cruise control while towing

[brgbassmaster]

hey guys wondering if you guys use your cruise while you tow? some people do i know but was wondering if it is bad on your trucks or not? i am going saturday and sunday and got to thinking this thanks.

[harshman]

I don't use cruise control personally because I do think it is harder for the truck to maintain a certain speed than it is for you to maintain a stead rpm level. if you can control all the shifting your truck does it will be easier on the transmission IMO....but i guess it really depends on the boat. if you have a light weight jon boat then it is probally okay to run cruise, but if you have a large fiberglass bass boat it is probally easier on the truck not to run it.

harshman

[fatmanslim247]

as long as you have it out of overdrive or in tow haul mode, running the cruise will not hurt anything at all

[tntitans21399]

I don't because, my truck doesn't but some trucks do, have a governor on their truck, and some truck wont let you to go over 60-65 in drive.  It helps keep you from burning up the transmission so you aren't driving 80 in drive.  I had it happen to a friend and when you start going downhill, just a normal downhill not a steep one, but the truck will stop you at 65 or so but the boat will still want to go faster and his boat started waving back and fourth.  It actually kind of dangerous because he had a deck boat, not a small fishing boat.  He had a 2500 Dodge Ram, so he could handle the boat with ease, but when the governor kicked in and tried to slow the truck down, the boat still had momentum which made a dangerous situation to someone that doesn't tow a lot.  The more you brake or slow down in that situation the worse it becomes, but experience haulers know you just give a little gas to bring the trailer back to being straight and not waving.  I've never had a truck that has had that type of governor but I don't like cruise control because it's like you don't have full control of the vehicle.  My friend didn't know about that governor on his truck until that moment, that's not a moment you want to find out.

[HPBB]

run the cruise all the time. will not hurt anything. I get in my Chevy tahoe with the boat out back. hit the tow/haul mode and set the cruise at 70-72 mph and let her roll.

tntitans21399, I never heard anything like you stated. A govener doesnt slow a truck, just cut of fuel or air to not let the truck go over set speed. it should not slow a truck going down hill. if you hit your governed speed going down hill then the truck will go faster drifting and you can give it any gas till it slows back to the set speed. it doesn't slow the truck, like you explained. beleive me I drive trucks with govereners on them every day. ( I am a trucker) and what you are decribing is a "jake brake" which I I know of no small trucks having them. ( when i say small truck, anything under a semi is a small truck) what you decribe that your friends truck did sounds like brakes on the trailer acted up.

[brgbassmaster]

thanks guys for the replies so you do not think its ok for me to drive my truck in just drive. i should put it in tow/haul mode. i have a 17ft bass tracker 1988. its really light for a bass boat. i cant even feel it when im towing. and im pulling it with a 2005 tundra v8 4door.

[Splat]

Personally I think people tend to relax tooooo much when they use cruise controll. Something you don't really want to do when towing.

Aside from the additional shifting it will cause your Transmission to do. When your in control of the throttle you can feather it a bit to help keep the truck from shifting needlessly. Cruise control only sense that the vehicle is slowing down, and will try to prevent this, by applying more throttle until the speed recovers.. It can't determine if your climbing a small hill that will end in 500 feet. So rather than simply loose 1 or 2 mph it will automatically give more throttle to recover often causing the vehicle to down shift.

My personal preference is use a tow haul mode if you have one and no cruise. The tow haul mode will increase the pressure in the valve body of the transmission. It will shift harder, thus slipping less. But then again I despise cruise control, don't know why, I just like to be in control I guess.

I had a 87 Chevy K-10 with a 6.? liter diesel that had a jake brake and a transmission lockout. Coolest thing in the world when towing heavy trailers. They aren't common on pickups but are available.

Also since were on the towing topic, if your trailer starts to sway it's true punching the throttle will straighten it out, also if you have electronic brakes (non surge) and a brake controller in the cab you can manually energize just the trailer brakes and that works REALLY well to straighten it out. Also if using electronic trailer brakes get a GOOD proportional brake controller like a Prodigy. And set the pendulum so the trailer brakes lead the truck brakes when stopping. This will cause the trailer to tug a little on the truck, but prevents it from pushing and possibly  causing a jackknife in a hard braking situation

Remember balance on the trailer has a HUGE impact on stability. Positive(heavier) tongue weight is much better and safer than negative. If you notice your trailer is unstable and tends to sway try to move things around in it to add more tongue weight to the trailer.

Bill

[HPBB]

ok. your getting a messed up here.

always tow in drive

unless you have a tow/haul mode or your truck is made to tow in OD then it is ok to tow in overdrive.

why?

its not how light the trailer is and weather or not your truck "knows" it back there. its all to keep your trans working good. heat is the problem with trans. when its in drive the fluid pressure is high, and this helps to keep it cool. when you put a auto trans in overdrive the pressure drops and it has less cooling. . when not towing this is fine for your truck, but when your towing, there is more heat in your trans and it needs to keep cool. heat is the biggest issue with trans failing.Now if your truck has tow/haul mode ( my chevy Tahoe does, so I run it in OD, but my GMC Jimmy doesn't so I run it in D) that will raise the fluid pressure letting the trans cool better.

[Way2slow]

I base it on the vehicle I'm towing with, the load I'm towing and the kind of roads I'm towing on.

Also, the first thing I would do to any vehicle I was going to be towing much of a load with is add an auxillary cooler to the transmission if it doesn't already have one.  If you realy want to take care of the transmission, add a temp guage and keep it below 210 degrees, preferably below 200, but when towing a load, that can be hard.

If your vehicle has a 6,000 pound towing capacity and your towing an aluminum boat, across flat highway, the vehicle is hardly going to know you have a boat back there and can tow however you please.  Take that same vehicle and put a heavy 20' fiberglass boat behind it and you have different situation.

You need to know the towing capacity of vehicle and recommended towing procedures for any vehicle, they are all different.  Some strickly forbid towing in overdrive, some could care less as long as the load is within the towing capacity they recommend.  

I have made two trips from GA to AZ towing my 20' Javelin and used cruise control most of the way.  The key is if the transmission will stay in gear and not constantly down shifting to maintain speed.  If you are in a hilly area and constantly down shifting, take it out of cruise and use the pedal to feather your speed.  

As for to tow in OverDrive or not, again, based on factory recommendations.  I've modified the transmission in my truck so it will tow 6,000 pounds in overdrive all day long but I seldom do it because with those two long hauls to Arizona I've found I get about two miles per gallon better gas milage in drive than overdrive when towing 70 - 75 mph.  I would get 11.8 mpg in overdrive and 13.7 in drive, both on fairly level highway and that was based on a number of tanks of gas.  At 55 mph on level road, it will do a little better in overdrive than drive.  However, since I seldom drive 55 and where I live there's very few level roads, I seldom use overdrive when towing a heavy load.

[NBR]

I don't think you will find anyplace in your tow vehicles book that says don't tow with the cruise control set. It will say tow with the Tow/Haul engaged or not in overdrive.

I have towed thousands and thousands of miles even through the mountains in cruise without any problem. Benefits are less fatigue in legs/feet from holding the accelerator pedal down. better gas mileage, better average speed. Issue is looking over to the right as you start down hill and seeing the jerk you passed going up hill besides you in the right lane.

Most people including myself think/thought they drive at a very consistant speed. I did too and I drove 30,000 miles/year + as a sales guy. When I got my first car with cruise I was traveling an interstate I had been on many times when I came to a fairly sharp curve. I was certain the car had sped up but when I checked the speedo was right at 70mph.

Without cruise I had automatically slowed as I went into that curve.

[Wilson]

I asked my dad he is a mechaic...and he says it will not wreck anything at all it is no different then you holding your foot at one place....BUT sometimes people don't use it because they feel like they don't have control over the car/truck/van whatever it is your driving.  We use it all the time with you hybrid travel trailer, out boat and everything else when we are on a straight strech of road like a highway ( where else would you need it) but to sum things up it will not wreck your trany or anything for that matter at all.

[George Welcome]

I've yet to own a vehicle that didn't, in the owners manual, suggest not using cruise control when towing. They also recommend not using cruise control on slippery road conditions.

The reasons are simple. If you have a trailer that starts to sway the time taken to disengage the cruise control to alleviate the sway can make the difference of being in the woods or still being on the highway. On a slippery road the application of brakes to disengage the cruise control can exacerbate the existing problem and send you off into the woods.

You will however find many that have used cruise control over the years with no problems. You will also find many that drive our highways at 90 and have never had a problem other than the occassional ticket. Of course, the ones you don't hear from are those looking up at the grass instead of down.

I use cruise control all the time: exept when I am towing something. Over my 40 some years of towing trailers, I can recall where immediate response was needed to correct an errant trailer reaction to outside influences.

[kreed]

tntitans, sounds like your friends boat was pushing his truck. Maybe the boat trailer didnt' have brakes or they weren't working. I'll use cruise in anything as long as I'm not going up and down hills or around a lot of curves where someone could pull out easily. On interstates, always.  One thing though, if I happen to be pulling something too large for the truck I'm driving I won't get fast enough to use cruise, or if I'm pulling something large without brakes. Thats just me.