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I have now put 150,000 miles on my 2005 CRD, and towed a couple different trailers in a couple different configurations. These are my experiences, YMMV.
I have a travel trailer that weighs 3680 lbs empty and pushes 5,000 lbs fully loaded. It is 21 feet long, 3 feet shorter than Jeep says is the maximum length, and with 64 square feet of frontal surface area, which Jeep says is also the maximum.
Before I had the GDE ecotune, I towed that trailer some empty, as well as full, and in fact made a 9,000 mile excursion in it from Virginia to the UP of Michigan, to Seattle, to Los Angeles, and back east to Virginia. It was mostly fully loaded the whole trip.
I also had occasion to tow it empty a few hundred miles when it was new, and I am certain that most of the drag and fuel consumption is due to the frontal surface area, not the weight. I know this because I got typically 13-14 mpg regardless of whether it was empty or fully loaded.
I also had occasion to tow a VW Jetta on a dolly about 400 miles, which weighs about the same as the trailer empty, but has much less frontal surface area, and I got 18 mpg towing that.
Last year I put the GDE ecotune on it, and got 15-16 mpg towing the TT from Virginia to Denver, to Las Vegas, circled the Grand Canyon back to Vegas, then back east to Virginia, a total of around 6,000 miles.
These adventures have convinced me of several things: (1) the stock fan clutch is junk, wears out in a few thousand miles, engages way too late, and should be replaced by the Hayden 2905 heavy duty clutch, that engages 20 degrees cooler; (2) the GDE ecotune is great; (3) the CRD easily tows 5,000 lbs; (4) the 8' x 8' wall that is my trailer is the biggest thing I ever want to tow -- weight is almost irrelevant, it is wind resistance that gets ya; (5) the CRD has a tendency to run hot when climbing a hill while towing anything that big in hot weather, and when it starts warming up, you want lower gears to get the revs up.
Oh, yeah, I towed it into a 30 mph headwind before the ecotune and it struggled to go 60 in 5th, would slow down to 55, downshift into 4th, speed up to 60, shift back into 5th, and keep cycling that way. After the ecotune, I got the same behavior -- but it took a 50-60 mph headwind to do that. For what it's worth, that day I got 9 mpg. Who says wind resistance is meaningless?
While the stock fan with a good fan clutch moves a lot of air at 60 mph and 1800 rpm in 5th gear, it moves a ton more air in 3rd gear at 3500 rpm, and will cool down under those conditions much better than in 5th. Ditto for 45 mpg at 2000 rpm in 3rd gear vs 45 at 3700 rpm in 2nd gear.
And you definitely want to keep the engine cool: I suffered several cases of overheating before I learned that, and before I replaced the crap OEM fan clutch. And I paid for the lessons, about $3500 for a cracked head replacement.
This last weekend, again hot weather, I took the trailer through the mountains, including a couple 6% and one 8% climb. Making use of the new fan clutch and as needed getting the revs up, I had no overheating problems.
My advice to fellow CRD owners is this: your little tractor is a capable machine, and can handle anything within the official limits. Just make sure you install the Hayden fan clutch. And in hot weather, you might need to help it stay cool by using lower gears to get the cooling air moving.
I've read the folks insisting that you can leave it in 5th while towing. That's fine, unless things get hot, then you better go to lower gears and up the rpms, whatever it takes to keep things from overheating.
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