f150cwcw

Got a questions for you all. I work for a school district and my Athletic Director wants me to look for a trailer to pull with us on away games to carry all our equipment in. The trailer will be a tandom axle cargo trailer. I will be pulling the trailer with my F150. I dont have a brake controller to work the trailer brakes that will be on the trailer, but i will have one installed in my truck before we buy the trailer.

My question is how long (big) of a cargo tandom axle trailer can i pull effectively without harming my truck? My longest away game would be no more than 45 min away. I figured i could pull a 20ft. but i didnt know for sure. I have pulled plenty of trailers but never have pulled a cargo trailer of that size. My F150 is a supercrew XLT with a 4.6L V8.

TheJMC

Check out this site: https://www.fleet.ford.com/showroom/...ng/default.asp

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camstng66

Not only are you looking at a length issue you need a weight range. What kind of equipment are you looking at (for bulk purposes) and then what is the weight going to be. Now once you know that, add approx 500lbs to it because now that the team has a trailer, everybody is going to want to throw their carp in it...

f150cwcw

Ok, so looking at that towing guide that was posted, my F150 can tow up to a 6,200lbs loaded trailer.

I asked how long because i know that the longer the trailer the heavier the trailer. As far as what we will be carrying, i dont think we would go over 1500lbs of equipment in there. It will just be about 10 coolers of ice weighing in at about 40lbs each, a kicking net, fold up table, a trash can of footballs and some big bags with shoulder pads and cleats in them. The bags with shoulder pads and cleats are very big and bulky but only way about 15lbs each.

Guess i just need to call and ask how much a trailer like that in the 20ft length would weigh?

I have pulled my 17ft flat bed tandom axle trailer with a pallet of st. augustine grass sod squares on it before and let me tell you, that stuff was heavy! If i was to guess, it had to have weighed about 3k lbs with out the trailer.

camstng66

You will also probably want some type of storage in there to hold some of these items...
That equals extra weight... My brother and I went through this when we were looking at car haulers a few years back.

f150cwcw

Well, we used a loaner trailer from a local dealer three years ago and it was a 7'x16' cargo trailer tandom axle and we just would through stuff in there because we wont actually work out of the trailer. Its kind of like a load it all on and unload it all off kind of job.

Im going to have to just go to some dealers and shop in the next couple of days. I did find out a weight on a 20' cargo trailer though. I looked up the specs on Wells Cargo's website and a tandom axle 7'x20' cargo trailer has a curb weight of 2070 lbs. Thats less than I imagined they would weight. There is no way we could put more than 2000lbs of equipment in there because the size of equipement we carry is bulky and light weight for the most part. My F150 shouldnt have a problem.

01f1502wd

Ive pulled a 20ft box before. it was from Mi to Tx hauling a lot of furnature and misc. stuff from my grandparents. included was a couple hundred lbs of steel, chains and random stuff. she did good but she didnt like the big hills so much. but then again i have the 5.4..not too sure how your 4.6 would do.

f150cwcw

Well i just decided to tell my boss that im not going to pull it with my truck since i know that pulling that 16ft cargo trailer last year is what warpped my rotors because of no ability to use the trailer brakes. Our Ag dept has two F350 duallies, im gonna use one of those instead. Im just worried about warpping my rotors again stopping a trailer like that.

ray h

Your rotors took a beating last time because you didnt have trailer brakes. If you have the trailer brakes set up properly, the trailer should stop itself and the truck should stop itself, no extra heat on the truck brakes. Since its not your trailer, you could actually adjust your trailer brakes to brake a bit harder than the truck brakes if you feel so inclined.
That said, towing can be hard on a truck, I wouldnt use my truck to tow something for the school when they have their own trucks.

kbagphillips1

My buddy has a 8x16 enclosed loaded with commercial lawn equipment and has no problem pulling it with his 08 f150 fx4 with 33x13 nittos but he does have electric brakes and helper bags in the rear hope this helps