Some black smoke pulling heavy caravan

[Graham]

Hello all,
I have borrowed my brothers caravan, and we are heading over Fern Pass from Germany to Innsbruck, Austria.
The LC is pretty loaded, and the caravan is heavy at around 1800kg.
Do you think the black smoke some times, is due to the heavy haul, or ethanol mixed fuel I got in Germany?
or is it more sinister.
Power was also down as we were up above 1200 meters high.
I guess the LC, with 3 of us in, plus about 100kg of "stuff" an the 1800kg caravan must be pushing the D4-d to it's limit over the higher passes.?
When we were towing through France, it was easy to tow up to 80 mph for a swift overtake of other caravans, before settling to a comfortable 60mph.
I know fuel consumption has fell through the floor, a full tank is lasting me about 6 hours towiing, I guess around 340 miles to a tank. Around 20 mpg. But it is very heavy.

 

[adrianr]

Big load Graham and altitude does not help performance.
black smoke is unburned fuel.
Don't slog it up hills in high gears drop it down and get revs up to get lots of air through the engine to keep egt down.

Have a great trip.

 

[Graham]

Thanks Adrian,

I am sure it was some thing also to do with the last lot of fuel I filled up with.
Some thing just didn't feel right, the black smoke cleared after a few seconds, when the revs got above 2300 rpm.
The Fern Pass, isn't a bad pass, and the 120 should have hauled ass, and just got on with the job.
Well the following day we (I) filled up again, and sailed over Brenner Pass, like it wasn,t there.
It really was an almost "non event"
Like you say, it's the combination weight, and throw in, what I think was some crappy diesel.
We towed from Innsbruck to Venice, over the Brenner, and it was effortless.
Once off the Brenner, we were cruise control all the way to Venice, for a few hours.
The Autostrada was in good flow, and the 120 was maintaining 75 mph for hour after hour on cruise.
We arrived in Venice in good time or the beach yeasterday, after leaving Innsbruck around 11:30am.

G.

G.

 

[BIG clean GREEN]

Hi Graham,

I know it's late for a reply however........

I'm thinking of upgrading to a 120 LC3 or LC4 for towing my twin axle van down to the south of France next year, my current LC only gets 14mpg when towing, so need something more economical, when you say you got around 20mpg was that with many hills and flat roads at 70mph ?? if so that's very good (the van must have been bang on with nose weight at that speed without swaying ?)

Nick.