Heavy Loads and Fuel Economy

[TLDRHaulage]

Hi,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I've been having great fun with the heavy cargo pack, and having a blast with the Volvo 8x4 and 750 HP combo, but I can't decide the best way to get good fuel economy?

I've experimented with several suggestions such as "pedal to the metal" with manual shifting, as well as more gentler driving and the automatic, but nothing seems to really work.

The heaviest load I've pulled so far is over 150,000 lbs. The truck pulls well, and there is no worry about getting stuck.

I've generally noticed that for the mega-loads, if I drive around 60 KPH, I can get the truck in top gear while getting great fuel economy. This seems to work well.

What do people do to climb hills? An oddity I have noticed is that I can down-shift through a gear that apparently gives insufficient torque/power to maintain speed with foot to the floor, but then it will "catch" in a lower gear, and the higher gear I passed through is then capable of at least holding the speed. Why is that??

@SCS: It would be great is we could mod the back of the truck, too - add lights etc.. I know there are 3rd party DLC that can do this, but it would be good if the stock sim did it too.

https://i.imgur.com/m0UvGhi.jpg

Picture removed.