Towing Experiment #2...
I finally got an opportunity to put the Blueberry to a real towing test. The towing specifications:
Trailer: Utility 5' x 10'; Weight ~875 pounds.
Load: ATV 400cc 4x4; Weight 615 pounds (according to the Owner's Manual) + a rear seat back attachment and some items inside ... I'll guess 625 pounds.
Total Towed Weight: 1,500 pounds. Wow, I didn't realize it was this much until just now.
Before I towed this weight, I studied up again about load placement for stability, tongue weight, yada yada yada. The YT video I watch suggested that a perfectly balanced load was most stabile. But in the past, I had heard that adding 15% of the load applied to the trailer as tongue weight, was the right way of doing things. The YT video said that adding some amount to of the towed load to the tongue weight wasn't so detrimental. Due to the Mirage's ability to handle a tongue load, I decided to split the difference.
I measured the weight of the tongue at the front landing gear on a weight scale. It is really close to 70 pounds. 68 to 70 pounds. I centered the ATV on the trailer and then inched it forward until I hit 100 pounds. That's a bit less than 5% of the ATVs weight. Less than the 15% I have learned but more than the neutral weight suggested by the video.
Tow route. I towed this combination across the south side of the Thunderdome out to a riding location southeast of Atlanta, approximately 115 miles from my home. 130 miles by the route I took to fuel up both vehicles. I-85, I-285, I-20. Total mileage towed about 250 miles.
Ratings / Feedback:
Handling: With only that amount of tongue weight and only myself in the Mirage, it did astonishingly well. No bottoming. The rear shocks still dampened out conditions very well. No complaints. Left and right transitions and turns were good, as expected.
Trailer Sway: NONE.
Braking: It was as expected. It never hurts to have more brakes. I never had a situation where I had to jam on the brakes. I stayed away from the back of all other cars ... which was easy, as I just went slower than everyone else.
Power: This is where it sucked. I had made up my mind to only try to go 65 mph. No faster. The video clearly made the point that faster speeds decreased stability. So I was content to keep it to 65 mph max. And I did. Due to the size of the ATV, I was not able to put the ramp gate down, it had to stay up like a sail in the wind.
I just dropped windows to regulate my comfort and kept the AC off. I used the cruise control as much as I could. On the way out there (east), it was cooler and the wind was gently blowing to the east, so it wasn't so bad.
It would hold speed decently on the most gentle bunny slopes. But any hill even slightly greater than a bunny hill it was dropping speed. I would have to shift down.
On the way there, I averaged about 29.5 mpg indicated, about 27.5 mpg.
The drive back was way more difficult. I wanted to make it back to the same gas station near my house to refuel everything but it didn't make it. It was much warmer and I had just a small headwind (judged by flags and such as I drove). It wasn't much of a headwind, but it mattered. I had to shift down to 4th many more times and it was sucking fuel down much more rapidly. At some point I dropped my speed down to 60 mph, and just ran 4th gear. This did not seem dangerous. I stayed in the far right lane out of the way.
My estimate is that the resistance was 65% based on wind drag and 35% based on towed weight. The ATV and the rear gate created quite a lot of wind drag. I hit a few backroads on the way home (my route varied a bit due to the early stop for gas on the way back). The backroads were very pleasant. The power to maintain up to 50 mph was adequate. I would say I probably only got about 21 mpg on the route back (on the interstate).
Overall mpg: 25.7 mpg
Final Conclusion
This tow was "uncomfortable" for me. I would have been better off using either pickup truck. My Sierra would have probably gotten 17 or 18 mpg, but would have been much more secure and pleasant for this tow job. A small 6 or 7 mpg penalty for complete comfort & safety ... it's well worth that. It would have had zero issues at 65 mph on the interstate. If I'm ever needing to use this utility trailer where an interstate run with the rear gate up is required, I will not be using the Mirage. It just doesn't have the power to make this task pleasant.
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View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.5 L/100 km ... 51.0 mpg (Imp)