Truck questions

[spoon059]

Originally Posted by AKRUEBBE

What is your rear end axle ratio!!!! That is super MPG while towing!!

I think that is likely the numbers shown on his computer screen, which are notoriously optimistic. He likely has a 3.42 rear axle and his mileage is likely 2-3 mpg lower when hand calculated.

I tow a 9500 lbs travel trailer which is 3 feet shorter, 7500 lbs lighter and has less frontal area than his 5th wheel. I am extremely lucky to get 13 mpg towing at 65 mph, usually its a little lower. Empty the absolute best I have gotten is 21 mpg.

[JeremiahM]

I have a 2006 F250 CCLB, PO leveled the truck and put 325 tires on the truck with a diameter of roughly 35inches, I actually get around 13 (have had some isolated trips with a tail wind as much as 16 mpg) when towing my my 339FLQS, but empty I only get about 17-19 open road. This is hand calculated, I have no readout

[ARMYG]

Good advice, I pull my fully loaded northpoint with approx 1400 lbs with a single axle 3500 silverado diesel and am a happy camper

[TnHiker]

Originally Posted by deewaltguy

We're two years into our first travel trailer and are planning down the road for our next camper. Odds are it'll be a 5er, so we're looking to address the truck first, with a diesel 2500 or perhaps a 3500.

We tow with a Ram 2500 6.4. It can to 12K+ lbs, but we're looking closer to 15K for most 5ers.
My questions are:
Does anyone tow with a manual transmission. Dodge has a few of these and they are a bit cheaper than the auto. Is it practical or foolish, or somewhere in-between.


What will be the fuel consumption ramifications? I get 14MPG unloaded and in the 6-9 range towing. I know diesel costs more, but is more fuel efficient. Should I expect a decrease in fuel expenses or something else?


Tire impact on towing. My current 2500 came with Firestone tires and I am not much of a fan. Any thoughts on a decent snow tire (I still deal with that stuff) that will also have decent longevity?


Thanks in advance

I started towing in the early 70's. I'm not going through all the combinations of TV & TT, and now 5r but once I went to an automatic transmission I have not ever wanted to go back to a manual transmission. By the way I still have my 4 speed manual trans 1975 F100 4WD SB that I towed with back in the day (112,000 miles now). You can see in my signature what I tow with now. It's not one of the new trucks with the exhaust brake and all the options. It has the old 7.3 PowerStroke with an automatic and 4:10 gears and 52,000 trouble free miles. On a trip out west in 2017 (4400 miles towing and 5600 miles total) I got a 12.25 MPG overall. A lot of those miles were traveling in the Black Hills into the north of Yellowstone at Gardiner, Montana all the way down into Rocky Mountain NP in Colorado. I was pulling my old 2010 Eagle Super Lite that weighed in about 11,600 lb. I have traded since and the new Eagle HT is about 1000 lb lighter. I don't think you will ever be sorry you get an automatic trans. Get what you want and don't look back. Just enjoy this beautiful country we live in and see every inch of it you can. Visit East Tennessee if you can. I have traveled over most of this country and East Tennessee is the place to live "it' Gods Country".

[Mad5581]

There is a reason ram is stopping production of the manual transmission. It's not because demand is low. It's the longevity, and reliability. So first off it's a solid transition the issue is nobody knows how to drive them (well very few do). So if you are dead set on a manual transmission ram first you will notice the motor output (power and torque specs) are lower then the automatic. The reason for this is to preserve the clutch. If you buy one learn how to drive it and you will get many many trouble free miles out of it. Step 1 never and I mean never touch the fuel pedal and the clutch at the same time. Step 2 dont chip the motor or do any upgrades at all to increase power and torque. Step 3 learn how to "float the gears" this is trucker talk for shifting without use of the clutch. It can be done and done efficiently with this transmission. Step 4 dont skip services on it actually do them about every 40k miles they are cheap it's just a drain and refill. My recommendation is to find a ram with the Asin transmission (dont think that's spelled right) they are as good or better then the allison in GM's. Only problem is they are hard to come by and cost more and normally are found in the higher trim levels. This is potentially the best transmission on the market. Me personally I went with the gmc with the duramax allison. My rv is 16k fully loaded so I dont care if the truck can pull 30k in never will pull that much with it. So if you fallow my steps with a ram and the manual transmission I have seen well over 250k miles on the factory clutch. If you dont fallow even one of them I've seen failures as early as 30k miles and its common to see them fail around 100k miles.

[Midnightmoon]

Originally Posted by Mad5581

Step 3 learn how to "float the gears" this is trucker talk for shifting without use of the clutch. It can be done and done efficiently with this transmission.

I understand where you are coming from in theory. Probably good advise for someone who has a few million miles under their belt on an Eaton Fuller. However, the G56 is probably not a good choice of a trans for a rookie to learn to skip shift on. The synchronizers just can't take it. I've had quite a few of them apart and you can't believe what they look like when abused.

Good, clean, slow shifts are probably the best bet for someone new to a G56.

[Mad5581]

Originally Posted by Midnightmoon

I understand where you are coming from in theory. Probably good advise for someone who has a few million miles under their belt on an Eaton Fuller. However, the G56 is probably not a good choice of a trans for a rookie to learn to skip shift on. The synchronizers just can't take it. I've had quite a few of them apart and you can't believe what they look like when abused.

Good, clean, slow shifts are probably the best bet for someone new to a G56.

Now your right probably not the best vehicle to learn how to float gears on. But I would also highly recommend not "skipping gears". Go get a 10 year old neon or Ford focus with a manual for $500 or so and drive it to and from work for a few months and learn on that. I had a cousin that used to float his G56 all the time still has the truck with 255k on factory clutch and its about 25% or so pulling a 8500lb trailer. Truck still runs and drives great. He is also not a truck driver. He learned how to do it in an older honda. Didnt take too long few months. He is also a guy that has to do all his own work on his vehicles. Cant afford to pay someone else to do it. I would still recommend an automatic especially if your newer to driving larger vehicles. One less thing to worry about when driving.

[Midnightmoon]

Originally Posted by Mad5581

Now your right probably not the best vehicle to learn how to float gears on. But I would also highly recommend not "skipping gears". Go get a 10 year old neon or Ford focus with a manual for $500 or so and drive it to and from work for a few months and learn on that. I had a cousin that used to float his G56 all the time still has the truck with 255k on factory clutch and its about 25% or so pulling a 8500lb trailer. Truck still runs and drives great. He is also not a truck driver. He learned how to do it in an older honda. Didnt take too long few months. He is also a guy that has to do all his own work on his vehicles. Cant afford to pay someone else to do it. I would still recommend an automatic especially if your newer to driving larger vehicles. One less thing to worry about when driving.

I've probably done 2 to 3 dozen clutch replacements on 3rd and 4th gen G56 equipped Rams since they were introduced in mid 2005. I've yet to see a clutch actually worn completely out. They have all been failed dual mass flywheels. Some will be able to keep that factory setup running longer than others, but it's only a matter of time.

As I mentioned early in this thread, the only way to truly fix that issue is to convert it to a single mass flywheel when replacing the clutch assembly. The negative is that it makes the trans considerably more noisy, especially if still using ATF-4. But, it is well worth it in terms of reliability.