I was wondering if any of you guys had experience towing with your F150 that was lifted. Im about to buy a F150 that has a fabtech 6" lift with 35's on it and was wondering how 'bad' it affected towing. I was talking to a friend that had a F150 before buying a F350 and he had some interesting comments/concerns about towing with a lifted truck. Basically, he said the concerns are
1) Towing with a lifted F150 can be or is somewhat dangerous because tire selection is limited when talking about tires that have a significant load/weight rating. He goes to glamis (dunes in so. cal) about 4 hrs from where we live and says most time he passes an 'BAD' accident with a tralier on the side of the road the truck was lifted. He says when you have a lifted truck and are towing, heaven forbid you get a blowout, you better hang on if your towing anything other than a couple of jet skis. I can see being lifted with 35 or even 33 inch tires and you have say 7k pounds behind you at 60 mph, that you could have some serious problems.
2) You reduce your tow rating when lifting a truck because of lowering your gear ratio with the bigger tires (the truck im looking at has 35's and 3.73's) and by no means feels powerful, even with exhaust, intake etc. Although safety is my major concern, this is more of a performance question.

Other concerns for me is when towing with a lifted truck, you sag the rear end if you have a big load your towing and that somewhat may affect your towing safety... I may be wrong but wanted some input on this subject as well.. I know you can install bags but dont know if that would correct the rear end sag?
Any input is as always appreciated and please excuse any spelling errors, i wanted to get this up asap as I am thinking of purchasing this truck as early as tomorrow.. oh btw, I wanted to be able to tow a 23' foot or so toy trailer that im guessing will weigh 7-7.5k lbs loaded. Thanks.
Bill.

 

You're gonna want a pretty serious drop hitch for that truck to keep the ideal height of the tounge of the trailer when its hooked up. As far as I know, towing something that heavy is technically supposed to have a Weight Distribution setup on it, but if your truck is lifted i personally don't know of any WD setup for you.

In this case, airbags would be a good bet if you're not going to do a lot of serious axle articulation if/when you go four bying. they're adjustable, get rid of rear end sag, and fairly cheap too. The downside, as i mentioned, is that the "Ride Rite" bags from firestone don't like a lot of articulation, ie you can never have a "negative" weight on your back axle or your airbags will be screwed.

Having said that, I four by mine with airbags and haven't had any issues yet.

Good luck.

Tanner

 

IMO, a lifted truck will need a significant drop bar to keep the trailer level... That's the most important thing when towing anything is that the trailer is level. A nose high trailer will tow like *crap* for the most part....

Toy Haulers are known to be pretty heavy, so if you have a drop bar to keep the trailer level, it's also acting like a lever on your trucks hitch (think of how you use a cheater bar) so, more stress is going to be applied to your hitch.

While a lifted F150 looks great and has more off road capabilities, it's towing performance will be reduced IMO....

There is no way for any forum member to say this is a "good" or "bad" idea.... Sure, some will have success stories and some will have failed stories.... What's the specs of the trailer you plan on towing?? How much weight will you be adding to it??

Mitch

 

i used to tow are old jeep when my truck was lifted with 37"s with know problem, just get yourself one of these http://www.hitchsolutions.com/rapidhitch.html

 

I tow a horse trailer and a 5000lb ski boat all the time with my f-150 with 37in tires and i have never had any problems but i also have 4.88 gears which helps in the power department but as far as the suspension yeah it sags a little but it drives/pulls great even at speeds up to 80mph.

 

There are very few toy haulers I recommend for towing with any stock F-150, let alone one lifted with 35" tires. Do yourself a favor and get a 3/4+ ton pickup with a V10 or diesel. The cost delta of $2-4k is a small part of the $20k RV + $15-35k truck you're talking about buying. Even if you would be under all weight limits (which is almost impossible with 23' toy haulers), performance would be poor and you'll be wearing out bearings, transmission, suspension components earlier than a properly designed heavy duty vehicle.

 

Thanks for the input guys, it is all good info which is what im looking for. At this time, i haven't bought the truck or toy hauler it's just something (the toy hauler) i can see getting after the truck, maybe later this year. As far as how much it weights, not sure but I was just going by what my friend had before going the full bore (diesel pusher) route. Anyway, his setup for the toy hauler was coming in around 6500-7000 lbs wet dending on how many bikes, quads etc he took. He towed with a 2003 F150 4x4 supercab but it was not lifted. He was telling me that when he upgraded to a 5th wheel and an F350 (lifted with 40's) on it, he couldnt find tires with a good load rating, and all stability was lost, and that was with a F350 long bed crewcab so he had a ton of wheelbase. His concern for me and my main concern is always safety so i though i would post and gain some prospective via your guys experiences. The gentleman im considering buying the truck (2005 fx4 screw lifted 6" fabtech with 35" tires) from tows a 57 chevy pickup and dual axel tralier (not sure how much that would weigh) but it probably weighs 5-6k i would think. he says it tows "great" but then again, he's trying to sell me his truck. He's not selling to buy another vehicle, he's selling cause he's on disability (hurt himself a few months ago, and cant afford the payemnt anymore) The tuck itself is awesome, very clean lots of aftermarket stuff with 19k miles. Its a 2005 fx4 wtih 3.73's. im sure the effective rato is more like 3.40's or something with the 35" tires though. I may still get the truck to haul around some dirt bikes locally and get a class C motorhome and pull a small toy box for glamis and stuff anyway. It never hurts to gain some perspective from those that have done it though.

Thanks you all for you time and input. Bill.