Hello all - I'm shopping around for a new vehicle at the moment and am trying my hardest to find experience-based answers.

Basic Situation: I've got a 2002 Acura TL and a 1995 Land Rover D-90. The Acura is my daily and I use the Defender as an offroad vehicle/drive on beautiful days vehicle. Well the Acura can't carry a thing, can't tow, and is too easy and too tempting to drive too fast. So I'm going to try to do a straight swap for a truck or SUV.

I've got my eye on an F-150 Supercrew XLT w/ the 4.6 and am curious how well it tows. I'd be looking to trailer tow that D-90 out to various far off trails and whatnot. They would be flat trips (live in Texas) but up to five hours of driving.

The Defender weighs in around 3400 lbs and the trailer would be between 1500 and 2000. I'm not terribly worried about quick acceleration or gas mileage (got plenty of jerry cans if it comes to it), but can the 4.6 handle that? I see a lot of people toting their rigs around in 250s or even 350s - but my fiancee is draw-a-line-in-the-sand against getting a Super Duty and if I want a straight trade I can't upgrade to the 5.4L.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Advice?

Much obliged,
--Matt

 

4.6 will do it, 5.4 will do it better. My opinion is your spending a chunk of change, so opt for the extra ponys. Being a guy, I always think bigger is better, but the 4.6 will have to do a little more lugging. Its your money, I can only say what I would do if I were making the purchase.

 

From my personal experince, I've towed the Explorer Sport Trac (all 4 wheels on the ground) behind my truck, and I was not comfortable at all. And this was only for 30 miles. When I would make a corner, you could feel the back of the truck move quite a bit. I have also put the sport trac on the trailer and hooked it up to my truck. With this, the back end droped very low, to low in my opinion. (only for the night, big storm rolled through) when we pulled the sport trac on and off, it would rase the back of the truck almost off the ground, and push the front wheels. We use big trucks to pull our large tailers with, and they do great. (the FL-60) doesn't even feel the sport trac. So, in my opinion, you would be much better off with a 250 or 350. They just have so much more motor, trans, brakes, suspencion, frame, everything that makes towing so much better.

 

Welcome aboard Tx. It looks like you are going about this the right way; matching a truck to your trailer/load instead of the other way around.

The F150 can be the right tool for the job, but you have to shop carefully. If you look at RAOUL'S trailer chart at the top of this forum you'll see a few things.

1) An automatic trans is probably going to be the only way to go for the load you want to tow.
2) If you are towing the load off-road you want a 4X4.
3)The rear-end on a truck makes a big difference.

Looks like the truck you want would be a F150 5.4/Auto/4X4/ with the 3.55 rear-end.

 

I've not towed with a 4.6, but I tow with a 5.4 and would not want to go much more then what I've got now. I tow a #4500 travel trailer, and while it does very well, it'll get your attention on hills.

Sounds like you will be towing about the same weight or even more. All I know is the 4.6 has less hp and torque then a 5.4. It even takes more rpms to reach those peak numbers too, so you will be having to rev the motor pretty good.

I'm sure there are other's who tow more with thier 4.6's and are satisfied with the performance. I just figure, that since a bigger motor is available (the 5.4 comes with a bigger rear end too), that might as well get the most, if you do indeed tow with it.

JMO, and that's what I did.

Good Luck.

 

Thank you all for the wonderful replies. Unfortunately dealerships seem to be of the "yeah, you can tow it" mantra - but their lack of knowledge about gear ratios, etc, scares me.

I'm thinking the 5.4 may indeed be possible. It will mean I'll have to go used if I want to do a straight swap for the Acura, but if I can get the more appropriate vehicle...and its not like the F-150 really changed between '01 and '02 MY.

To respond to a few comments:

1) I plan on auto.

2) I'm not terribly worried about hills. I will be towing in Texas, so even our terrible nasty hills are nothing compared to other parts of the country

3) I don't want 4x4. I will be towing the Defender to places where it offroads, but most of these places have staging areas where everyone parks their tow vehicles and trailers. May not be paved, but its flat.

I also drove a Supercrew today - liked how it felt. The go pedal is mushy and the steering vague, just the way I want! It drives smaller than it is, and I was shocked by how quiet it was - made the Acura seem like driving through a concert!

Now the battle is convincing the fiancee of why I "need" a truck. The whole "I got a car because I've always driven trucks and SUVs, and now I've had enough of a car and want to get back in a truck while the trade-in value is still high" argument doesn't seem to carry much weight with her!

 

I gotta go with the majority on this one... I've towed my boat (4650 lbs) with essentially the same truck with both the 4.6 and the 5.4, and it's night and day different. Will it tow it with the 4.6? sure. Will it tow it easier with the 5.4? absolutely! You'll always wish you had gotten the 5.4 if you get the 4.6, but if you get the 5.4 to begin with, you'll wish you had gotten the SuperDuty. (I know, been there!) Given your choices, I'd definately aim for the 5.4 though. You won;t regret it.

-Joe-

 

I'd have to agree with everyone else, that the 5.4 would do best at towing, but I'm guessing that this new truck will be your new daily driver? is gas milage a concern? IF not, heck, you can't beat the 5.4. If gas milage is a concern, I doubt you'll be likeing the 5.4 when your used to the milage of an acua.

I've towed a very similar combo to what your proposing. an '84 Bronco II on a tandem axle trailer. the BII is about the size and weight of your D90, and the trailer is basically the same. I was towing through the hills in South Eastern Ohio. It did just fine. The only problem was the trailer doesent have brakes (scary). other than that, I just paid a bit more for gas while I was towing. ( I got about 9 MPG). The 5.4 would have been better for towing, but my 4.2 tows just fine, and averages 19 mpg when Im not towing.

If you can trade even for a 4.6, that would be my move. (tows better than the 4.2 and better milage than the 5.4) But if milage is not a concern, and you can get a good deal on the 5.4, go for it.

no mater what, trading an acua for any f-150, you'll come out ahead.

 

I tow a 16ft car trailer with a Suzuki Samurai with all of my friends spares onboard (for their Heeps...I mean Jeeps) with a standard cab flairside 4x4 with a 4.6 and 3.55 gears in it and I have absolutely no problems at all. I tow through the Canadian shield which is really very hilly with all kinds of twists and turns without any problem at all. In fact when I follow my friend with his 3/4 ton Chebby 4x4 (with a 350) I find myself letting up on the gas at the top of the hills so I don't rearend him.

Now My total set up only weighs 3800 but with all the spare Jeep parts I carry for one of my friends I bet I am up around 4500 tops.

Either way you go don't worry about it, the F150 will pull like and Ox and climb like a goat no matter how much weight you put behind it.

 

I hate to bring up a subject that seems to be ignored by our illustrious members so far but, someone's got to do it. (sigh)

Seems to me that you pretty well know what you want and what you need in order to do what you want to do. You already have the 4X4, the truck, the trailer, a lifestyle. If you need some slight adjustment to your toy collection to make it correct then it only seems natural that you do the adjustment. Right is right, right?

Now, while I DO understand that the lady must seem worthy of some degree of compromise on your part (due to "intangibles" rendered outside the cab of your truck), I also have to think that if she's wielding this much influence over you before the marriage, what the hell is she going to want you to give up after the deed is done????

In other words, don't get yourself into something that you'll live to regret. You apparently love your toys.....This is a natural and correct way to be. Many of us will agree !!! Be absolutely assured, however, that if you're willing to compromise this much before the wedding it'll only get much, much worse afterwards. A baby costs at least as much as a really good 4X4, if not more. And you can't 4-Wheel on a baby.............

Been there, done that.

 

Matt,

Can you tow your Defender 4-down, or with a tow dolly, instead of a trailer? 4-down eliminates a lot of weight, and a tow dolly weighs much less than a trailer. I'm from the motorhome crowd and 4-down is the way to go, if the towed vehicle can handle it. Driveline modifications from Remco are the solution for a lot of vehicles.

 

Having owned a '97, '99 and now an '02 F-150 - all regular cab, short box, ORP, V8, Automatic, with 3.55 Limited Slip rear ends - and towing quite a bit with them, I might offer some advice. First, I've had both the the 4.6 and 5.4 liter motors. You can tow with the 4.6. You can TOW with the 5.4. I actually towed a 35' Fountain powerboat (figure 11,000 lbs. with trailer) with my '99 5.4 a couple of times and it was a piece of cake. I more regularly tow boats in the 4,000 lb. range with little difficulty. I also don't wail on it though.

One thing that will dramatically affect how well your truck - any truck - tows, is weight distribution. With boat trailers - the trailer is designed to give you proper distribution between the trailer wheels and the truck (tongue weight). With a car trailer, you can dramatically alter the weight distribution depending on where the car is on the trailer. Be careful!

Now, even though I work for a marina and tow quite a bit, I still do far more driving with nothing behind me. The 4.6 gets roughly 2 MPG more than the 5.4. (The best mileage I ever saw with the 5.4 was 16.9 MPG on the road.) That's why my current truck only has the 4.6. When you put 23,000 miles a year on, you start to worry about this stuff.

So, which motor do you get? The 5.4 has gobs of power and comes with a better (bigger) rear end. It also gets fewer MPG. The 4.6 gets better MPG, but is down on what really counts for towing - torque. If you don't tow often though, it works just fine.

 

My truck is a 4.6 SC long bed 2wd with a 3.55 gear. Last month I towed a 64 Fury with a big block (I'd guess it weighs 4200lb) on a heavy 18' solid steel decked trailer. The truck pulls it fine here in the flat-lands near Chicago. I have 265/70 tires which are about 2" taller than stock. This makes the effective gear ratio about 3.20. I think that it is about perfect. It will cruise at about 2800 rpm @ 70 mph with the OD off, and get 19 mpg at 75mph without the trailer (15 ish around town). I will lose some speed on slight hills like overpasses, but I can live with that. The newer trucks with PI heads have more HP so they should be even better.

 

I'd recommend the 5.4 for all the above reasons. I have a 4.6 Screw and am unhappy with it's ability to go unloaded much less under a load. Get the most you can afford and then add some.....you won't be sorry.
Sign me a guy who's looking to trade the Screw for a Crew Cab F250 as soon as I can.....

 

I have towed with my 4.2L my 21 ft bass boat up some nasty hills and have had no problem. Now It will do the job and it is a 4by2 but i just wish i had got the V-8, but it will do it and it has never slipped on a wet ram either, i do have the 3.55 LS.