TO OVER DRIVE OR NOT TO OVER DRIVE>>THAT IS THE QUESTION!!!

I'm flat towing my TJ about 480 miles round trip on the 20th. I plan to use this method to get it to the offroad parks until I bite the bullet and buy a trailer this year. The manual says to tow in overdrive unless it shifts gears alot. I'm thinking overdrive on during the flat land areas but once i get to the hilly roads i'll keep it off.

Any opinions?

last summer i towed a smallish trailer with 2 motorcycles on it (around 1400 pounds) from colorado to arkansas and that is what i did.

from colorado to southern missouri i left the od on. once i hit the hilly areas of souther missouri i shut it off because of the constant shifting. my libby but i would expect the same to apply (i would expect that you will just be able to leave the od on longer due to the added torque)

So towing my 10' covered motorcycle trailer (~3,500 lbs) , I leave the OD on as much as possible. On the flats the OD just stays on. In the hills, I still leave the OD on, but as I start to climb a hill, AFTER it kicks down on its own, I'll flip the OD button off and leave it off until I crest the hill where I'll flip it back on for the run down the hill. This works great for me and haven't gotten an xmission temp light yet.

I'm hoping that once I install the Aero Turbine muffler it'll stay in OD by itself even more

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Chris
Current:
2007 Steel Blue Metallic Grand Cherokee CRD Limited
GDE Eco Tune and DPF delete
CB Engineering DPF delete pipe
EHM

Past (sold to Mountainman):
2005 Patriot Blue Liberty CRD Limited

If you are going to do this regularly I would probably invest in a tranny temp guage.

Separate note, I'm sure your CRD will do just fine towing it but I'm curious to hear how it stops with it. I've got to tow a car 1000 miles next summer and figured I would probably just rent a U-Haul trailer so I have the benefit of brakes.

-Vic

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2005 Limited CRD

There's no sense in running your poor diesel engine at 3K RPM all day. Leave OD ON.

I've towed 4K lbs. up some steep interstate hills and didn't even drop 5th gear. The CRD makes it very unneccesary to turn the OD gears off. Running in 3rd gear on the interstate can't be good for it anyway.

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2005 Stone White KJ Limited CRD 4x4
Off-Road Pkg
Trac-Lok
Emu 790s/948s
Skyjacker H7088s rear/Bilsteins front
15x7 Black Rock Lobos/31x10.50 Firestones
GDE HOT Tune + TCM Tune
Euro TC
CB radio
Thrush Turbo muffler
AEM DryFlow filter

as long as you can keep the torque converter locked up, OD is good. The folks who have had problems, including some burned up TCs and transmissions, have probably overheated 'em by running too slow, thus with the TC not locked up.

Mine seems to unlock at around 57-58 mph when slowing down, so I'd leave it in OD as long as I could cruise at 60 or above.

I've never towed anything heavier than about 3500 lbs with mine, but had no trouble keeping it at 60 even up and down some hills. The CRD motor had the torque to do the job.

These things are Mules. I towed my TJ on a trailer (4800 LBS) to Ouray Colorado and back without any issues. I had to turn off the OD only when getting into the mountains with the really steep grades. I think common sense goes a long ways here. You can feel it when you need to turn it off. Keep an eye on the temp guage and you should be fine. By the way You will love the mileage you are getting while towing. I averaged 17 going through the mountains and 21 on the straights.

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"Do you know you're putting Diesel in that Jeep?"