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Trailblazer Towing & Mileage...

HillHound

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HillHound Senior Enthusiast

HillHound

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We made a short road trip over the holiday. Drove about 180 miles, all highway, averaged about 65mph and got a little over 21mpg. Our TBZ has the 3.42 gears and that's the best mileage we've ever gotten so far. Usually it's about 17mpg mixed driving conditions.

 

On the way back I towed an open utility trailer with an ATV on it. The total weight was only 1600lbs and the Trailblazer towed it great. It dropped out of OD quickly on every hill but maintained 65mph easily in 3rd and sometimes dropped to 2nd on longer hills. No need to manually shift out of OD as the transmission didn't seem to gear hunt too badly. I've towed stuff around locally on short trips but this is the first "longer" trip I've used it for towing.

 

The mileage on the return trip dropped to about 16mpg due to the trailer. Still not too bad. I always thought our TBZ felt weak at low rpms (due to the 3.42 gears IMO), but the trailer didn't seem to have much negative effect on acceleration from stop so that's good. It does reinforces my opinion that you need the 3.72 or even the 4.10 gears if you do alot of towing with one but the 3.42 is fine for lighter trailers. We went ahead and got the 3.42 because I have the F250 for towing our heavier trailer.

 

Anybody else around here towing with their Trailblazer/Envoy etc? If so how much, what kind of performance and what gears? Just curious.

carl722 Enthusiast

carl722

Posted
Posted

I pulled a 68 Firebird on a 16 ft flat trailer with the 2002 Trailblazer 4.2L w/ 3.42 gears I was impressed at how it handled the weight around 5,500 lbs I pulled in third gear OD ran RPM's too low. The 3.73 gears would have been much better though. I traded the 02 in for th 03 EXT 5.3L it has 3.73 gears and I pulled a uhaul 6x12 with around 3200 lbs combined weight for 700 miles and it was really good on the interstate @75 to 80 mph in OD but on the 2lane hilly curvy hwy's where the limit is 55 mph it needed to be in third gear instead of OD because the rpm's were too low for pulling. I still got around 15 mpg on the interestate pulling.

BountyHunter Enthusiast

BountyHunter

Posted
Posted

I pull our 18' Mariah skiboat often, averaging 2 hour trips and longest being 6 hours through the foothills of Kentucky and Tennessee. 4.2L with 3.42 gears and it did great. Can't tow in OD like the manual suggests, temp raised too much. 3rd was just fine, didn't even notice the 3K lbs in the mountains.

HillHound Senior Enthusiast

HillHound

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Posted

Good info guys. I'm glad to hear you guys are having such nice results with the 3.42 gears.

 

I doubt I'll tow anything much heavier with mine. My wife doesn't want me to put a brake controller in it! :confused: But that's what we have the pickup for.

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