Greetings, I’m in my mid-60’s and a life-long shade-tree mechanic doing 95% of my own car, RV, boat, motorcycle, and appliance repair. I attempt to help the environment by not needlessly replacing things when they fail.
I recently purchased a 33’ 1994 460 Ford V8 powered Holiday Rambler motorhome to both live in full time and use as a home-base while I travel this beautiful country towing my 2005 4cyl Dodge Caravan to use as an exploration/overnite camping vehicle. I’ll be driving the MH mainly on the interstates stopping for weeks and even months at a time in various national and state parks. My travels will initially be throughout the west. I expect the first “loop” will take me from San Marcos TX west to Tucson AZ and then LA followed by north Yosemite and on to Port Angeles WA and finally east through WA, ID, MT and SD. After a 2 month stopover in SD I’ll be heading south to TX, NM or AZ for the winter. Overall about 5,000 miles.
The specific information I’m looking for is how to squeeze more mpg out of my MH. I haven’t had a chance to drive it much but from researching the RV websites I figure to get about 7mpg on the interstate while towing my Caravan.
As far as background regarding the MH, it has a FI 460 Ford V8, running through a Ford E4OD 4-speed automatic transmission and a 5.13 rear axle. The unloaded vehicle weight is 13,898lbs with a total maximum gross vehicle weight of 17,000lbs. The 2005 Dodge Caravan I’ll be towing, with a tow dolly, weighs about 5,000lbs including the dolly. The MH has 58,000 miles but supposedly the engine and trans were replaced 20,000 miles ago (apparently, the previous owner was not into maintenance of any kind).
Sorry, the board won't let me post a photo, I only wanted to post so that people could see the aerodynamics of my MH, oh well...
A photo of my new home.
Any suggestions for cruising speeds. I realize that lower speeds will increase mileage but at the same time I don’t want to have to drive so slow as to antagonize other drivers (angry people do stupid unfortunate things). I know that higher tire pressures can help but there again, with the weight I’ll be carrying I don’t want to compromise safety for an extra mpg. I read through some old threads on this board where someone put plastic sheeting under their MH to decrease wind resistance, a great idea for the future, but I’m a little lite on $$$ at this time. In addition, the MH has a huge grill which I’d rather not sheet over since over-heating can be a problem on these large gasoline powered RV’s.
I’m pretty happy with my Caravan. With no AC running, it gets around 25-27mpg highway, but only about 20mpg city. I usually keep it between 65 and 70 highway, however I probably do drive a little too aggressively around town for optimum mileage. As soon as I can free up some cash I’ll be picking up a used Kawasaki KLR 250 so that I can explore with a vehicle that gets even better mileage, plus motorcycles are fun.
Steve