conserving fuel

Has anyone driven their boat with the tower folded down. What do you do about keeping the tower from bouncing on the upholstry or worse cracking your gel coat if you use a 2x across the beam.

I fold my tower down when I get to the dirt road on the way to Pillsbury but it's a Monster tower and folds up entirely differently than yours. I use life jackets and pads where ever it touches something. I really doubt that you will save on fuel though.

Tom I started towing with my Tower down last year simply because I have to put it down to get in my Garage so I figured I would see if I got better gas mileage. I did, about 11MPG instead of 10MPG. I bought some of the grey Pipe insulation and I put that on the grab rails. Then I take some rope and tie the tower to the Rails. It does not move.

Stewart, in the past I had to fold my X2 tower down for storage, but was told by my dealer that I should never tow with the tower down. Didn't question him as to why, but i will try to find out.

I think it'd be kinda useless for saving gas putting the tower down, plus more hassles. Just leave it up.

Stu...the insulation tubeing sounds like a winner.....as far as gas mileage..have you ever held your hand out the window as a kid? The tower acts like a sail especially with all your speakers, lights, bimini etc...I haven't towed with it down, but an upcoming trip to shasta makes me think. 240 miles? tower up or down? Walt...that road to pillsberry....rough but what a sweet lake! My nephew has a cabin there you probably know him...their ranch is right outside of penngrove Brians dairy.

Tom, Is your Nephews cabin in the Ranch or the home sites ? I have a camp in West Shore if you know where that is ? Are you going to make it to the Spring Ride @ Don Pedro on the 23rd ?

Adam, I had asked my dealer about towing with it up or down and they said it did not matter. Not sure why your dealer would say that but they maight have had a past experience with it. The biggest thing with towing it while its up is I have a 4 sets of Chrome Speakers on the tower and the light bar, We go to Shasta and Oroville so Like Tom its a pretty good distance. By the time you get there the amount of dead bugs on not only your speakers and lights but also my tower itself and the racks is crazy. With the tower down I get almoat NO bugs. Its so nice to not have to clean all of that off. So thats just one additional reason for tow with it down.

Tom the tubeing works great. it keeps it off the seats and it give the tower a little cushin for the bumps, plus it only cost like $1.50. Home depot has some nice think stuff.

If you drive 240 miles to the lake with the tower up and get 10 miles to the gallon it takes you 24 gallons of fuel. If you drive 240 miles to the lake with the tower down it will take 21.8 gallons of fuel. You just saved yourself 5 bucks one way or 10 bucks for the trip. What is the natural position for the tower, up? You fold it for storage not for towing. If you can't afford the gas sell the boat.

FAce Planter, As I stated before I fold the tower down to store it. its just a matter of convience to tow it with it down, but the plus side is to get a little bit better mileage and NO BUGS..... I dont worry so much about the price of gas considering how often I have to fill up my cars but time matters and the amount of time I was spending cleaning off the bugs was cutting into my Family and Riding time.

By the way if you look at your gas savings comment, lets take it one more step. So $10 for the trip, well we make the trip about 20 times in a season so that would be $200 so thats 2 tanks of gas. You have to tink of the long term...

(Message edited by gizel on April 08, 2005)

Bugs are awesome...I love cleaning them off my tower speakers. Ooops I sold my boat last year I now have to be envious of everyone else's bugs

Walt...got a big abalone gig going on april 23. His cabin is in the home sites. We'll hookup at some point.......

Sounds good Tom.