I have a ford F150 pickup with a 302 v8, I currently haul my DS in the back and tow my Outlander on a small 5x8 trailer. I carry the DS in the back cause its a hundred lbs lighter.

My question is this: What is more efficient and less of a load on the engine, if I more weight is in the bed or on the trailer? I'm making a long haul in a few days and wonder if putting my ramps, extra gas, and a few other things like that on the trailer rather then in the pickup bed will help any. I'm only talking about a few hundred lbs. I'm also not going to fill up my second tank and will probably wait to fill up my extra gas cans until I'm closer to my destination.

My last trip I also carried my dirtbike in the back and another person and probably an extra 100 lbs in gear. I'm figuring I'll be travling about 700 lbs lighter this time but every bit helps.

 

The stuff that you are talking about will not make much of a difference. If it were more weight, you would be better off to carry the extra weight on the trailer. It works like this: Your total weight is the same no matter where you load it, so the weight amount is not the factor. What is a factor is how that weight affects the trim of your truck and trailer. The more weight you add to your truck, the more you will load the suspension, the less level your truck will ride and your milage will go down. The load on your truck is the stuff in the bed as well as the tongue weight of the trailer. Even though the tongue weight can have some mechanical advantage over weight just placed in the truck bed (since the hitch is at the maxium distance behind the axle), the load on the trailer is carried mostly on the trailer axles so that the net load carried by the truck is less. Put 1000 pounds in the truck bed and the truck suspension reacts to carrying 1000 pounds. Put 1000 pounds in the trailer and the truck suspension is tasked with carrying only about 15% of that, or 150 pounds.

Realistically, this will not be much of a factor until you get to the load point that the rear suspension of the truck starts to squat. It would still be better to carry your extra weight on the trailer unless putting some of the bulky shaped items into the truck bed will be better for air flow. The bottom line is that the weight of your extra geas is too small to make any difference in your MPG's, certainly not nearly as much as if you drop your average speed by 5 or 10 MPH.

Jaybee

 

I agree that your MPG will probably not be effected either way.

What concerns me more is the small 5x8 trailer. I am picturing those small trailers with the small wheels. If that's the case with your I would put as little weight as possible. With the small wheels and a long haul, it doesn't take much to toast the bearings.

 

Hey I used to have a 4x6 folding trailer to haul my suzuki LT250R around on. Man was that thing a pain. The cheap bracket holding the brake light broke off, but luckily I noticed and didn't loose the light. Then I really didn't have any way to fix it at that point so I tied the brake light to the grab bar of the LT and drove to Hungry Valley from South Orange County. Once that was fixed, on another trip the cheap bracket that the cheap fenders mounted to broke. Again, I got lucky and didn't loose the fender. (Maybe it broke in my hand while I was loading or something - I don't know any other way it could have broke with no damage.) So I fixed that, among other 'issues' it had and sold it for like $100 to some guy in a Toyota T100. I guess it fit his truck better than mine. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img] hahah j/k small truck fans.

Then I moved on to a flatbed trailer that I made out of an old Sea-Doo trailer, some 4x4s and plywood. That trailer itself was sturdy, but I didn't have any good way to tie down the quads. I kept loosing tie downs left and right as they would get cut off since they wrapped around the sharp edge of the trailer. I got tired of that, sold that trailer for $400, then stepped up to my current trailer which hasn't had any problems of it's own. The entire lighting / electrical system got CHEWED OFF by some damn Labradors owned by the people I was renting from - a nightmare I'll not soon forget. What the hell has to be wrong with a pair of dogs that will chew anything to shreds that is not metal?!?!?

I hope you aren't using one of those dinky trailers - they just aren't safe for your machine.

 

Thanks for the responses.

 

I agree with sandaholic, put the heavier quad in your truck bed if possible, that will make life for your trailer a little easier. I don't think there is much you can do to save fuel, unless the Outlander's fenders will be catching more air in the bed.

 

The bottom line is that the weight of your extra geas is too small to make any difference in your MPG's, certainly not nearly as much as if you drop your average speed by 5 or 10 MPH.>>>>

Yeah, slowing down never hurts. Thanks for all the advice, hadn't thought much about how the trailer might actually handle the extra weight and what effect that might cause on it and the wheels. If GVW is GVW then maybe the smart thing as far as extending the trailer life is to keep it lighter??