Truck needed to tow?

[playcat]

Bryan, that's awesome! Wish i was a gearhead to install those goodies on mine, but with 200K on it now, probably a waste of cash!
Check those brake pipes, mine rusted away from the inside, $1300 to replace; a recall was pending, but the 2008 bailout included putting the 6.2 milion trucks affected into "extended analysis" instead of a recall. Search for GMC truck brake line failures on the web for more....

Here's my rig on the road -

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Bone stock GMC Yukon XL 4X with limited slip rears. On the scales the boat and trailer come in at 7,800 with both tanks full and no gear. The upper sundeck and I/O add a lot of pounds!

[ronb]

My wife traded off her '06 Equinox for a '12 Tahoe LT. We have pulled the pontoon twice now (86 miles round trip) down to the lake and back. I have been watching the 'instant fuel economy' it bounces between 7 and 12mpg, on the last tank it claimed 9.1mpg but by doing the calcs (miles driven/gallons used) it was 9.44mpg. My wife is a funny creature she was talking to another lady at the gym who was extoling the benefits of a 'programmer' to increase performance and miles per gallon and now she wants me to find one for her... anybody got a suggestion? All the rest of our cars are stock, except the Mustang, when the stock 2bbl throttle shafts got loose enough you could hear he wind whistling I replaced it with Edelbrock Performer intake/carb/cam and lifters, but the factory warranty on that is LONG gone...
The traded off Equinox (with the GMC in the background)
it had a Class 3 hitch and 4 pin wiring, but was a little bit of a joke if you thought you could actually TOW with it...

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'94 GMC and new '12 Tahoe

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Just the Tahoe..

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Because I mentioned it earlier.. (NOT a tow vehicle..)

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Anybody see a pattern?

With 229k miles on the 5.7 (350) in the '94 (we have owned it since it had 7 miles) I am starting to get concerned about the longevity of that motor, it has been absolutely trouble free, the only thing I have ever done to it was replaced the intake gasket (many times, its a GM thing), normal tune up stuff, rear main seal/timing set. I am going to start researching building a TBI friendly 383 with aluminum heads/RV cam, and will replace the stock/cracked exhaust manifolds with Stainless Steel headers. And maybe finding a 1/2ton truck to swipe a front and rear set of 3.73's to replace the factory stock 4:11's that I am currently running. And an electric fan, I replaced the factory clutch fan after 18yrs and the replacement went bad already (won't disengage) costing me 1.5mpg..

-ron

[Bamaman]

My MPG gauge says that I'm getting 23 mpg in town--on a 3/4 ton diesel crewcab--no way. Only way I can be sure of gas mileage is by manually figuring the mpg over a long distance. If I was only getting 9 mpg, I'd be looking for somewhere close to the lake to stash my boat--like enclosed boat storage.

Bryan was talking about all the incredible additions he's made to his truck to make it a super tow machine. It sounds really nice, and he really tows with it.

D-P Tuners (Atlanta area) flashed an 80 horsepower econo program to my 7.3 Power Stroke diesel ECM for $75. I originally could just chirp a tire from a start. With 700 ft. pounds of torque, I can now light up the rear tires. Gas mileage went from 18 mpg to 20 mpg @ 70 mph. Towing a pontoon is about 15 mpg. Good used diesel pickups are the greatest--and good values due to their long lifespan of maybe 400K miles.

The newer diesel pickups are not as cost effective vs gasoline engines. But you can get the same new 3/4 ton and 1 ton trucks with a modern gas engine that's good up to maybe 10K loads. Most boats are well under 10K pounds. They will start, stop and handle these very long pontoons/tritoons almost like they aren't even back there.

[oldcoot]

Sweet looking rides all...

This is my Chevy and Suntracker backing down the ramp...

[Mrtoler]

I've got an 06 ram hemi and I want a ram 2500 diesel. My truck tows ok on flat straight aways at about 50mph and under but when I fish saltwater it's about a 45min drive on the freeway with several good size bridges and it struggles to maintain 65mph and any slight hill in the road will make it down shift and slow down. On the bridges it downshifts to 3rd and sounds like it's going to blow up....I hate towing my boat with it honestly, I can get better gas milage pulling the boat with my work truck ( ram 1 ton diesel) than I can in my hemi by itself.

[plane jim]

I pull my 22 footer with a HD2500 Hemi-2wd. I pull at around 60 mph but have plenty of power to go faster, pass but more importantly I enjoy the journey going to the lake and have been involved in losing a tire at 75 mph while pulling a rv which can ruin your day. I may reconnect the surge brakes on the trailer(previous owner has the brake hose off the master cylinder) although the truck has no problems stopping. Anyone have any experience messing with this surge brake item??