A few years ago we purchased our first 5th Wheel RV trailer. The model we had been searching for was not that popular in New England, where we were living at the time, so we purchased one that was over 1,400 miles away. I drove our diesel F350 dually down with my brother to pick it up. I’d never towed a trailer of this size, 42 feet, so one of the first stressful scenarios was figuring out how to handle fuel stops while towing this behemoth.
The first stop or two went well. We didn’t wait until we were too low on fuel, so we stopped at truck stops and were in and out pretty easily.
First thing to note if you like to keep track of estimated times of arrival etc. in your head like I do, is that getting off for fuel with an RV takes close to twice as long as it would if you were just in a vehicle. Let’s say that you can usually get off, fuel up and use the restroom in about 12 to 15 minutes. With an RV, figure 25 to 30. No, it doesn’t take longer to use the restroom when you have an RV, but you have to drive around much more slowly, sometimes circling a place twice to find a good place to park your monster after fueling up. Please keep in mind that it’s very poor etiquette to leave your RV blocking the fuel pumps while you disappear inside. This applies at retail pumps as well as around back at the trucker only pumps.
After a few fill-ups I was getting more comfortable with the fueling process, so I wasn’t so worried about looking for a truck stop when the gauge hit the halfway point like I had up until now. When the fuel gauge was down below a quarter tank, I asked my brother to find the next truck stop on his mobile. He said there was one in seventeen miles. No problem, plenty of fuel to spare. Ten minutes later, I asked him if he could see what the exit number was. He looked at his display and said “Uhm, something’s weird, now it says it’s twenty-seven miles away.
Don’t assume that everyone knows how to navigate like you do.
My first mistake; don’t assume that everyone else knows how to navigate and determine information like you do. Most people don’t travel well over 20,000 miles per year and don’t know the little caveats about finding places for fuel, coffee and eats that are in front of you, not behind.
In any event, we discovered after several more minutes that the next truck stop on our route was seventy miles ahead. Not likely to make it with less than a quarter tank and getting about 9 miles to the gallon towing the RV. Now the panic set in.
My RV is not only 42 feet long, but it’s 13’ 2” tall, according to the manufacturer. I made a mental note to pretend it was 13’ 4” tall just to make sure there was enough clearance. Just for reference, most tractor trailers (18 wheelers) have a 13’ 6” clearance. So if you’re on an unknown road, you can breath easier if you see an 18 wheeler on the same road.
Memorize the height of your RV!
One thing that amazes me, is that when I ask many RV’rs what the height of their rig is, they don’t know. Make sure you know. This is not a trivial piece of information.
So now that my stress level is rising, I’m having visions of getting off some unknown exit and encountering either low hanging wires, trees, or a bridge that is too low and forces me to figure out a way to pull a U-turn. I’m having dreams of dozens of cars behind me beeping their horns and showing me finger gestures while I’m trying to figure out how to back up into a parking lot or driveway. I think this is one of the worst nightmares for non-professional drivers pulling a big trailer.
So, a few things I’ve learned since then.
- The NESC Rule 232B1 states that any cable that goes over a roadway must be at least 15’ 6” from the road at the “midspan”. That means that the times you see very low hanging cables means that it’s typically either a cable that has dropped due to a malfunction in the mounting hardware, or it was run by a person who hasn’t read up on the national regs. In general, this is good news, it means the chances that you’re going to have to drive under low hanging wires is pretty remote. I still don’t recommend driving through residential neighborhoods where independent contractors may have stretched coax across the road without regard to the regulations.
- Federal regulations are that bridges must have at least a 14’ clearance. Unfortunately, bridges that were built a long time ago, think old train trestles, didn’t abide by this rule. Also, if the state or local government finances a bridge, they don’t necessarily have to abide by these rules either. Even though this is still a little dismal, there is some good news. Generally, if the highway you’re traveling on is a designated truck route with clearances of 13’ 6” and above, you can usually get off without danger. Just stay close to the highway. The further you get from the highway, say more than 2 miles, the more likely it is that you’ll find a low bridge. Remember, that many businesses get deliveries by tractor trailer, so as long as you get off an exit that has some commercial businesses, you’re probably okay.
So, in summary, probably about 80% of my worry about encountering a low hanging anything were not founded. You still need to be vigilant in watching for old, low bridges, as well as low hanging tree branches etc.
Getting the Fuel
So now to the heart of the matter. I need diesel for my truck, so I can’t typically just jump off the highway and go into the first gas station:
- Some exits don’t have gas stations
- Most gas stations don’t have diesel
- Most gas stations, even if they have diesel, are not big enough to maneuver into
Make sure that the exit you decide on has the highway sign that shows there are more than one gas station present. If you don’t you could get off an exit that forces you to drive through neighborhood streets to eventually find one. This probably would cause me to have a nervous breakdown.
Searching for diesel near me rarely gives useful results
I’ve found that searching for “diesel near me” etc. doesn’t work. It usually sends me to a gas station that doesn’t have diesel.
If you get off where there is a station that has diesel, but the pull through is either too tight, or the pump covering is too low, don’t despair. If you don’t have any choice, here’s a method that I had to use one time. Driving further down the street, I found a large parking lot, it could be a grocery store or other big box store. A hard packed open lot would probably suffice as well. I pulled as far out in the parking lot as I could and dropped the trailer. Then I went and filled up and came back and hooked back up.
Etiquette is that you put some protection down under your landing gear. If not, you could damage the pavement, as that is likely the main concern of the property owners.
Many places frown on dropping trailers in their parking lot, whether a tractor trailer or RV. I recommend that one of your party stays with the RV to talk to anyone that might come to inquire. Letting them know you should be there for only about 10 minutes will likely not be an issue. Remember, even if the person that confronts you is rude, don’t be rude back, be pleasant. Being rude or belligerent will almost never work out in your favor, no matter what the circumstances.
If you have any other tricks or insights into stress free refueling, I’d love to hear them!
