I've read about tow vehicles it's better to have an automatic.

I'm with Hunter.  Unless the trans is a heavy duty, the general rule is that manual transmissions won't tow anywhere near what an auto will.  In a half ton truck you probably cannot get a rig with any kind of tow capacity at all unless you get an auto.  With the super duty trucks the manual trans is probably ok, but YOU SHOULD ALWAYS CHECK THE MANUFACTURER'S SPECS.  Where I live the problem with automatic transmissions and trailers is that the ground "ain't level" -- no where near level -- anywhere.  Personally I like a stick shift and have two cars with 5 speeds -- but the tow vehicle is an auto.
 
Hartwell
Naturalized Hillbilly

Hartwell, Where did you naturalize from?  I came to Jamestown from Ohio about 15 years ago.

Since I originally wrote this  I have put 25000 miles on the 99 Dodge ( 5 speed manual) and am very well satisfied.   Almost everything we deliver is larger and heavier than the typical Airstream. I haven't tackled the west yet but have pulled latge trailers through the backroads of Tn which tend to be both steep and crooked.

Rick

Here are some of the factors involved based both on my personal experience with all of them and a lot of reading over the years. Please don't take this as advocating one over the other as it is strictly a personal choice.

Years ago all the car manufacturers recommended the automatic.  At that time virtually all cars and most light trucks manual equipped vehicles had a 3 speed manual. Because this is no longer the case this old advice is no longer valid.

The one major factor that is overlooked in most articles is that the toughest thing you have to do is get the load moving.  Years ago Wheels Afield Magazine, now gone, wrote an excellent article and provided the needed calculations to determine what grade your particular vehicle could
start on.  Things such as weight, rear end ratio,power and tire size entered into this. Unfortunately I lost this article somewhere along the way.

Their Standard was the ability to start your load from a standing start on a 15% grade. In a nutshell the results were as follows.:

The 3 speed manual with a typical 3 to one low gear was not sufficient to do the job. more on this later
The Automatic could start the load due to torque multiplication in the torque converter.
A "real" manual truck transmission with a 6:1 creeper gear could start anything going, limited only by traction.

There are other factors as well.  In the 3 speed manual the low gear situation is marginal but the problem is compounded by an even weaker reverse gear.  Reverse is when you are most likely to be working the clutch the hardest such as when parking.  If you stop when you get the first whiff
of clutch smell chances are the clutch will survive.  It is also likely a few thousand miles later, just as you decide everything is ok, the throwout bearing will fail because the heat boiled the lubricant out of it.  I have towed with a 3 speed and personally experienced these problems.

I have also had 2 tow vehicles equipped with automatics.  Both performed well although I did suffer a catastrophic failure of one with no obvious cause. I was going 20 miles an hour on level ground at the time. I did experience trouble getting up a couple really steep grades, had the
torque converter stalled and couldn't get over 20 mph with a 454 engine equipped vehicle.  None the less I did get there and most of you wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place.  With the automatic it will probably be necessary to provide some extra cooling as they can generate
quite a bit of heat

Most of the current crop of trucks will have either a 5 speed or 6 speed manual available. These will have a good strong low gear in the 6 to 1 area and an overdrive.  The extra gear on the 6 speed should fill in the hole that is usually apparent between direct and the next gear down.  These
shift easily and smoothly, much bettr than the older 4 speeds that were a real workhorse but noisy and hard to shift.

Overall I personally feel that too big a deal is made over rear end ratio. I have been all over the west with a 1/2 ton pickup with a 400 cu in engine and a 3.05 rear gear towing a 29 ft Airstream. I have also had 3.73 equipped vehicles and one with a 4.10.  I felt the 4.10 made for the engine running at too high an rpm on the road. Of course with an overdrive equipped vehicle this will not be as bad. Probably 3.73 is a good compromise choice for most of us.

From a load starting standpoint the automatic user might want to go one choice lower (numerically higher) than the manual user.

I personally have two manual shift equipped tow vehicles, a 84 6.2 liter diesel chev (non turbo) with the older 4 speed manual and 4.10 gears. A gear Vendors over /underdrive was added a few years ago to fill in the holes between gears and reduce engine rpm on the highway. Prior to that change the truck was less than satisfactory.

The other vehicle is a 99 Dodge turbo diesel with 5 speed manual and 3.54 gears. I have limited towing experience with it with my own trailers, but have done some towing for a transporter which included some trailers far heavier than the Airstreams.  So far it has performed perfectly and is
rarely out of overdrive.

Please keep in mind that  I am not trying to make a case for any particular transmission or vehicle.  I live in a rural county with ony 3 traffic lights.  If I had to drive every day in downtown wherever I might have automatics.

Rick Davis  1602
54 Safari
69 Ambassador
70 Globetrotter
Amateur Radio  K8DOC
NSS 14876