Driving With Gas On or Off?

[dkdavies]

We have a Dometic three-way fridge in our Escape. What is the preferred/acceptable practice regarding driving and running the fridge? We've been told to use the propane and we've also been told to leave it off and use the battery DC. We would appreciate your comments and/or suggestions.

Douog & Kathy

[John Perry]

We have a Dometic three-way fridge in our Escape. What is the preferred/acceptable practice regarding driving and running the fridge? We've been told to use the propane and we've also been told to leave it off and use the battery DC. We would appreciate your comments and/or suggestions.

Douog & Kathy

You have just opened can of worms! I have been towing with the gas on for 40 years and have never had a problem, others will tell you not to as it is unsafe. I do shut it off when I am refueling.
A refer running on 12 V will dischaarge a battery very quickly if you are not careful.
It is entirely up to what you are comfortable with after we confuse you with our differng opinions.

Enjoy,

John

[Adrian W]

Currently, we do not have the option of running 12v, therefore we run gas on to keep the frig going and the freezer cold. However, in the past we had a '83 trailer with 3-way and we always turned it to 12v when traveling. If we would be parked for an extended time we would change over to gas. On our '96 C-class, it had an auto which would change by it'self but I believe it did not have 12v option. If I had the option I would be using it.

[Brian B-P]

This is a popular topic, for example...
propane fridges, should I drive with the fridge operating on propane ?
Propane on/off? while towing

[Byron Kinnaman]

You have just opened can of worms! I have been towing with the gas on for 40 years and have never had a problem, others will tell you not to as it is unsafe. I do shut it off when I am refueling.
A refer running on 12 V will dischaarge a battery very quickly if you are not careful.
It is entirely up to what you are comfortable with after we confuse you with our differng opinions.

Enjoy,

John

I think this is one of those seat belt type of things. I have driven for over 45 years and never needed my seat belt. Does that mean I can or should drive without using by seat belt? I think it's the same type of thing. You can, as many have done, get away with it, but is it worth the risk to you and others?

[DAVID K]

This is a hot topic for sure.I tow with my refer on in the gas mode.Thru past experiance I know that in 90 plus temps the refer will only last about 8 hrs before noticable degration is observed. On my rig, once the TT is plugged in to the TV the TT is powered as if the batteries were on , and the TT batteries are being charged as I drive. It takes about 6hrs of driving to replenish the battery after 2 days of dry camping.You may check to see if you have 12v. avaliable to the 7 pin on your TV. If you do than go for it.

[dkdavies]

Well, we apologize for regurgitating an already worn-out topic. Guess we should have checked out the previous posts to see if it had previously been discussed. We did, however, pick up some very usefull tips. Our towing receptacle does indeed have a large gauge wire for charging the battey while in motion. So, we do have that option if we start to feel uneasy about using the propane while driving. I guess it's strictly up to the individual and the use of common sense, a trait that seems to be missing in many today.

Thanks again for all of the replies.

Doug & Kathy

[Gerry]

Doug & Kathy
If running your fridge on 12V is an option, I would do this. Yesterday I just put a charging wire from my Tug battery , back to the trailer Battery and although a dirty job crawling around under the Blazer, running and tying off the 6GA wire, it took about an hour.
Of course you need to have a spare pin to use as a charging pin and I converted my 4 pin over to a 7 pin on tug and trailer.
On tug it was no problem, the new pin just pluged into the 4 pin, and that took care of the lights on trailer but the trailer end had to be figured out (colors did not match anything) but it all took about 2 hours to do.
I would never run with LP on, too many iffs to think about, but as said...personal choice.
Gerry the canoebuilder