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Extra load, exactly.

Higher octane prevents 'pre-ignition' (when the gas mixture ignites before the piston is at top of its travel). If the mix in the cylinder ignites early, the explosion is trying to stop the piston coming up instead of pushing it down like its supposed to. Engines dont run long like this.

This is much less of an issue for modern engines, which literally 'listen' for the sound this makes and retard the ignition timing to prevent this as a matter of good engine management.

But towing a heavy load with a relatively low horsepower vehicle (like mine) its good to be kind to your engine with higher octane fuel.

hart wrote:Just out of curiosity why do you say nay on significant highway? Is it the wheelbase or something else.

Tow vehicle wheel base and weight are 2 major factors.

Also the overload capacity of the braking system. My impression is that full size trucks generally have higher capacity brake systems than the Ridgeline would have. I can' verify that for sure though.

If you have a full size truck available for long trips then by all means get the Ridgeline. No sense having 2 gas hogs in the extended family. Make a deal with your father-in-law. He can drive the Ridgeline when you have the truck. Plus you take him out on the Mac occasionally.

Thanks guys, think I'll make an offer on it and see how bad they want to sell it.

Frank C wrote:Why is the Honda priced so attractively?

Well, because the out the door price is significantly higher as it turns out. Alabama has no limit on doc fees so the dealers charge out the butt and it's pure profit to them. One article I read says the average doc fees in Alabama are like $475. Doc fees pi$$ me off - heck even the sales people get screwed there because they don't make any commission on them.

Anyway, the art of negotiation has begun. The nice thing to me is that I don't have to have this truck so I'm perfectly happy to be aggressive and walk away. My accord is in fine shape and perfectly drive-able for a while.

Well I bought it and I couldn't be happier with the deal. Ended up a bit under what I decided my highest offer would be and a got a wee bit more on my trade-in than I thought they'd give me. So win win in my book and I'm done with the car buying bs for a while.

I looked into the ridgelines, and they are a nice vehicle. Good luck with yours. They are heavily discounting them now, and you can get the upgraded model with trailer hitch for around 22K, and the loaded one with leather and GPS for less than 27K. Of course right now you can also get Silverado leftover extra cab trucks for around the same. I spent a lot of time reading the Ridgeline forums and what I learned is that as soon as you start towing anything substantial the transmission downshifts a gear, and on any hill may drop 2 gears into 3rd so that they continuously rev up when towing hence the poor gas mileage. Apparently a good tow vehicle regardless.

The boss doesnt seem to happy with his ridgeline..... unloaded he gets worse mileage driving the same jobs I do, with a F-150 supercrew. I also notice that towing two jetskiis on a trailer is much more active on his rideline than on the suburban or 1500.

Yeah, there are some long discussions on the ridgeline forum I visit about the engine shifting. The end result I took away from it, it's disconcerting at first and mildly annoying but the engineers designed it to do that.

Can't speak for your boss but I got 22 mpg on my first tank of gas. Rough calc on the 2nd tank so far is about 20 mpg. I live out in the country so there's not a lot of stop and go driving involved but I did have to drive around in Pensacola yesterday for a bit.

The best quote I saw on a new RTL with navigation was about 28.5 for an out the door price of just under 31k - no accessories. The 2 local dealers (meaning within 30 miles) wouldn't go that low. OTD was just over 32k.

I'm still very happy with my used purchase. Everything checked out fine except for some problem with the front right strut and Honda is replacing that under warranty. As soon as they release the update for the navigation I'll get it and then it's practically a new truck anyway.