Roadtrek chevy 3500 tow mode button ????

[mangomike]

OK, I have irnored this button because we don't tow,but we do run heavy. So I'm wondering if in the Mountains of Colorado this summer I should be using it at times ?
And if so,when? Thanks
Michael
as a aside ,I must be doing something wrong,because when I do searches I never come up with posts.... I searched for tow button and got info on solar panels and water heaters ??????
TKs
m

[booster]

Originally Posted by mangomike

OK, I have irnored this button because we don't tow,but we do run heavy. So I'm wondering if in the Mountains of Colorado this summer I should be using it at times ?
And if so,when? Thanks
Michael
as a aside ,I must be doing something wrong,because when I do searches I never come up with posts.... I searched for tow button and got info on solar panels and water heaters ??????
TKs
m

The search function on the forum is not very good in many cases. I general the button is called tow/haul in some form and terms have to be perfect, but you still won't find much.


The tow/haul button on the Chevies basically just moves the shift points to higher rpms, as well as moving the torque converter lockup points similarly.


The higher rpm shiftpoints can give more power at any given speed so may get you up mountains a bit quicker and also prevent lugging the engine which usually would not be much of an issue unless very heavy.


The higher rpm converter lockup can also give more power compared to locked, but can also contribute to overheating issues under some conditions. Heavy Chevies tend to have some overheating issues, particularly with the 4 speed transmissions, not the 6 speed later ones.


I would try the mountains without, and if you don't like it, just push the button and see if you like it better. On/off can be done at any time without issue.

[mangomike]

Thanks Booster.
Seem like Q's create more Q's especially to us uninformed.
In another Forum someone comented that the tow/haul button is usful in saving brakes on long steep downhills.
So , do you agree with that? And , how many RPM would you recommend shifting Up at?
Let me ask that another way,, lets say I have shifted down into 3rd gear to help the brakes , generaly at what RPM should I shift back up to 4th?
I understand if there are to many factors to give any opinion.
And ,as long as you mentioned tranie heat ,,,,,I have the towing package with the tranie cooler, but I seem to remember a discussion about the Chevy roadtrek 210 ,,08 cooler not being big enough. Remembering that I don't tow but, do run heavy should I think about a better tranie cooler?
Thanks for the help
Michael

[booster]

Originally Posted by mangomike

Thanks Booster.
Seem like Q's create more Q's especially to us uninformed.
In another Forum someone comented that the tow/haul button is usful in saving brakes on long steep downhills.
So , do you agree with that? And , how many RPM would you recommend shifting Up at?
Let me ask that another way,, lets say I have shifted down into 3rd gear to help the brakes , generaly at what RPM should I shift back up to 4th?
I understand if there are to many factors to give any opinion.
And ,as long as you mentioned tranie heat ,,,,,I have the towing package with the tranie cooler, but I seem to remember a discussion about the Chevy roadtrek 210 ,,08 cooler not being big enough. Remembering that I don't tow but, do run heavy should I think about a better tranie cooler?
Thanks for the help
Michael

I will have to take a look at the transmission programming for stock with tow/haul on to be able to comment on better brakes savings, as that will a different thing than upshifts. Downshifting to help the brakes is a manual thing, but there probably is a maximum speed set in the program that each gear will do allow the downshift, but my guess is that it will be quite high and is there to protect the engine and trans from shock damage from a downshift at high load.


With the stock Chevy transmission programming staying in a lower gear at quite high rpm is an advantage because not only will it give more power, it will also keep the torque converter locked more of the time and that will make the trans and water run cooler. There is a thread on this forum that has screenprints of the shiftpoints vs throttle position and torque converter lockup vs throttle position. The graph lists the points as mph of speed so you can just jot them down for reference to know if the converter is locked or not. In the stock programming the lockup points are quite high in speed and thus rpm in 2, 3, and 4th gears so it can be hard to stay that high in rpm sometimes, especially in second gear because the speed might be too high for the steep windy road you are on. We ran into that quite a bit. The non lockup of the converter is the root cause of the heating issues, IMO. I will dig out a link to that discussion if you are interested.


A bigger cooler might help, but we found the benefit to be relatively small. Same was true with add on electric cooling fans. A bigger radiator (twice as thick) helped more, but still didn't solve all the heat issues for us. I finally bought a tuner and changed the converter lockup points to take care of it. The modified points can be put into only tow/haul if wanted so they don't affect driving in D setting at all.


The only cooler addon I recall working was done by member here and entailed putting in a big standalone cooler with it's own fan system on it. I think it also was large enough to cool the trans without also having the fluid go through the radiator so the water also ran cooler. We have similar, but different, in ours with two non fan coolers in front of the radiator and similarly doing all the trans cooling with no connection the radiator. Our extra fans can move air through the coolers and radiator, but since reprogramming we have not needed them on ever.


You might, or might not, also experience an oddness of the transmission programming. It may have been changed by 2008 as it was at some time after ours. When manually put into low gear, it will not necessarily stay there, which in our case was extremely irritating and frustrating until we figured it out. What happens is that it will stay in low gear fine as long as there is big load on the engine and high throttle position. If you let up on the throttle under those conditions, like you would do on a very steep winding road at a curve, it shifts to second and does not go back to first gear when the throttle is again opened wide. Essentially, at that point the van stops as second gear can't handle that steep a grade. The tuner manufacturer finally got enough complaints about that issue from the rock crawler crowd and made a change to their tuner to allow it to be set to never shift out of low gear, which made our life a lot easier.


We run at about 5100-5300# for the most part when fully loaded so with a 210 you could be quite a bit higher with most of weight in the rear so very good you have the trailer package that includes a much better rear axle and at 10.5" size. The extra weight will obviously make the climbing and stopping a bit harder, but the difference doesn't seem to be very big based on feedback from others.


There also lots of articles on this forum about improving Chevy braking and the propensity to "judder" when hot. Very curable for reasonable cost.

[Jon in AZ]

I use the tow/haul mode when climbing grades and the manual shift mode when descending. We sometimes tow a small (1600#) travel trailer. (2014 Chevy Roadtrek 190P with 6.0L and 6 speed automatic).

For better search results, use the google search bar in your browser and add "site:classbforum.com" to the end. For example "chevy tow haul site:classbforum.com" gives a number of relevant results on this forum.

[booster]

Originally Posted by Jon in AZ

I use the tow/haul mode when climbing grades and the manual shift mode when descending. We sometimes tow a small (1600#) travel trailer. (2014 Chevy Roadtrek 190P with 6.0L and 6 speed automatic).

You are one of the lucky ones with a six speed transmission that eliminates nearly all the issues that have been mentioned.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by booster

You are one of the lucky ones with a six speed transmission that eliminates nearly all the issues that have been mentioned.

Now I'm curious. Would it be possible or has it been done: Could You replace your 4 speed with a 6 speed?

Tks

Bud

[booster]

Originally Posted by Bud

Now I'm curious. Would it be possible or has it been done: Could You replace your 4 speed with a 6 speed?

Tks

Bud

Yes but not easy, it appears when I quickly looked at it a while ago.


You need to replace a section of the body floor between the seats for clearance.


Maybe new crossmember and driveshaft.


Controls are completely different so you would need a transmission control module and I didn't dig in deep enough to know how that would tie in to the engine control stuff which would be different in the older vans.

[ChicagoTom]

Never used it on my Chevy 3500 08 Chassis. 135,000 and had a trans guy check it out, he said it looks like new. BTW, been all over the country and many mountains. I do downshift often.

[rowiebowie]

My tow/haul button on my 6-spd seemed to hold the downshift well at times, not so good at other times. I now just use the "M" manual position when I need to downshift, which is easy to do with one thumb on the +/- rocker on the shifter lever. But it requires moving the shifter in and out of drive and manually shifting, so I only use it on steep downgrades.