Yukon-F

Hi,

I am in the process of buying my first travel trailer. The choice is made, budget to be finally identified .
My TV is a 2006 Ford F150 XLT SCrew 5.4 Triton XTR 4x4 short bed, factory tow package, 7.200 GVW, 3.55 limited slip axle.

The trailer gross dry weight is 4400, dry hitch weight 520
We are just two folks w/o big gear and stuff, so I'd guess we might add another 1000 !?

Now some people say this won't work with the F150, others say "just OK", the dealer says "no worries if a good WD hitch is used, but that is a must".

Although I get more and more confused the more people I ask, I give it a try here as I count you guys here as the F150 experts .

Any view on this?

smokeywren

GVWR is your limiter as to how heavy a travel trailer you can tow without being overloaded.


Load the F-150 with everything and everybody that will be in it when towing, including the WD hitch, toolbox full of tools, campfire wood, and anything else that will be in the truck when towing. Drive to a truck stop that has a CAT scale and fill up with gas. Then weigh the wet and loaded F-150, including driver, passengers, etc.


Subtract the weight of the wet and loaded pickup from the 7200 GVWR of the pickup, and the answer is the maximum hitch weight you can have without exceeding the payload capacity of your F-150.


Divide that maximum hitch weight by 0.13 and the answer is the heaviest tandem-axle travel trailer you can tow without being overloaded.


Using dry weight of a trailer is not a good idea, unless you weighed the unloaded trailer and the scale agrees with the dry weight. But let's assume that your wet and loaded TT will gross 5,500 pounds. With 13% tongue weight, that's 660 pounds tongue weight. Add 113 pounds for a good WD hitch and that's a total of 773 pounds hitch weight.


And I will say "it depends". It depends on how much weight you carry in the pickup other than hitch weight. Remember that GVWR is your limiter. So when the wet and loaded rig with a full tank of gas is sitting on the CAT scale in the middle of an RV trip, add the weights on the front and rear axle of the tow vehicle and compare to the GVWR of the tow vehicle. If you're overloaded, then you didn't do a good job of estimating weights. If you're not overloaded, then congratulations on a job well done. Now you know how much leaway you have for adding more campfire wood or heavier cookware or Grandma to the load.


As to the WD hitch, I somewhat agree with the dealer, but the hitch will probably not lead to "no worries". And it depends on which WD hitch you choose. DO NOT choose a cheap hitch such as the Reese Pro Series. The good WD hitches all list for around $1,000 and you can buy them for about $500 to $600 from online discount sources such as Amazon.com and etrailer.com. Good ones include the Reese Strait-Line, Equal-I-Zer and Blue Ox SwayPro. Even better are the expensive WD hitches that guarantee no sway ever, such as my ProPride, but my ProPride cost about 4 times as much as the Strait-Line I have on another trailer.


The difference in My ProPride and my Strait-Line performance is how much of a gambler you want to be. The Strait-Line will control sway for about 99% of all towing conditions. The ProPride extends that to over 99.9%. Small improvement, but if you have ever experienced uncontrollable trailer sway, then you will gladly pay a lot to be sure it never happens again.

Yukon-F

THIS makes it really clear, thanks a lot!

Another thing I didn't think about yet.
To get to the next paved road from my place I have to climb up a grade of about 10-12%, all gravel road. Any concerns on this one ? (except the time it might take )
So far I pulled several trailers up there, always in 4H gears, but never checked weight honestly...

Bill_The_PA

Gravity is not your friend. IMHO. It really depends on the road conditions and your abilities in this situation. I don't see the up as the issue. (Again given the right conditions) I see the down as the tricky part. ( even in the best conditions) just my opinion here. Anyway good quality breaks transmission cooler and use of the lower gears. As a side note. I'd say your Rig and all others after that are over engineered. That is no excuse to purposely overload and be an illegal wrecking machine on the highway. The other poster certainly attest to this I'm sure. Being in the grey zone is OK given good common sense and experience. I certainly have seen far to many idiots on the road with neither. Good luck.

massspike

My previous truck and trailer were close to your set up (I had a 2010 and my trailer had the same dry weight but less TW). With 3 people on board and a bed full of gear, it towed fine with a basic WDH. Top speed was 65mph and steep hills could be a struggle. But we did an Ontario to Florida trip (down via the 75 and return on the 95) without any drama other than the gas mileage. I also had to do a few steep gravel road ascents and just put it into 4H. My 2 cents: it will work, get a WDH with anti-sway (you could probably go with the Anderson since the TW is not too high).

tomt5078

I would never and this is me, pull my trailer up or down anything in the 10-12%..........I might go up with my snowmobile, but not my RV!!!!!

Yukon-F

Well, we live there part time since almost 10 years now, so no choice for us. We hauled down all the building material, even the logs for the loghome had to go down there. No accident not even critical situations - but everything must be well thought and done w/o hectic.
The only real special time of the year is when we have too much snow, no trailers then.
So I'd say I have "some" experience towing trailers where TT will be a new one.