What do you tow with

Bonnie and I have been eye-balling and planning on a Mazda3 hatchback in the near future. cool.

19 pages and still growing strong.

Here's mine. If you want a little more oomph using a little more gas (if you can keep your foot out of it) - check out the new MazdaSpeed 3.

Hate to do this to you, but.... The 450-550's have been out for a couple of years. (They make a 650 and 750, but it's a medium duty truck) I saw one at a horse show a couple of months ago. Looked like a 350. Same engine and tranny, just a little heavier running gear. I didn't like Fords to start with, but that 6.0 TD was enough to confirm my next purchase as a D-max.

http://www.fordtrucksonline.com/new-ford-f550-truck-specs.htm

Do I win some sort of prize <img src=

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Mike,
Hows that thing tow?

Was the hitch custom? or did you get a aftermarket hitch for the mini?

Bill

Apparently this new F450 is being badged as a light duty truck along the lines of the 150, 250 or 350.

If you want to work in the construction trades or hospitality field them Hawaii wants you. The unemployment is about two percent. The employment section of the paper is huge for the area it serves. The down side is the cost of living is high. Primarily food and housing.

The price of buying a house or condo has stablized and is starting to drop. I'm buying a condo for my disabled son and was able to bid the price down $20K. The bozo selling agent actually said there was a flurry of activity and she was going to reject our offer. We didn't call back and she caved with an hour left on the offer. Apparently there was a late afternoon warming trend. <img src=

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You should! <img src=

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WillR's right. It's just the running gear and gear ratios that get beefed up/changed in the Ford

F

series. The key is the motor. If you're going to tow anything heavy on a regular basis, diesel is the only way to fly. As for pulling just a beach cat, you can do that with almost anything on four wheels if you stick it on a light enough trailer. However, once you start to push the engine, fuel mileage dives. I used to tow with a Ford Ranger (4-liter 6-cyl with a five-speed). In any kind of headwind, the mileage would drop to 12 or 13 mpg or lower and even in perfect conditions I never got better than 15. My F250 with a 6.0 liter diesel gets 15, or 16 with just the boat in almost any conditions and will get 20 or more on the highway bare-assed (the truck, not me). The Ranger only got 18 mpg on the highway. Plus, the power and wieght of the Diesel makes the boat feel like nothing.

The Mini Cooper S is a great tow rig...I used to tow this setup with a Rabbit GTi...at ~115 hp, 1.8l (normally aspirated) and with softer suspension, the VW struggled but could do the job. The Mini has only 1.6l, but it's supercharger brings out 162 hp. The car also has a very stiff suspension, so the Mini's bow does not point to the sky! It can do 70-80 mph, even up steep inclines (if I shift down to 5th anyway).

Mike.

I can fit my entire 5m (16ft) Cat inside a car, in this image hulls are inside and rig is on the roof.

Before

After

for entire sequence see http://www.fourhulls.com/ and click on assembly

Gareth

Okay, so that is a new idea, could something like this be used to get younger people who don't have room for a full cat into sailing. I mean, I am sure that you loose some performance but it looks like it could be fast and fun.

Thats the intention, we have been developing it over the last 3 years, every year we say we will be ready to sell next year!

You are right in that you do lose some perfromance in the mid speed range (4-8 knots) due to increased wave drag, but we are working on that. One of the major benifits is the massivly increased for and aft (pitchpoll) stability, as you have so much volume in the corners. You can sit on the bows sailing downwind. So it makes it a very safe family boat.

Gareth

Something noteworthy for all you

gas hog

guys!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15715744/?GT1=8717 Note that the article doesn't mention the word

cheap

!

While I'm at it. It looks like the Tacoma is going away. I need something more fuel efficient for work and I'm not willing to keep two vehicles. So what do you guys suggest? Cheap, dependable, fuel efficient with light towing capacity. My first choice would be a Hummer, but. . . <img src=

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Yep! I like those cars!

Clayton

I have been towing the last few years with a Subaru Forester. It has been running around 30 mpg when it is clean (i.e. no boat and roof racks removed) Mileage drops to around 24 towing an iceboat trailer and around 21-22 towing an A cat.

What I find most interesting is that just adding Thule roof racks to the cat costs about 2 mpg

I drive about 30,000 miles per year of which about 20,000 miles is traveling to sailing or iceboating events. The Subaru does a lot better on gas then the Toyota tundra it replaced

What was a real shocker was traveling to Europe last winter to go iceboating. Almost all of the hard core ice boaters drive diesel cars. I spent a week driving in a large diesel BMW hatchback~7 series equivalent. I figured out what we were getting in gas mileage after the trip. Overall it got around 50 mpg. About ½ the distance we drove we had 11 DN Iceboat masts strapped to the roof rack. Most of the driving took place between 90 and 150 mph depending on the country. The drag from the masts reduced our top speed from about 240 kph down to about 224 kph.
In contrast I rented a car to get back from Bremen to Frankfurt to go to the airport. It was a 3 series BMW hatchback (gas) with no roof racks. I burned 104 liters (~ 25 gallons) =160$ going 400 Kilometers ~250 miles. That car only went about 215 kph. (Piece of [censored])

My conclusions are the euro diesels are very efficient, quiet, accelerate well, and start just fine at ~ -15°C (the coldest it got in Sweden while we were there). I would think long and hard about getting a VW Passat when I need a new Car

Cheers,
Eric

Ancedotal, I know, but my little sister has a 2005 VW Jetta, and its a giant POS.

As for efficency, the Diesel Golf can get 72mpg. Thats better than most hybrids. Thankfully the US has updated their diesel laws to allow these kinds of cars into the country soon.

(something about the sulfur content in the US Diesel wouldn't work on these cars)

You're right. US now requires highway cars/trucks to use low sulfur diesel. Kind of like when they switched to unleaded gas. The cars can use low-sulfur, but it does cause increased engine wear from what I understand.

I am not as concerned with engine size as I am for brake and control issues. Who cares if I get 0-60mph in two days as long as I can stop in time to avoid someone, or control the trailer in a crosswind on a wet road. Unfortunately, good braking and steering usually are combined with a big engine (gas hog)

Didn't the old VW Rabbit diesel get about 45 mpg? I drove one a few times in the late 80's and it was a no-frills little zippy car. Of course, this was compared to my

Big Daddy Mac

Chevy Chevette.... <img src=

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Do the sails move in unison? They look like windsurfer rigs.

US emission standards require a cleaner diesel formulation and cleaner running engines. Car companies are working on this, as are the oil companies. Some of the newer formulations for diesel actually start with natural gas instead of oil.

The potential for diesel engines is high (witness Audi at LeMans), and diesel/electric hybrids are another great thing on the horizon.

Another problem for diesel passenger cars in America is that a lot of people remember the absolute crap that Detroit put out in the 70's for diesel passenger cars. Fortunately those memories are starting to fade.

Eric

I had a Diesel Rabbit back in 1978 when they first came out in Canada. It got around 60 mpg <img src=

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It was a dog on the highway <img src=

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Had a few wierd problems. When condensation formed on the windows it would drip down to the fuse panel and eventually it would corrode the steel fuse posts and then the corrosion would run and short out the next fuse item which would create interesting

ghost in the Machine

sort of stuff. You'd be driving along when suddenly the horn would blast for awhile and then the wipers would dance for awhile. Apparently some people had the starter operate while the car was parked in gear with disasterous results.

Then one day I had happen what I had read about. I was cruising down the highway when it started to accelerate on it's own. The family was aboard and I was confused about what was happening. I took my foot off of the pedal but it was on auto-accelerate. I then put the brake on but it was determined to accelerate to destruction and I had to press very firmly on the brake to get it to stop. Had I not done this I would have had a diesel bomb. <img src=

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You see what was happening was that the extremely high compression ratio in the engine (and other reasons) had damaged the rings. This allowed the pressure from combustion to blow by and theoretically this should vent out the crankcase vent to the atmosphere. But the crankcase was vented to the intake to keep emissions down and when you got the right conditions the frothing oil in the crankcase vented out the crank vent into the engine. So now since diesels run on oil, it didn't need the accelerator to get fuel. Voila, Rabbit Cleared for Take off.. <img src=

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They no doubt fixed the fuse problems as they probably got sued, but the other problem I have not heard of since.

A co-worker of mine owned a 1979 model Rabbit diesel. He commuted 52 miles, each way, and used exactly 2 gallons per day. He was by no means a lead foot.

It's most interesting that fuel efficiency of vehicles has been proven all over the world for 60 years (including manufacturers familiar to US such as Ford & GM) and only after government regulations has mileage of the US models changed.

I learned about that problem figuring out the diesel engine in my old Catalina 27. Supposedly the only way to stop the engine when it runs away like that is to clog the air intake. Never did

run away

though...

But it really hasn't. They're still building the same cars and the domestic manufacturers openly admit that they failed to recognize the demand for smaller, more fuel efficient, cars and they really don't have any attractive models in this area. There are really few attractive options if you want a car that can do better than 40mpg. Even the available hybrid's payback is not justifiable for the upcharge vs. the fuel savings.

I would guess that is because it is cheaper to add

assumed

value to their products through the power of advertising than by R&D. How many Ford, Chevy and Chrysler commercials do you see compared to Honda and Toyota?

There is a reason car companies spend so much money on advertising.

Interesting article. While debunking peak oil they claim that oil production will peak in 20-25 years! Seems like the only difference between the authors and the strawman theory that they are debunking is the date of the peak. Another look at the CERA study: Congressional peak oil caucus responds to CERA study

Smaller vehicles do just fine towing beach cats. I have had no trouble with crosswinds or braking with my old Subaru wagon. The four wheel drive helps a bunch in marginal conditions, and I tend to run wider tires than stock which also helps. You lose more in highway mileage than a big vehicle because the boat sticks out into the airstream more. With a big truck, the boat is mostly in the wind shadow of the truck.

And you can't tow with them without killing the mileage. I'm looking forward to the day that smaller diesel trucks are available in the U.S. The better torque from the diesel and increased overall performance from turbo makes them an excellent overall choice. In addition, bio-diesel fuels are a great option as an interim alternative to gas while the world comes up with something even better. I've burned bio-diesel in my truck and felt no noticable change in performance and it even smells a little better.

mmm smells like chips <img src=

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/>, Here in the UK many people illegelly run there diesel cars on chip fat bought from the local supermarket, this

fuel

does not suffer from the high tax associated with the stuff that comes from the pumps. This has become such a problem that supermarkets were asked to report people buying large quantities of cooking oil.

Yes they are windsurfing sails and they can move indepentantly.

Gareth

This is sort of the opposite of towing behind a small car where the hulls stick out into the airstream behind the small vehicle. But possibly the end result is the same. And I think it is relevant to the topic.

I think I mentioned this a long time ago on a similar thread about towing, but here goes again.

Rick and I have towed many thousands of miles using a motorhome -- all over the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Towing behind motorhomes can be a big problem because of all the turbulence coming off the flat back of the motorhome. We have so far broken two trailer tongues towing cats behind a motorhome. In both cases the trailers had long, straight tongues without triangulated stiffening arms, and I think this is an important factor.

The turbulence behind the motorhome would cause the trailer to oscillate back and forth and eventually break the tongue.

The scary thing about it is that the tongue breaks behind where the chains hold the trailer to the vehicle. So when the tongue breaks, the trailer is on its own.

That's why I am thinking that maybe those

Airtabs

would work on the back of a motorhome to decrease the turbulence for the trailer.