what does a 373 rear end mean? it is better for towing? worse for towing?

 

It means that for every revolution of the wheels, the drive shaft will turn 3.73 times.

Yep, it will tow.

Allan

 

i plan on the purchase of 5th wheel camper very soon!!! i just wanted to make sure. the owners manual is vaque

 

You don't say what kind of an outfit you're driving, but pay careful attention to the transmission. It's always been Chevy's weak point for towing.

Allan

 

I prefer a 3.73-1 rear. Some people prefer a 3.42, as stated the 3.73 will work, and better gas mileage especially when not towing. If you take the nuber of gears on the pinion, and divide that into the numbers of the ring, that gives you the ratio (I think i said that right......)

 

Depends upon the engine. For towing with the diesel engine the 3.73 is all that is offered by GM. With the gas engine the tow rating is 25% greater with the 4.10 rear end for every truck. The gas engine needs more than double the RPM's to reach peak torque for towing than a diesel engine and a high gear ratio works against it.

 

2012 2500HD is the truck i own. gas 6.0 V8 she gets 14mpg WITH OUT towing anything

 

Big Bird, I'm right there with you. 15mpg w/out towing anything 1500 6.0L. Your truck will tow fine. I have the 1500 max tow 4x4 3.73. Tow a 8k camper routinely with absolutely no problems. The 6.0l likes to drink gas!!! you can expect 6-9 mpg (9-mpg @ 55 mph for me) while towing. But it tows like a beast!!! Not as well as a diesel but does a great job.

In regards to the earlier posts regard 3.42 vs 3.73. A shorter (3.42) gears (referring to the rear end gear here) will have the engine spinning at a lot less rpms at a given speed vs a rear end equipped with a 3.73 gear. So in overdrive, our truck engines are spinning at at a little over 2200 rpms at 75 mph. Where a 3.42 geared truck may have an rpm range of approximately 1900 rpm at the same speed (300 rpm difference).

Now the rear end gears are much more valuable to me as my truck is an 08 with a 4 speed tranny. Yours is a 6 speed tranny. So you could have made up the difference with the extra two gears inside your transmission. However, since you do have both the 6 speed and 3.73 rear end, you can really tow a healthy weight. But like me (since our fine drive ratios are the same), your mpgs are gonna suck. If you do a lot of interstate driving w/out towing and you have either a 4x2 or a 4x4 w/out the auto mode, you can look into getting a gear vendors over drive unit. For about $5k, it will give you another overdrive that will lower your final drive ratio and allow your engine to cruise at a lower RPM level for a given speed. However, to make up the cost difference of say 3mpg difference (assuming you would go from 15 -18 mpg with the OD on), it would take you approximately 7 years for it to pay for itself.

Hope this is helpful

Eric