Re: Forest River Lexington GTS 283
"The ford V10 is under powered and gets terrible gas milage...."
Them's fightin' words, mister! :laugh:
Everyone thinks 8-9 mpg is TERRIBLE? Some RVs would love to get that mileage! It truly is all relative.
As long as you keep the RPM above 2000, the V10 is perfectly powered. I will manually shift out of overdrive to 3rd right above 2000 rpm. There were only a few grades on Highway 5 & 65 south of Branson where we got behind a slower vehicle and had to shift down to 2nd for the crawl up the next grade. I run on cruise control as much as possible (around 60 mph) and do what I call the 'hump kick'. I kick the brake pedal (to get out of cruise) at the 'humps' in the highway to avoid shifting down from overdrive. The cruise control on the Ford sucks in this regard only.
Anyway, here's the exact numbers for our recent trip. Driving 60 mph didn't change my AVERAGE mph from when I drove 65 mph on the last trip. Hertig or Chelze has said it many times here, "Get the lead out of the foot!"