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Thread: Trailer MPG experiment, or pickup truck?

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fummins View Post
    I don't follow your logic. But I don't always like logic.
    What I mean is that linked Curt hitch tray is $102.50. Plus tax and shipping it would probably be $110 - $115. And I don't know when I would ever use it again. Spending $110 just for a one time use of the platform is not something I care to do. That's my logic. If I had a daily or weekly use for it, it would be money well spent. In my case, it's a great product, but I only have one use for it, so not money well spent.

    290 miles / 35 mpg = 8.3 gallons x $2.929/gallon = $24.27.
    290 miles / 42 mpg = 6.9 gallons x $2.929/gallon = $20.22 (not towing).

    Only gonna take ~$5 premium in extra gas towing that trailer by my estimate. Quite a deal! What a vehicle this Mirage is!


    Last edited by 7milesout; 09-08-2021 at 02:01 PM.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.6 L/100 km ... 50.9 mpg (Imp)


  2. #12
    Gotcha.
    In that case do whatever floats your boat.
    I've got a gas pressure washer here at work. I wouldn't hesitate to stuff it in the back of my Mirage. I'd probably pull the spare tire out and drop it in the hole, drop the rear seat backs, lean the handle back towards the front. And prop it up so it isn't laying completely on it's back.
    Or cut the handle off and weld it back on when you get it home. Or sleeve it and use a couple bolts if you don't weld. Or disassemble it and load it up in pieces.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage SE wussie cvt edition. 1.2 automatic: 37.7 mpg (US) ... 16.0 km/L ... 6.2 L/100 km ... 45.3 mpg (Imp)


  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by 7milesout View Post

    Only gonna take ~$5 premium in extra gas towing that trailer by my estimate. Quite a deal! What a vehicle this Mirage is!
    It's a great vehicle, but

    "Do not use this vehicle for trailer towing. It may not be possible to maintain control or adequate braking." - Quote from my Mirage owner's manual along with a pic for those who don't read well.

    If one is careful, most anything can get done.

    I may take my log splitter loaded on my trailer to my Dad's in a couple weeks. My trailer looks slightly smaller than your trailer. My parents live about 220 miles away. I wouldn't even consider pulling that with my Mirage. I added a used Curt hitch to my Mirage a few weeks ago. A rear bike rack is all it will ever see.

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    That's weird. My manual says, "Sell your Dodge Ram 3/4 ton, this vehicle tows just as well and uses half the fuel." I'm wondering if that could be just a simple typo...

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.6 L/100 km ... 50.9 mpg (Imp)


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  7. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by 7milesout View Post
    Sell your Dodge Ram 3/4 ton
    Sounds good. Let me know when you’re ready to move forward with this. Blue is a nice color.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 49.6 mpg (US) ... 21.1 km/L ... 4.7 L/100 km ... 59.5 mpg (Imp)


  8. #16
    Senior Member PityOnU's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 7milesout View Post
    That's weird. My manual says, "Sell your Dodge Ram 3/4 ton, this vehicle tows just as well and uses half the fuel." I'm wondering if that could be just a simple typo...
    I mean... yeah. This is true of most modern cars, honestly. I love trucks, awesome vehicles, but in the vast majority of cases, the vast majority of the time, they are overkill.

    In any case, I'm one of the idiots who towed ~1200lbs in the Mirage, and that was with a CVT. I posted about it somewhere on here. You'll end up getting ~33mpg, or whatever the manual equivalent is for that.

    Everything went fine. Just drove like a white-knuckled old lady the whole way and took things easy. There weren't any immediate, catastrophic failures, but it would be hard to tell if anything was stretched/cracked/warped s.t. it would fail in the long term, short of just waiting things out. That's what I really worried about.

    In my case, I didn't really have an option. You seem to have an option. If you take the Mirage and everything works great, you're a hero and we'll all worship your huge PP, and you'll save like $40 or whatever. If it fails, you will get absolutely no sympathy from anyone because you did something not recommended, be told to "get ****ed" by Mitsubishi, and have to deal with the shame of wearing a dunce cap forevermore. Your other option is to just take your truck like a normal human being. Choice is yours, friend (FREEDOM!).

    On a semi-related note, I jacked up my Mirage using by placing the garage jack under the tow hitch this weekend, as the hitch directly covers the usual jack point and I was too lazy to fully drop it off to do that work. Here's hoping doing that didn't **** up my frame!

    Drink up, fellow idiots!

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  10. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by PityOnU View Post
    Your other option is to just take your truck like a normal human being.
    Hehehehe, I got an out loud chuckle reading that. I'm glad I can take a joke. Many might have taken offense to that, I do not.

    I am certainly NOT like everybody else. I don't follow anyone's lead. And I never believe anything I read. If I were normal, I wouldn't be paying insurance on 9 cars. Bear in mind, they are not expensive cars, so at least there's that. And 2 of them were free.


    7milesout

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        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.6 L/100 km ... 50.9 mpg (Imp)


  11. #18
    Senior Member PityOnU's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 7milesout View Post
    Hehehehe, I got an out loud chuckle reading that. I'm glad I can take a joke. Many might have taken offense to that, I do not.

    I am certainly NOT like everybody else. I don't follow anyone's lead. And I never believe anything I read. If I were normal, I wouldn't be paying insurance on 9 cars. Bear in mind, they are not expensive cars, so at least there's that. And 2 of them were free.
    That is your right, friend. Choice is absolutely yours. What I said is pretty much the mood of the replies you are going to get - nothing more to be said. Only thing left to do is for you to go one way or the other.

    Of course, if you do it and it works, I will claim it as a personal victory, because I, too, own a mighty Mirage. If something breaks, I get to say "I told you so!" before paying my respects at a blue Mirage funeral. So, win-win for me. You're the one taking the risk, so thanks for sharing!

    Now, dance, monkey! Dance!

  12. #19
    Senior Member Casey's Avatar
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    Take the truck. It's made for the job.

    If you do the trailer, I'm not sure if I would worry about the tag. I pulled a trailer every other week or so for around 20 years and never even had it registered. It's FL though and maybe not as much a standout as a mirage pulling a trailer.

    The mirage makes that little trailer look huge!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage DE 1.2 manual: 48.5 mpg (US) ... 20.6 km/L ... 4.8 L/100 km ... 58.3 mpg (Imp)


  13. #20
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    The research was needed by the whole world. We NEEDED to know. So I did it, with the Mirage. I towed a tankful. It was absolutely NO BIG DEAL.

    Here's my official mpg procedure. Where the speed limit is 70 mph, I do 72 mph. It is my personal "official" mpg rating speed. Where the speed limit is 65 mph, I do 65 mph. All GPS confirmed. It's just my official technique. Maybe 40 of the 145 mile leg is at 65 mph. And the 65 mph speeds are on I-285 and I-75 just north of the I-285 loop. Contrary to most people's claim that you must do 85+ mph to remain alive, I never have issues with these speeds. I stay to the right mostly, and change lanes only to avoid slower traffic and rarely need to cancel my cruise control. I do get the occasional, if not frequent at times hooptie flyby. But you get that regardless of what speed you drive. There is a certain element around Atlanta that seem to feel the I-285 loop is their personal racetrack. You take your chances regardless of your equipment. Most of these flyby drivers seem to have decent reflexes but the stink of it is, with traffic enforcement that gave a (you know what) this could be much better controlled. Whatever...

    Results: I seemed to get about 36 mpg going north and 33 mpg going south. I always seem to get a bit better mpg going north. It must be wind influenced. Plus the pressure washer had some amount of wind drag too, that effected the south number. In the end my mpg was 34.5 mpg average. I went up Saturday late afternoon / evening. And came back Sunday morning / early afternoon. Traffic was clear both ways, and no rain. It was a mostly eventless drive. No driving around town on either end. It was a pure gas station back to the exact gas station run ... and the last bar was blinking when I refueled.

    On the way south, just getting into Atlanta metro, traffic jammed up real quick but it ended real quick too. Evidently just a minute or so before I got to the area, there was a BMW sedan on the right side of the road with a couple youth / young men running around. It looked like they had been towing, at least a couch on likely a similar trailer as I was towing. I saw their hitch and hitch bar, but no ball. It looked like possibly they didn't get their ball on tight and it came off ... and their chains didn't do what they were supposed to do (if they had chains). A couch was destroyed and on the side of the road. It looked like their trailer dropped off, went to the right, dumped the furniture off at speed then the trailer proceeded to go way off the road to the right, as I never saw it. Looked like no-one else was involved and no-one was hurt, thank goodness. But it made me paranoid. But alas, my setup was all good and it made it there and back with no issues.

    I sat the pressure washer where I did to not add tongue load, and to hold down the rear gate to minimize the gate banging the floor. I had also added some foam gasket type material to the door where it bangs the floor. So the noise was much less. The one strap holds the gate down, but doesn't completely stop it from lifting off the floor enough to stop it from banging. And there's a V-shaped relief in the plastic trim of the pressure washer so that nothing was touching the gate's flange (as you can see in the last picture).


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    Last edited by 7milesout; 09-13-2021 at 02:02 PM.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.6 L/100 km ... 50.9 mpg (Imp)


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