Driving style whilst towing

[veew]

Just wondering what mode people select for their DSG whilst towing? Manual mode, Drive or Sport? Cruise control or no cruise control?

I moved house recently which involved driving on the freeway for 5 hours with a roof pod & fully loaded 7x4 box trailer with a mattress on top. I found that I was using the least fuel (as per the live fuel economy read out) when I was manually in 5th gear (versus 7th gear that was selected by either Drive or Sport). This occurred regardless of whether I was driving on a flat road or up a hill (cruise control at 110km/hr)

Literally the read out was about 10-15% higher with the DSG in automatic mode (7th gear).
Is it because 5th gear (with the revs around 3000rpm) vs 7th gear (1800rpm) is in the meat of the torque curve? But wouldn't that mean more fuel is used as the turbocharger is activated?

Just an interesting observation that left me a bit perplexed.

[sVWatt]

We towed a double horse float at the weekend - 2000kg hanging on the back. I had it in comfort and ACC. I flicked the DSG to sport to overtake. We averaged 14l per 100 on the road, and off road (dirt, and large overgrown paddocks) we averaged 19l using the off road mode selector.

Overall impressed - hung a wheel in the air a few times navigating the river beds - the AWD worked flawlessly.

[Hillbilly]

After towing a 2950kg van around the country for a year or so we found that using 4th in a 5spd auto in a Landcruiser
gave a better fuel consumption than just using D. Also the tranny didnt hunt up and down ,nor did it get so hot. We sat on 90kph all day
Similar situation would be applicable to any auto.
Never used Cruise as to much weight to allow it to control me rather than me control it.

[veew]

Btw, have any of you guys been able to get Trailer Assist working in your vehicles?

I've had no luck.