Towing an Escape 19'

[Raz]

Originally Posted by floyd

........ also be aware of hard engine braking.

I'm not sure what you mean. Is high rpm the concern?

[floyd]

Originally Posted by P. Raz

I'm not sure what you mean. Is high rpm the concern?

Using a lower gear while descending a grade is fine as long as it is kept within reasonable limits. Brake first, then downshift or downshift before you start a steep descent to keep the engine within normal operating range.
Hard downshifting along with high RPM decelleration increases the stress and heat on the valvetrain, especially on the exhaust valves and seats.

[cpaharley2008]

Here are some numbers from my last trip. Coolant Temp 194, Oil Temp 214, Trans temp 152. These variant no more than 10 degrees regardless of outside temp, going up or down a mountain, or plain level towing. I'll have to check it while not towing and report back. Oh, my mpg dropped from 15.5 to 13.5 due to going and being up at higher altitudes

[gmw photos]

Originally Posted by DMAC1

i believe that the spec i got from castrol for there synthetic oil is 250 f as a top end temp.

This is going a little bit OT for this thread, but since the discussion has drifted towards the idea of oil temps and oil breakdown, etc, I'll throw this out there. If you really want to know what is happening to your lubricants ( and your engine ) from a long term standpoint, then one way of quantifying it is to have a sample analyzed from a lab. I use Blackstone labs and do an occasional sample thru them. It's not cheap ( $25, or $35 if you want the TBN test done also ), but it is an interesting way to keep tabs on what is going on in your engine. My most recent test from the 4.0L Frontier engine came out excellent. Mobil One, that had run 6700 miles, about half of which was towing.

One advantage of a lab test is that it takes all the guess work out of the process, and puts all the subjective comments ( like: "my oil choice is better than yours !" ) in their place as just that: subjective. The lab test is true data, and it does not care what the name on the bottle is.