Well, fuel mileage. But my point is, so what? If you tow 1000 miles a year, the difference between 5 and 15 mpg is not going to add up to a huge amount. 200 gallons v. 66 gallons. $400?

2000 miles, $800.

4000 miles, $1600.

So if you plan to tow a lot, OK, it's somewhat more important. But then again, this is an expensive sport.

 

I just drove my '99 E350 V10 towing a 20' enclosed trailer from San Diego to Vancouver over the I-5 last week so let me share. The total distance is 1400 miles so from T-hill is 600 less than that. My total fuel bill for the trip was $800ish (8 tanks @ $100 each on average). 1400 miles / 8 tanks * 32 gallons is about 5.5MPG.

30% better mileage is significant when you are talking about a $700-$800 fuel bill for each trip. You also want to consider how much fuel you can carry. It's $3.50/gallon in Cali but I got it for $2.98/gallon in Oregon so you want to carry enough that you don't end up spending more than you need to. My range dropped in half towing the trailer compared to without (500 miles/tank vs 250) and I did no faster than 65 the whole trip to get as many miles as I could.

You may want to consider just how much you want to drive tracks as far away as T-Hill and if it's even realistic considering your fuel bill surpasses your vehicle value in only 4 trips. In other words it's cheaper to take a cab

 

Yeah, I mostly would be staying fairly local, no farther away than Spokane. I'm supposed to go to Thunderhill in July (where I expect it to be warmer than it is in Seattle) for two days of driving, and the real question will be whether to trailer or just drive there. The advantage of trailering, obviously, is that if I break my car, I can still get home (and it seems that someone breaks his car at most track days I'm at recently), and I can more easily bring extra tires, etc, with some security. The disadvantage is that it's far more expensive.

 

I track the mileage on my 2004 F250 PSD (6.0 liter) and it returns 13-15 mpg when towing my open trailer and Miata (the rig in my photo above). Its worst tank was 12 mpg and its best tank (with no trailer) was 18 mpg. I tow at around 75 mph.

 

FWIW, I get 13-14 mpg towing my car on open trailer with my V6 Ridgeline, towing at about average 70-75 except when I am climbing 4000 ft mountain passes which I have to do to get to most tracks here.

 

I recently crossed this path. Ended up with a 01' F250 diesel to pull my 24' enclosed trailer. Very happy with the decision. With a 9000lb load @ 70mph with the cruise on the truck gets 11-12 mpg. I also use the truck as a daily driver and get 18-19 mpg driving city/highway combo.

 

800 dollar for fuel in one trip is

 

Dude, you're telling me? I weigh that against the fact that this is not a normal track day situation as I'm hauling my car, a smaller version of all my stuff (I'm on the road for 3 months), the wife and 2 dogs along with all of their stuff. The cost of airfare, shipping the dogs and the cargo alone would have cost way more than that (the dogs would have been close to that on their own). Yes it's a lot of moola and if it was just me going to a track day it would be insane but in this situation it did make financial sense.

When this is all said and done I'm going to need to reconsider my tow vehicle as I don't expect the price of gas to go down nor my milage to improve much beyond 8MPG. $0.50/mile for transportation to and from the track is going to make a major dent in my track budget. For most SoCal tracks I'd go to regularly I'd be looking at $200-$250 in fuel round-trip which is like the cost of a full track day.

 

$500 and Proformance will haul your car down for you. A gas gets higher, that's starting to seem like a good deal. Of course, you would have to get yourself down there somehow.

That's a boring drive, especially alone.

 

Having done the I-5 trip to Thill several times now I can attest to it being a boring drive, but I intend to drive back up along the coast at a more leisurely pace than the trip down to make to overall track experience more enjoyable. Fortunately I have a less hours of freeway drivetime than you folks from SEA. Since I presume we are all talking about the Proformance event I'll see you down there in July.

Excursions like this are why my car's drivetrain is bone stock and will always remain so - I need reliability on the open road if I want to make trips like this a regular possibility without diving into the world of towing paraphernalia. I learned my lessons a few years back when I did a lot of mods to an Audi S4 and blew out my turbos at Laguna Seca while expecting to be able to drive home. Not going there again unless I am ready for the slippery slope of the Tow World™.