Tractorman
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2009
- Messages
- 148
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 0
- Location
- GB, Wisconsin
- Vehicle Year
- 2002
- Make / Model
- Ford
- Engine Size
- 4.0
- Transmission
- Automatic
What I meant with the cruise control is that it will try to hold a certain speed (duh I know) but will work the gas and cause it to unlock the converter prematurely instead of just letting the speed drop a little to get over the small hill, overpass, ect.My dad has a flat-nose motorcycle trailer. It is 14' long inside, 8' wide with wheel-wells inside, and 7' tall inside--I can touch the ceiling with my arms up, but just. He bought it on EBay and I went to Detroit to pick it up for him. At the time, I had a Ranger with 29" tires, a 4.0 manual and 3.55 gears. It was empty, not very heavy, and I moved it through town easily. Once I hit the on-ramp, at about 60mph a hand grabbed the trailer and held me back. I left it in 4th, set the cruise at 60 and got 12mpg. It was enough truck, but I had to go slower. It wouldn't have been that much different with a couple 800# bikes inside. The weight was nothing--it was the air resistance.
Yes, V-nose is better. V-nose is not better if your truck is the same size as the trailer. V-nose is better if your truck is punching a little hole in the air and a big trailer won't fit in it.
Cruise doesn't matter with an auto. The cruise control knows not what the tranny is doing. The tranny can't overload itself. You can't force the tranny into a gear it doesn't want to be in. newer trucks with tow-haul simply keep the tranny into a lower gear and do not let it upshift at the slightest reduction of load. To tow with an auto, it doesn't take the fingertips of a piano tuner to reliaze the bloody thing is constantly down and upshifting. Just pop it down to the next lower gear if it keeps trying to go there. It takes no special skills.
A manual is not physically stronger than an auto. The things the Ranger auto fail for are not stress related.
I mention this because it kind of leaves two choices: Tow with OD off, set cruise, don't worry about it, and have lower MPG, or leave OD on, don't set the cruise, and then just manually control the gas pedal to avoid the unlocking/downshifts on hills and get better MPG.