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Best Tuner/Programmer towing?

5 Star Av

Full Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2019
Messages
74
Location
Charleston, WV
Good eve all.... I'm about to purchase a Compact Track Loader and I've been wrestling back and forth over the 5400lb or the 7400lb machine. The smaller will have me towing near the max, the larger is going to put me in the 8800-9500lb range depending on attachments. After reading through several pages in this category and the Performance category I haven't seen a clean cut thread or response about which tuner or programmer offers the best towing performance/gains? Short of cams or supercharger I've made just about all the performance mods to tow the larger load that I can afford for now, with the exception the of adding a tuner; and maybe more important, I've made a lot of the mods and upgrades necessary to stop, level and stabilize the larger load. WIth that out of the way......

Does anyone have experience with this? or have a recommendation?
 
I have never owned a tuner but have read a lot of posts and info on them. I don't believe they add lots of horsepower they just change the settings to get your power in the right rpm band for your needs. I also would NOT exceed the weight limits set by the factory since exceeding them could lead to premature wear and tear on the AV and could lead to an accident. In the event of an accident that you may be responsible for damages and injuries/deaths also the insurance company might deny coverage or you may face tickets if the overload can be confirmed.
 
I have never owned a tuner but have read a lot of posts and info on them. I don't believe they add lots of horsepower they just change the settings to get your power in the right rpm band for your needs. I also would NOT exceed the weight limits set by the factory since exceeding them could lead to premature wear and tear on the AV and could lead to an accident. In the event of an accident that you may be responsible for damages and injuries/deaths also the insurance company might deny coverage or you may face tickets if the overload can be confirmed.
I agree with you on all of that. Especially if my Av (or any vehicle for that matter) was/is in stock configuration with all of its OEM parts. However, we have an application process here that allows for the potential to raise a vehicles GVCWR, pending inspection. The inspection requires you to, while loaded, position each tire over a scale and if you don't exceed your rating across any of the (4 in my case) axles bearing the loads and you have sufficient ability to stop, level, and maintain stability for the amount of weight you're requesting to raise to, and you stay within a specified range of vehicle and trailer frame angle; it's $33, and a new sticker.....and probably a bump in PP taxes also lol.. I should meet those criteria? Actually it should exceed what I need by at least 1250lbs. Unless they use that new math!?!?

(Prob should've mentioned something about that in OP, just difficult to explain)

Again you are correct though it is going to cause excess wear on everything... This is WV, our topography is far from friendly to machine, and that's putting it nicely.

If I can do it for 12-16 months I should be able to buy a small dump to use for short commutes, or a used 1 ton at the State Road Auction?? or Something? I just paid Av off in Dec and can't afford the machine and truck payment, heck the machine payment is gonna be double what my truck payment was...💸

But I'm going to need the power in the correct band and the shift points adjusted and trans pump speed accelerated to pull it off

edit: I towed parents 32' toy hauler with dry weight of 9232lb and my 1000lb Grizzly in the back to the Greenbrier for the PGA Event 5 times. With OE rear shocks, compressor and no airbags. We guesstimated it was about a 12,000lb load. Not advised for sure, I maxed out at 50mph and trans temp reached 208 climbing both ridges of the New River Gorge
 
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Interesting info 5 Star AV.......In many states they use weigh stations and if you exceed the weight limit you get a ticket and sometimes have to off load enough weight to continue on the road. Some local police departments have portable scales for those trying to avoid standard weigh stations and they will travel around their jurisdiction looking for what they believe to be overloaded vehicles. Theory is overloaded vehicles cause accidents with sudden breakages and widespread overloaded vehicles wear out the roads quicker causing problems for others on the road.
Their system is the cops have books and data info on what a vehicle's rating are from the factory and if the scales show an overage you get a ticket regardless of what mods you have done.
 
Interesting info 5 Star AV.......In many states they use weigh stations and if you exceed the weight limit you get a ticket and sometimes have to off load enough weight to continue on the road. Some local police departments have portable scales for those trying to avoid standard weigh stations and they will travel around their jurisdiction looking for what they believe to be overloaded vehicles. Theory is overloaded vehicles cause accidents with sudden breakages and widespread overloaded vehicles wear out the roads quicker causing problems for others on the road.
Their system is the cops have books and data info on what a vehicle's rating are from the factory and if the scales show an overage you get a ticket regardless of what mods you have done.
They do that here also. Mostly enforced by DOT Compliance Officers at every weight station. They have light gray cruisers w/ the DOT logo on the doors, lights on top etc. I have a friend who was pulled over for not stopping at a weigh station with a tarped dump trailer full of construction debris. I imagine our State Troopers, small Municipalities, maybe even a few of the smaller County Sheriff's are looking out for that to an extent also. Though if I had to guess I would say the small Municipalities would be the biggest sticklers since they have the smallest budgets. One thing pretty unique to WV is we have a lot of primary and secondary roads that have weight limits, in essence banning commercial truck and trailer travel, and all law enforcement is on the lookout for that. The main reason being $$$ again, in this case money to repair damages 3, 5, 10, or even 15,000 pounds won't cause; but 26,000lbs+ will, ALL Law Enforcement is on top of this.

Perfect Example: a couple years ago a tractor trailer had a mechanical failure on I-64W and came to a stop under a brand new overhead sweeping on ramp that connects I-64E&W to St Rt 34N&S, essentially connecting our Charleston/Huntington corridor to Columbus, OH via a new 4 lane hwy that had only been open a week or so lol. Well that truck then caught fire which shut down 10 overall Interstate lanes of E W N and S-bound traffic. My lady works for one of our local TV stations and she called to tell me not to go home or I would get stuck at this certain point because they were routing all the I-64 traffic through the primary road we use to get home and around to the next exit, God bless her she's from Cleveland and she has honestly told me the interstates were closed here 5 times in 7 yrs(we didn't close the I-states here during blizzard of '94 and we will never close the I-states here for snow, the last time I sent her a picture in the left unplowed Lane with my heads up display projecting 74 on the windshield, what a great hwy snow vehicle the Av is!!) I just said thank you and I was more arrogantly focused on my unique knowledge of the secondary and smaller roads I was about to use to circumvent all this traffic. Which worked perfectly I popped out a 1/4 mile from the end of our road and turned back against the Eastbound traffic jam and was home seconds later. However in that 1/4 mile(which is one of those primary roads with a 26,000lb limit I saw truck and trailer after truck and trailer, 100's of them, and it hit me. I called her back and said this is bad, she replied "oh I know I saw on the helicopter shots the traffic isnt moving are you stuck in it?" I said "no I'm home but the road, the road is going to be destroyed" she didn't believe I could be home yet and didn't understand what I meant, so I explained my route home then explained how the road bed wasn't built for that kind of weight, especially 100's and 100's of them in one evening. She said "oh that was smart, glad you made it home" and completely blew off my road remarks. The next morning I was in awe of how bad that road was, and I worked 10 years for FEMA 149 disasters in 32 different states from '04-'13, I called her just to warn her to go a different way(she has to be approaching guiness book status on tire Road Hazard claims and Mercedes rim warranty claims already). There were multiple areas where the asphalt and part of the shoulder had been compressed 12-15" deep and 1-3' wide for 3-400yards, and softer areas under the asphalt were compressed 8-10" the size of a truck bed, for about 5 miles. It actually became a bigger story than the original. It's still not right today 2 years later.

Anyways it's still an issue here but my request to go raise my GCWR from 14k to 15,500lbs shouldn't be an issue as long as I can keep the weight over those 5200# axles on the trailer and not load to far forward causing me to go over 4100# on my rear axle, which then takes weight away from the front, which does the bulk of the breaking and all the turning, and increases that chance of accident by sudden breakage you were referring to.

Here is a link to some of our road weight limitations: https://transportation.wv.gov/highways/maintenance/hauling_permits/Pages/Legal Size and Weight Limits.aspx

and a waayyy overblown screenshot of the GVWR increase request form

BTW I only know all this because I've looked it all up and found out exactly what my options were in the last 45 days since I decided I was pulling the trigger on the Loader purchase

Please let me know if you have any Tuner advice!!


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