Attention: TDR Forum Junkies Well I made it back from the first trip with the new 2003 Dually. I pulled my off road truck (pictured below) from northern Wisconsin to southern California. The off-road truck scales in at 7,200# their was about 500# worth of tools and parts in the back of it and the trailer is right around 4000#. So that is a total 11,700# being towed, the dually should be about 7,600# so the GCWV is 19,300#. The height of the truck on the trailer is about 11’-6”, so as you can imagine this thing does drag a lot of air going down the road. The dually is a 6spd HO with 4. 10 gears, it is stock except I put a Jacobs exhaust brake on it, left is stuck for this first trip for break in and warranty reasons, it had 6500 miles on it when we left.
First off all previous trips were done with a 2001 ¾ ton automatic diesel with 4. 10’s on a regular pull behind trailer. The GCVW of that was about 16,900# so it was 2,400# lighter and around 14” shorter so pulled less air also.
The handling of the dually with the gooseneck trailer was a huge improvement to say the least. The truck handled and steered just like it did with out the trailer, no handling change really at all. It was rock solid and straight as an arrow going down the road, even in strong cross and head winds. Oh yea the semis don’t suck you into them when you pass either. We were traveling pretty hard and running 75-80 mph most of the time when the speed limit permitted. On the way out we took the southern route down to Texas and across on I-40. The way back we went I-15 through Nevada and to Denver and across on I-80. The northern route was more mountains to say the least but we got to see a lot of different terrain this way.
As far as power goes I will say that I was a little worried at first. With just the trailer behind the truck it seemed to have all it could handle with out even a load on it. Well what I found out is that it doesn’t seen to really care what is behind it, it pulls the same as far as power goes. It did pull it very well, better then the previous 2000 truck even though it is a heavier load and higher in the air. It pulled way better against a head wind, which really hurt the 2000 truck, that surprised me considering the higher load height. I would not say that there was lots of power left to pull more but was enough to pull it for sure. Keep in mind that we were running 80 mph, drop it down to 55 and you feel you have power left over then. 80 mph is turning 2,600 rpms, 75-80 seems to be the sweet spot for hitting long hills in 6th gear and pulling them. I never even had to down shift out of 6th gear until we hit the mountains ½ way through New Mexico, the auto on the other hand was dropping out of over drive pretty often on the hills. Down shifted to 5th their weren’t many hills that you couldn’t hold 60-65mph on. The only problem is that when you got caught behind a slow semi or something going up a hill and had to back of you could really gain that speed back on the hills. Unfortunately B&D didn’t have their X-Monitor out so I don’t have and EGT or fuel pressure numbers, I was really hoping to.
The exhaust brake worked great and is worth every cent, can’t recommend it enough!!!
OK here is the fuel mileage stuff, this is where things go a little south. The 2000 always got around 8-1/2 to 9 mpg pulling this thing around, so I was looking for equal or slightly better maybe. I kept track of every fill up and all the mileages so I have exact numbers. I started from the time we left up till the last stop so the last 150 miles or so isn’t counted. Here it is: total of 4,655 miles and 603. 53 gallons of fuel make the average 7. 71 mpg, ya ouch I know. On a side note the computer I rest at the start and didn’t touch the whole trip had a reading of 7. 8 at the end, so in my mind that is dead nuts on and is accurate even though I have heard reports of it being way off. There is one tank of fuel in here also of about 200 miles with no trailer on so the numbers are worse then they look. On the way out taking the southern route the average was 7. 22 mpg. The trip on the way back taking the northern route was 7. 86 mpg. Have over 11,000 miles on the truck now so I think that the mileage isn’t going to improve much with more break in, the power did seem to go up so though through out the trip. The worst tank of fuel was 6. 61 heading up to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The best tank was 8. 69 that was in CA pretty flat and only running about 62 mph because of the speed limit their.
Only had one real problem, that was with the elect fan clutch. About ½ way through New Mexico is started kicking on and off for short periods of time, which it has never even kicked in before. Well this seems weird but went away, then I noticed the exhaust break quit working which gets power off the fan circuit. It blew a fuse so put a new on in and it blew right away. There is a long drawn out story to this because of running into one bad dealer but any way. Drove all the way to CA with out it and it never got hot. What ended up happening is that that the wires to the fan were rubbing on something and shorted out, got a new clutch and rerouted the wires and all is fine. They had run into this problem once before, so it is something to look out for.
Other then that I may have a steering box problem but have to have the dealer look at it yet.
Bottom line I love the truck and it pulls great. I am hoping so intake, and exhaust upgrades along with a Comp will help the mileage.
#ad
First off all previous trips were done with a 2001 ¾ ton automatic diesel with 4. 10’s on a regular pull behind trailer. The GCVW of that was about 16,900# so it was 2,400# lighter and around 14” shorter so pulled less air also.
The handling of the dually with the gooseneck trailer was a huge improvement to say the least. The truck handled and steered just like it did with out the trailer, no handling change really at all. It was rock solid and straight as an arrow going down the road, even in strong cross and head winds. Oh yea the semis don’t suck you into them when you pass either. We were traveling pretty hard and running 75-80 mph most of the time when the speed limit permitted. On the way out we took the southern route down to Texas and across on I-40. The way back we went I-15 through Nevada and to Denver and across on I-80. The northern route was more mountains to say the least but we got to see a lot of different terrain this way.
As far as power goes I will say that I was a little worried at first. With just the trailer behind the truck it seemed to have all it could handle with out even a load on it. Well what I found out is that it doesn’t seen to really care what is behind it, it pulls the same as far as power goes. It did pull it very well, better then the previous 2000 truck even though it is a heavier load and higher in the air. It pulled way better against a head wind, which really hurt the 2000 truck, that surprised me considering the higher load height. I would not say that there was lots of power left to pull more but was enough to pull it for sure. Keep in mind that we were running 80 mph, drop it down to 55 and you feel you have power left over then. 80 mph is turning 2,600 rpms, 75-80 seems to be the sweet spot for hitting long hills in 6th gear and pulling them. I never even had to down shift out of 6th gear until we hit the mountains ½ way through New Mexico, the auto on the other hand was dropping out of over drive pretty often on the hills. Down shifted to 5th their weren’t many hills that you couldn’t hold 60-65mph on. The only problem is that when you got caught behind a slow semi or something going up a hill and had to back of you could really gain that speed back on the hills. Unfortunately B&D didn’t have their X-Monitor out so I don’t have and EGT or fuel pressure numbers, I was really hoping to.
The exhaust brake worked great and is worth every cent, can’t recommend it enough!!!
OK here is the fuel mileage stuff, this is where things go a little south. The 2000 always got around 8-1/2 to 9 mpg pulling this thing around, so I was looking for equal or slightly better maybe. I kept track of every fill up and all the mileages so I have exact numbers. I started from the time we left up till the last stop so the last 150 miles or so isn’t counted. Here it is: total of 4,655 miles and 603. 53 gallons of fuel make the average 7. 71 mpg, ya ouch I know. On a side note the computer I rest at the start and didn’t touch the whole trip had a reading of 7. 8 at the end, so in my mind that is dead nuts on and is accurate even though I have heard reports of it being way off. There is one tank of fuel in here also of about 200 miles with no trailer on so the numbers are worse then they look. On the way out taking the southern route the average was 7. 22 mpg. The trip on the way back taking the northern route was 7. 86 mpg. Have over 11,000 miles on the truck now so I think that the mileage isn’t going to improve much with more break in, the power did seem to go up so though through out the trip. The worst tank of fuel was 6. 61 heading up to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The best tank was 8. 69 that was in CA pretty flat and only running about 62 mph because of the speed limit their.
Only had one real problem, that was with the elect fan clutch. About ½ way through New Mexico is started kicking on and off for short periods of time, which it has never even kicked in before. Well this seems weird but went away, then I noticed the exhaust break quit working which gets power off the fan circuit. It blew a fuse so put a new on in and it blew right away. There is a long drawn out story to this because of running into one bad dealer but any way. Drove all the way to CA with out it and it never got hot. What ended up happening is that that the wires to the fan were rubbing on something and shorted out, got a new clutch and rerouted the wires and all is fine. They had run into this problem once before, so it is something to look out for.
Other then that I may have a steering box problem but have to have the dealer look at it yet.
Bottom line I love the truck and it pulls great. I am hoping so intake, and exhaust upgrades along with a Comp will help the mileage.
#ad
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Sorry was suppose to be 2600, I changed it.
(because I would only have bought cheese :-laf ). Would have liked to see that rig closer. 
