Is there a MPG rule of thumb when towing?

In a previous life, Ford Kuga 130BHP towing 1350Kg. Solo around 40-45 depending on type of journey. Towing 32-34.

I would venture to suggest that any car that realistically returns 50mpg is unlikely to tow over 1400Kg happily. Without going OTT, a vehicle with plenty of grunt will be less impacted by towing than if one was struggling with some Eco Ford Focus or similar. For optimum results I would think a vehicle with 150-165BHP should be aimed for. I am assuming a diesel, of course.

Rule of thumb for towing - just halve your given 56mph figure driving solo and if you're lucky add one or two mpg. If you tow with a German manufactured vehicle - it will tell you lies 😉👍

I wish there was a rule of thumb🤔 we tow a Swift Conquerer 560 with a Jaguar F-Pace 3.0 ltr Supercharged V6 petrol and I try not to think to much about the consumption 😂😂 but I think when towing it’s returning about (and I say that very loosely) 20mpg .

 Brian &Jo

When I first start towing I was interested to find out mpg as I was slightly worried about running out of fuel, I did it the old fashioned way, watching the gauge and mileage. I soon found out that even with my longest day tow there was more than enough fuel and I just filled up each evening, and I still do. Now of course the car does it for me - 40+ solo, 28 towing. It was, and still is interesting to see how it varied.

But, and this is just my personal thoughts, the figure is largely meaningless? I know that 20 mpg is poor, while 50 mpg is very good, but one might as well just give a grade, A = 50+? It is meaningless as fuel is sold in litres

What do people do with it? Work out range? Yes Ok, or more likely work out possible costs of a trip. And that's where it get funny (to me) as fuel is sold in litres so any calculation involves a conversion, or ask google to do it for you.

Also I've never bought 30 litres of fuel, my dad used to buy 4 gallons on a Sunday morning, but with me it's always been £10 or 20... or now I just fill up each time when there's 30 miles left. Of course that brings a worse mpg.

Just my thoughts.

Not sure why the fact that fuel is sold in litres makes mpg figures meaningless .... If you want litres per 100km as they do in Euroland then you still need to do some sums as our odometers & speedos are obviously read in miles. Metrication in the UK has, so far,  been a very very slow process .... will we ever get there.

Some people like to build spread sheets recording each & every mile driven & every gallon/4.546 litres used .... others just fill their tank when empty. I know my Smart does around 300 miles per tank ..... I try not to look at how many miles my ML does per tank.

And I'm not sure where the buying of 30 litres of fuel comment is referring to ..... 😞 Unless you miss-read Brian's comment 're his 3.0 Jaaag 😉

well what I meant was, my car does 20 mpg, mine does 30 mpg... all that is telling you is that one is more fuel efficient than the other.

Does that person giving his mpg have any idea what that actually means for them apart from I can get 30 miles to one gallon, but if they don't buy their fuel in gallons what is the point? what is it really telling them other than my car is more efficient than yours?

Yes some can do what they like with their fuel figures and calculations and as I said I did the same but once I knew what the range was on a full tank it didn't matter what my mpg was anymore  

What I meant about the 30 litres is that while fuel is sold in litres I have never gone into a petrol station and asked for 30 litres, or 20, or 10 or whatever, why would I, if it was sold in gallons and I knew my mpg then perhaps I would?

Many students of mine when they getting cars used to spout the mpg and I used to ask what that meant, and they would state the obvious so I'd ask how much fuel they would need in one week and they would usually shrug their shoulders, or say I've found I need £10, or I fill up when I need to. The mpg just didn't come into it.

As to changing over all our road signs and speedos I can't see it happening, or anytime soon. We had some Americans teachers visiting once and they expected everything to be metric and were amazed how metric and imperial were all jumbled up. 

As I said, just just random thoughts.

Mpg is just used as a comparison between cars. Some people have a budget when they're running a car .... others not quite the same. Imagine buying a Jensen Interceptor for work expecting 35/40 mpg .... you'd be very disappointed at single figure fuel consumption. 

Manufactures have quoted mpg for years. 

 

Metrication.  For my car which generally does 45mpg its even easier in litres as that's 10 mpl. But the only time I need to calculate is when fuel prices are sky high such as on the motorway and I'm trying to buy just enough to get home or to my favourite sensibly priced fuel station.

I record 28 mpg towing according to my cars computer which is 60% of solo figure but if I drove solo at 50/60 mph as if towing I find the car solo would easily exceed 50 mpg  so I only get barely 50% towing compared with solo at the same speed.

 

My last car 2 litre petrol did 210 miles to the tank full my latest car 2 litre diesel does 350 miles to the tank full when towing this helps me to stop worrying about looking for petrol stations when on longer journeys

The user and all related content has been Deleted User