:


Power-wise the Hemi had no problems yanking the load up the grades. Any time I needed more I just dipped a little deeper into the throttle. However, I found that the gearing is really too tall for the mountain driving and the engine's power band is too high. I spent a lot of time down in second or even first gear. Many places I'd want it to upshift to second to get down away from 3500-4000 RPM but it would drop the RPMs too low and lose power. Likewise for going down hill because it would pick up too much speed in 2nd. On some of the steep downhill switchbacks I'd want to slow it down with engine braking and even 1st gear kept me going 35+mph. Running up the 10% long grades on 14A in 1st at 30mph or so for miles was the hardest workout it got. Trans temp crept up to about 220* during that part of the trip (highway driving was around 160*). Coolant and oil temp was obviously higher than normal highway driving but not significantly.

I tried to stay out of the brakes and use the engine for as much braking as I could. But when I needed brakes they were solid. The trailer has electric brakes and they seemed very good. Never felt like I couldn't slow her down quickly when I needed. On the interstates, even in tow mode, it still downshifted a lot from 5th to 4th. I guess I could have just pinned it in 4th and left it, but that wasn't any better on mileage.

Cargo weight seemed to make a big difference on mileage. That was kind of surprising because we didn't change weight that drastically and the frontal area of the trailer is pretty large all the time. But on one section when we were about 1500# lighter the MPG went up from 8.7 to nearly 11, and that included some of the mountain sections. Overall average for the trip was just under 9 MPG. This was running with AC on all the time too. Not too bad considering I get 14+ around town unloaded.

If I could change anything I'd change gearing to have a shorter 1st and 2nd gear. That would help with engine braking on downhills and maybe do better with uphill pulls at 35-40mph in 2nd instead of having to be in 1st and winding it up so much.

I know this isn't a 3/4 ton and this load was towards the upper end for my Ram, so I'm not knocking things. It held its own and got us through without any issues. Given the compromise of light-duty use it normally sees and being able to pull this load when needed I'm very happy with it.

Lastly, I'm glad all I was pulling was this load. I met this guy going up Hwy 14 out of Dayton. That's 180,000# on 13 axles. That truck must have had a hell of a cooling system because that thing was wound up pretty good.



Rob

 

It's hard to tell in the picture,but it looks like you have a 4 inch drop on your hitch.If thats the case you need to go with a 2 inch drop or less to level the trailer a little more.It will make pull easier.

 

It is a 4" drop hitch. That picture is deceiving though because of the shadows and angle. The trailer really does sit almost level (front and back height off ground) when everything is loaded up.

Rob

 

Very close to my experiance with my 26" camper.. I have 3.55 gears..my average was around 8-9mpg.. the only thing I did not like was I would run out of power on some hills.. I would not DROP in spead but I would not pick any speed up either.. Your trailer has a nice V nose. my camper is like a bill board front..
This is a TERRIBLE photo of the camper but you get the idea

 

Great write up Rob; that 14A thru the Big Horns of Wyoming is an astounding road, we drove east-west thru there on our honeymoon last year (first trip west a year ago) in an Expedition. At the summit, there is a sign which shows two routes down, one like 10 miles at 10% avg grade and the other 14 miles at 8%. Being from the east, it was stunning to me, as our sustained grades are at most 5%.

Finally, I agree 100% with you that 1 and 2 are too high, which is the only thing that I don't like about the truck; it needs a true 6-speed or even better a 7 speed ala mercedes.

 

Yeah, from the pic it definitely doesn't look level. What kind of bags do you have?

 

They are Firestone RideRite bags. It sits level when on level ground, trust me. That pic was taken on a slanted mountain turnout and the shadows make it look weird.

Rob

 

One thing I forgot to mention is related to handling while towing. For the most part the truck was very stable and tracked straight down the road, whether interstate or highway. However, whenever we had a decent crosswind the truck felt awful. It seemed to introduce trailer sway. Going over 60 mph on the interstate made it feel like it was going to start a real tail wagging situation. This was a definite effect of the wind with that trailer, not trailer loading. There was adequate tongue weight and this only happened with the crosswind.

Anybody else experience that situation, or was it just my particular situation with the trailer style and how everything was loaded?

Rob

 

I have a 24' enclosed trailer and every time there is a cross wind it starts to sway badly. I have had this problem with various loads from a car to empty, it doesn't make a difference. Was going to look into an anti sway hitch setup and hope that helps.

 

Look at a Reese Dual Cam Anti Sway setup. Works for my travel trailer and for many others also.