Highway towing speed?

[Stephen]

I pull at about 50-55mph. I know you said that your tow vehicle wasn't your concern, but when I first bought my toon, I had to tow it 80 or 90 miles. I hit speeds in the 70's, and tried to maintain 55-65 in a hilly area. It was my first time towing anything that large, and my inexperience nearly cost me the transmission on a good truck.

I had to have my tranny checked by several experts to make sure all was ok because my truck lost a lot of fluid.

Now, if I feel like my truck is working too hard at all, I'll back off it a little before trying to approach my regular speed of ~55mph.

[kryptonite]

The thing is, I logically know that 55-60 mph is the probably the best tow speed for towing a pontoon, but my truck (2001 Silverado 1/2 ton with the 5.3L v-8 and 3.73 gears) doesn't like to pull anything, including itself at that speed. It constantly shifts down to 3rd, then back to 4th, even in tow/haul mode. How do I stop this, I pull faster. Yea, I know, not the most logical solution, but it honestly works better that way.

If I'm driving 50-55 or so I just leave the tranny in 3rd, no searching between 3rd and OD that way.
(2004 Suburban 5.3l)

[bear9075]

Tires and tie downs. Living in West Texas it is a min of 2+ hrs to any kind of water and 4-6 hrs to most of the lakes we go to so we put alot of miles on each year pulling a boat between bass tournys and the pontoon and I can tell you that nothing is more important than trlr tire psi and condition, check the psi before each trip and at every stop. Remember that the tires will heat up and the psi will increase as you travel (more so in the summer) so keep that in mind as the recomended psi is for a "cold" tire. Be sure that the trailer is level when hooked up to the tow vehicle if it won't sit level then the front should be slightly lower than back, NEVER have the front higher than the rear. Use good tie down front and back, if you have a cover that you can trailer with use it if not make sure all your seat cushions are secure or stowed, and use the the tabs that secure the motor up to save wear on the trim. Sorry for the long post but all of this has come from a lot of time on the side of the road changing blowouts and repairing/replacing trailer fenders.Once you have all of this done just find a speed the you and your truck/trailer feel comfortable and get to the lake.Also some of those golf cart looking trailer tires have a max speed rating of 45-55mph dont go over that exept maybe to pass or merge with traffic.

[bear9075]

Forgot to mention that you need to get a jack that will fit under your trailer axle when the tire is flat, we had two blowouts on the bass boat on the same trip, one on the way to the lake at 9pm on the side of IH 10 and one on the way home in within 5 miles of the first in the opposit direction. Thats a bad time to find out that the factory jack in the truck wont fit under the axle, lucky for me there was a couple of 2x4 scrap boards in the bar ditch and I was able to dig a hole for the jack. Also lucked out by replacing the tire in DelRio before heading home. A 4way lug wrench, tools to remove the spare, scrap 2x4's and a floor jack are allways in the truck tool box.

[chill'nthemost]

Bear, thanks for reminding all how important checking air pressure is. I think EVERYONE is guilty off putting that one off. If it wasn't for years of riding road bikes it wouldn't be as big of a concern to me as it is today. On a motorcycle a couple of pounds seriously changes handling. I keep a high quality gauge http://www.ghmeiser.com/dial.htm in my all my vehicles. If you look at their site you'll see they have dial gauges with a flex hose (makes it real easy to read while on the tire valve) with a thumb controlled bleed off valve which makes it really easy to get to exact air pressure. For guys with ATV's that run super low pressure they have gauges that only go to 5 or 15 lbs. Makes it easy if you are wanting to run exactly say 4lbs. For safety, the price of fuel and increased tire wear it's worth the hassle of bending over.

[bear9075]

Thanks for the link Chill'n, I have been wanting a good gauge with a bleed off valve. And yeah I wasn't good about watching my tire psi either until my 2 blowout trip, now I check it constantly.

[Doug]

Hey there everyone. This is my first post.

We tow our pontoon boat from Lafayette, LA all the way to the Florida Keys. It takes us about 21 hours non-stop. Our first trip was in 2013 which taught us a lot.

Securing the boat: On the first trip I only secured the boat with the winch strap and the standard stern tie-down straps. About 200 miles into the trip the winch strap failed and the two stern tie-down straps loosened so much that one of them unhooked from the trailer. Luckily, I immediately noticed that the boat was not riding correctly and pulled over before anything catastrophic happened. We secured the boat as best as we could and dove to the first hardware store we could find. We purchased 2" 10,000 lb ratchet straps for the bow and stern (I know this is overkill but, it was all the hardware store had). I also added a safety chain to the bow winch pad-eye (which was not included with the boat purchase). We completed our trip without incident using the 2" ratchet straps. We made the trip again in 2014 without incident.

I HIGHLY recommend that if you pull your pontoon on the highway that you add a safety chain, cable, strap, or even rope to the bow winch eye.

Like many of the folks here I noticed that the gas mileage is impacted exponentially beyond speeds of 55 mph. At 55 I would get 12 to 14 mpg. At 65 mph and higher I would get 8-11 mpg. The reports of pontoon boats being like parachute is definitely correct. I pulled a friends much heavier ski boat and got 16 mpg at 65 mph.

Does anyone here know if using a travel cover helps the aerodynamics when pulling a pontoon boat on the highway?
We are about to make our annual trip to the Keys and if I can improve my gas mileage on an 1100 mile trip I could possibly save a few bucks.


Thanks,
Doug

[Bamaman]

I'm very fortunate that just about all my towing is local--for maintenance, etc. I keep my boat in an enclosed boathouse.

But we're also RV'ers, and towing a 12K lb. fifth wheel trailer. I cannot tell you how many tire blowups are being experienced with the Chinese Bomb tires--reported daily. And when a tire tread peels, it often does $3K-$4K damage to the underside and outside of RV's.

I changed my new 16" China Bombs to Bridgestone Duravis R250 LT/E (10 ply) ribbed truck tires 2 weeks ago. There are 2 reasons that marine trailer and RV manufacturers use China Bombs: 1. They're cheap to buy. 2. North America tire companies abandoned the ST tire market.

If you're towing your $30K-$40K-$60K 5,000 lb.+ pontoon/tritoon boat every week and if the terrain you're towing in is tough, you should consider replacing those Chinese Bombs with quality tires. And to me, a high quality ST (special trailer) tire is the Maxxus M8008's (available in many rim sizes) or any high quality automobile tire. Unfortunately, 14" tires commonly used on tandem pontoon trailers are difficult to find of any quality.

Now let me get off my soapbox.

[RobZ71LM7]

65 mph average. 70 when I pass.

Several things to check:

1) Tire pressure: put them at sidewall max pressure cold
2) Tire age: as tires get older they get harder and dry rot this is what kills most trailer tires. I don't like trailer tires over 5 years old.
3) Wheel bearings: condition, play, grease, temps
4) Tie downs, winch strap, safety chain on bow
5) Brakes, including verifying your seals haven't failed and coated the shoes with grease
6) Lug nuts and all fasteners. I have yet to purchase a trailer with properly tightened fasteners.

Another thing I like to do is take a cheap infrared temp gun with me and check all 4 wheel bearing temps when we stop. You can easily catch an issue before it starts. Look more for changes and differences rather than absolute temps.

[rancherlee]

Another important factor to remember is most trailer tires are rated at 65mph and loose 10% of capacity for every 10mph over the rated speed. I've seen some tires with 55, 60, and 75mph ratings but the majority of them are 65mph. Same goes for axles, the wheel bearing can only handle spinning so fast before the axle starts loosing capacity. I cringe every time I see someone towing a trailer at 80mph down the interstate with trailers loaded to capacity, an many times I see them 50 miles later on the side of the road with a blown tire or fried wheel bearing. I run the super short/wide 18.5x8x8 tires on my dual axle trailer so I keep my speed at 60mph or less, my load star tires are rated at 65mph but the wheel bearing are spinning fast because of the short tire height.

[04Ram2500Hemi]

I don't care what it is, I don't drive over 65mph when I'm towing anything. Whether it's our pontoon boat, my parent's 19ft Larson Cuddy Cabin, or my brothers camper, the max speed I see is 65mph when I'm towing. The faster you go, the harder it is to stop, especially if something starts to go wrong.

[turbom700]

I tow at or around 70, truck is running at 2000rpm and does the best when it gets to the hills, then again having a 350hp diesel helps a little. My boat and trailer way 4k but pull like they way double that. Wind drag is huge on these boats when sitting on a bunk trailer.

Only done it a few time but even when I'm tripple pulling I will run 65-70, Seems like anything slower and the 2 trailer get bouncing on each other 65 and they all seem happy. Having breaks on all axles makes it stop quickly. We bought a cabin so now the boat doesnt go much farther then 5 miles to the next lake over.

[Whitehorse]

^^I'd be a wreck towing that.

[turbom700]

It not as bad as one thinks, getting up to speed takes a little while but once there set the cruise and your off and running. When we did it we left thursday mornings and would come home tuesday mornings, NO WAY am I sitting in rush hr traffic in that thing.

Also there is no way to back it up with both trailers hooked up so you must plan everything carefully.

I use this to pull the boat out of the boat ramp now, its only 4 cabins down. Kind of pointless to fire the diesel up for that