Great mileage while towing with a Jeep Patriot

[dm1333]

I'm transferring from Michigan to California. Over the last three days I have filled up 4 times, my lowest average was over 27 mpg, my highest tank was 31 mpg. This is while towing a 4x6 utility trailer and with some heavy boxes in the back of the Jeep. My weight tickets and gas log are in the Jeep right now but I have about 1000 pounds of cargo including me. The average for the trip is right at 29 mpg. I'll fill out a log on here later but if memory serves I have traveled just over 928 miles on 31.5 gallons of gas.

The Jeep is a base model 4x4 Patriot, 5 spd, with absolutely no options and no power accesories.. I have been driving at 55-60 the whole way. No air conditioning since it has been in the 70s, just the drivers window rolled down.

I love my Jeep!

[VetteOwner]

wow i told my dad about your jeep and your mileages youve been gettin. Hes wanting something that gets better FE, turns sharper, easier to work on, can still haul our 15ft aluminum fishing boat. car/suv truck thing than his aerostar van that interstate all by itself gets barely 24mpg...

what do u get regularly like around town and highway figures with no trailer?

[theholycow]

I got scared when I saw the thread title, I misread it as "Great mileage while towing a Jeep Patriot" which I thought was sarcasm about it breaking...I had high hopes for the Patriot.

Cool. How is it geared, anyway? How many RPM at 70mph (or 60mph or whatever) in high gear?

[dm1333]

Originally Posted by theholycow

I got scared when I saw the thread title, I misread it as "Great mileage while towing a Jeep Patriot" which I thought was sarcasm about it breaking...I had high hopes for the Patriot.

Cool. How is it geared, anyway? How many RPM at 70mph (or 60mph or whatever) in high gear?

If I could figure out how to edit the thread title I would. I was a little tired last night when writing that first post. No idea of what the gearing is but at 55 it runs at about 2100 rpm, at 60 I think it is 2300. JeepPatriot.com would be the place to look that stuff up, it may even be stickied in one of the sub forums.

The nicest thing is that the Jeep is well mannered while towing. The brakes have plenty of stopping power, you have to wind the engine out a bit to get going but there is an adequate amount of power for towing (to be fair, the engine has a high torque peak and at about 3000 rpm you can feel it start to come alive) and even with a heavy load in the back and the trailer in tow the handling is pretty decent.

Today I head to Rapid City, SD and the Black Hills and after a few days there up into Montana. It will be interesting to see what happens with the mileage then.

Vetteowner,

How much does the fishing boat weigh? Without an oil cooler the Patriot is limited to 1500 lbs, 2000 lbs with a cooler. I have been averaging 25 mpg in town and over 30 on the highway recently. This is my first long highway trip since winter ended so I don't have much in the way of data for highway mpg. Last fall there were several times when I got 34 mpg on the highway, all at 55-60 mph. The manual transmission offers a 1 or 2 mpg adavantage over the CVT. You should check out JeepPatriot.com if you want to read a little more about them.

[VetteOwner]

cool well i dont think the boat weighs that much. we can still lift up the touge and push it around fairly easily so its not that heavy

[Mike T]

That's very good mileage but my little hatchback (the blue one) will tow 1500 kg out of the box. I'm surprised the capacity is so low on the Patriot.

[VetteOwner]

yea seems low...maybe they limited it some cuz it may tend to push the patriot if you have a heavy load.

My dad said with all the boat /fishing crap in the boat it could be near that 1500 lbs.

[civic94]

its nice to see a domestic SUV get that kind of mileage, I'm a little disappointed at honda and toyota, their Rav 4 and CRV can get into the low 30's in MPG if they made a smaller engine. the crv has a 2.4, and the Rav 4 has a 2.5, while a basic model patriot has a 2.0.

im pretty sure most people would say, well if the SUV's have a smaller engine, they cant tow anything... well most suv owners do not tow anything or go off road. even the Mazda tribute and Ford Escape 4 bangers use a 2.0 liter engine

[dkjones96]

My sister just moved from El Paso to Houston and pulled a 5x8 Uhaul loaded to the brim with her 4 cylinder automatic 07 Escape, she said it did pretty well there is a 4 hour stretch between El Paso and San Antonio that has a speed limit of 80 on I-10 and she said other than the hill country around SA it held the speed limit without downshifting no problem. She didn't say anything about mileage though.

Chrysler vehicles are always talked about having the lowest mileage in a class but they sure are consistent, even given different driving conditions.

I've never towed but I have driven back and forth from Lowes(about 8 trips 10 miles both ways) with 1,500 pounds of cement, moss rock and filler gravel for a friend and my mileage for that tank was normal. It did make me want 3.91 gears instead of 3.55 but I probably shouldn't speed racer around with an extra ton of cargo anyways. Even with 4 hours of off-roading on a tank I didn't get lower than the EPA all-city when the rest of the tank was mostly city with maybe 20 miles of freeway.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by dkjones96

speed limit of 80 on I-10 and she said other than the hill country around SA it held the speed limit without downshifting no problem.

Every UHaul trailer I've ever seen is marked with a 45mph speed limit...