Like everyone else said everything looks good on paper but I wouldn't attempt pulling an enclosed trailer that weighs anywhere near that.

My friend has a 20ft. 6,000 lbs car trailer and I've got '06 supercrew, 20's, 4.10 gears, intake, exhaust, and 93 vmp towing tune and I wouldn't want to pull anything heavier. I live in Florida and with the slightest upgrade my truck can't hold overdrive. I've towed the same trailer with my friend's '07 diesel 2500 and it's a night and day difference. My truck isn't even close.

 

The V-10 may get lousy gas mileage, but so do the new diesels with the ULSD and emission controls. Towing a heavy load, the V-10 will get better mileage than a 5.4 towing the same load, the 5.4 will drop into the single digits. I have a friend with a 5.4 Excursion (what a dog) and it gets 9 mpg towing.

 

Youre right and in Five years its amazing no one thought it was Odd that someone thought an F150 will be able to perform as well as an F250..

Far as im concerned the thread had alot of bad information and was misinformed.. long as it can still be searched by people looking for that information it should be corrected.. doesnt matter how old the orginal thread is.

 

There was only ONE poster in the thread that thought towing 6,000 lbs with his 4.6 F-150 was no problem.

Everyone else clearly indicated that an F150 was not the right tool for towing an 8,900 lb load, no matter what specs say.

The OP concluded he needed a V10 F250 based on the responses.

 

Wow, seems like everybody on here reads from a different "FACT" book ? Is the system just that bad or is everybody looking in the wrong place, is there that much mis-information out there ? My F150 works just great for pulling my TT, car hauler or boat and it looks a helluva lot better than an F250 or 350 ever thought of !!

 

Truly, the only 'FACT' is that any truck has a specific GVWR as well as front and rear GAWR.. The 'tow rating' chart and even the GCWR is not what you should be going by and thinking as 'gospel' for what you can tow or not....

Once you exceed any of those GVWR amounts, that's it, you are done... Doesn't mean anything if you are still #2000 UNDER that magical "tow rating"...

Also, towing performance is very subjective.... What is "just fine" for one, might be the worst setup in the world to another....

People tow overloaded all the time.... Heck, I'm technically overloaded with my little #5000 TT because my truck exceeds it's GVWR when it's all hitched up and ready to roll, but I've been towing it for 7 years and the truck has almost 197,000 miles on it....

Would my truck handle a #7000 TT? Sure... Would I want to cart it all over the state like I do with my #5000 TT? No....

It's all relative to your own specific situation, but when someone is 'asking' for advice, they are usually unaware and usually have never towed anything more then a utility trailer... Once you get into the heavier weights, it's a whole new ball game and most of the guys that advise on the more 'conservative' side are speaking from past experiences and not just quoting the 'tow rating' tables....

Mitch

 

oops.. wrong thread!

 

In BC Canada the motor vehicle act refers to GVW rating in the regulations to determine legal tow limits. They are more concerned about the truck and trailer's ability to stop safely than go up a hill without losing speed. I will probably go for an F350 at the auction tomorrow - the V10 sells at a discount here - diesel at a premium - but from the experienced comments in the thread - worth it.

 

Rob, as long as the gas mileage doesn't bother you, the V-10 F-350 is a very capable and reliable tow vehicle.

 

My 2009 5.4 f150 can climb an 7-8% grade at 55 with a cgvw of 14700 on a very hot summer day. Yes, it is WOT, and yes, I am switching between 2nd gear (5000rpm) and 3rd (3500 rpm), but it can do it. (The truck will just stay in 2nd, but I can't stand to rev it that long, so I force it into 3rd most of the climb.) The 99.9% of the time I am not climbing a mountain, it doesn't work that hard.

My rig is a 4x4 SCREW (not max tow, 3.55) with a 32 ft trailer that is over 12 ft tall in the back. The trailer weighs 7700 lbs, and has a 960 lb tongue.

It's funny. If you watch the 1954 movie, "the long long trailer," which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who has a TT and wants a good clean laugh, you will see that in the 50's, they towed huge travel trailers with only a heavy car. Now, 60 years later, our 6000+ pound trucks with 300HP, computer aided anti-sway, huge disk brakes, high-strength frames and massive radial tires are only safe to get groceries! Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating towing a TT with a car! I am just pointing out that an F150 is much more capable than many owners of 3/4+ ton trucks suggest. If I went with a 5th wheel trailer, then I would get a bigger truck due to the pin weight, but for most tag-along trailers, a modern F150 works quite well.

Here is my setup. I have since adjusted the hitch, so the truck doesn't have the slight drop in the back shown here. My truck has a 2" AS leveling kit, Bilstein 5100s on the back and Firestone air springs. The air springs are just to level out the rear, since the AS kit made it a little nose-high. I do think they help a little with trailering, once I figured out how to make the work with the WD hitch.

 

2009KR:

I've got a very similar setup (2010 Screw 5.4L V8 4x2 XLT, 5.5', 3.55:1, tow package) towing a 2012 Keystone Cougar High Country (35'4" L x 11'8" H, 7,800 dry, 900 tongue) [with approx. 600lbs of cargo right now, but haven't weighed it].

My thoughts are that stopping is fine, accelerating is fine, but what gets me is trying to maintain a constant speed in a straight line withOUT sway....in turns it's good, accelerating is smooth, but if I pick to stay at 70mph on a flat highway witha slight crosswind, my rear end is all over the place. I'm looking at switching over to some Load E tires to help with this.

 

RV tires are only rated at 65 mph. I would never run over 60 mph. I know many that do and they always have tire blowouts and don't understand why.

If you must speed, put some LT tires on that are rated for heavier loads and higher speeds.

Also if you don't want sway, use a Reese Strait-Line Sway Control Hitch system, or an Equ-alizer Brand Sway Control Hitch System, or a Propride Hitch or Hensley Hitch. They all will keep sway from controlling your rig.

 

I didn't realize that.....good to know!

I've got an EQ2 hitch that has "sway control", and athough it may help, I need more!

 

You may want to try the Reese Strait-Line system as it uses no friction pads or adjustments like the Equa-lizer. It uses a locking cam system that works better. I've never had any sway with 40 - 50 mph cross winds, NEVER. I bought this over the Equa-lizer because of better sway control but it does cost more. I just never wanted to deal with sway and for only about $200 more than a traditional friction arm setup with WDH, it was a no brainer for me. I've had a few insurance claims and my deductible was always over $200.

Equa-lizer is a good hitch also, but I feel the High Performance Dual Cam system just does a better job since the cams lock the trailer straight when being pulled and when turning, the cam arms are forced to ride up and over the cam.

Or get the best Propride or previous version, the Hensley Hitch. These completely eliminate sway before it could even happen. This is best with long coupler to axle wheelbase travel trailers being pulled by very short wheelbase SUVs. That's their number one market.

Good luck

 

I was looking for advice on this forum regarding pulling a fifth wheel trailer with my 2005 F150 Lariat 5'6" bed. The trailer is a 32 ft, older trailer that weighs 3750 Kg dry. Did a lot of research and reading up on hitches, and the only hitch that may work is the 12K Pullrite Autoslide. After doing my homework, I just bought a Dodge Ram 2500 diesel 5.9 to pull it. Sorry Ford guys, but the powerstroke is WAY to unreliable to haul anything. I dont need a broke down Ford diesel to spoil my vacations. The Dodge service trucks I ran for years got twice the fuel mileage as the Ford F550's we now run at work, and both trucks were within 100 lbs of each other. We were running 6.0, 6.4, and 7.3 diesels in our service trucks, and after MANY tow bills, we have decided to replace the fords with Petrbilts. Running costs FAR out way the extra cost of the truck. By the way, the Duramax was in the same boat as the Powerstroke. Not reliable enough for me.