Brady420

I have a 2013 F150 EB FX4 6.5 ft bed with max tow (7650 gvwr). I also have the road master active suspension (RAS). I tow a 35' Windjammer 3006wk. This is my 3rd season towing this trailer and my F150 has been a beast! Short of one extremely windy outing that closed the rt50 bay bridge in Maryland, I've never had any trouble towing this trailer...until this weekend. It seems like the towing ability of the truck just went south and I'm looking for any suggestions on what may be the cause. The back end of the truck just felt soft and the truck was hunting gears up and down the whole trip. Here's some info:

-I've towed this combo for thousands of miles with no trouble
-Reese dual cam WDH...checked to make sure everything was hitched correctly.
-this trip was literally all highway miles (~200 miles round trip) which I was looking forward to
-only 8.2 mpg this trip vs. ~9.5-10.5 mpg average
-66,000 miles on truck, original scorpion tires (still good tread, but obvious wear)
-tire pressure of truck and trailer good to go
-new tires on trailer, not first trip with them...no problems on my last trip of about 500 miles round trip.
-always use tow/haul mode with 6th gear locked out
-truck/trailer sits level when hitched
-payload of truck is 1550; prolly right around max when loaded up.
-nothing out of the ordinary for this trip
-tried to use cruise control on highway and the truck struggled to stay in gear (~60-65 mph)...made a funny clicking sound at one point but no indications that truck was being over worked...gauges all normal and about 2000rpm at 60-65 mph in 5th gear

If there's any other info missing that would be helpful, please ask. Do I need a tune up? Am I over working the truck? Is truck age/mileage catching up to it?

Any thoughts/insight would be appreciated.

Thanks!

marshallr

Bad tank of gas? Just a wild guess.

jeffinthebag

When was the last time you re-gapped the plugs?

Brady420

Bad tank of gas? Maybe; not sure I've ever had a bad tank before but that would be great if that's all it is...

As for regapping the plugs, I thought that was at 100 k miles...I've been looking around a bit and it seems like I may be well overdue for an Ecoboost at 66k miles!

Dirttracker18

These EB trucks have a host of issues that can crop up.

There are also a ton of TSB's on these trucks that are only address when these kinds of issues come up. I would move over to the EB engine section and talk with those guys. I just went through sorting out issues like this with two friends trucks and they now run like new. Both trucks exhibited similar symptoms but require different repairs. Both owners now say the truck runs better than new.

Your best bet if you are not mechanically savvy is find a solid shop with experience dealing with the EB or a dealer with a good rep. They should start with cleaning up the related TSB's for this issue.

Good luck.

marshallr

I've bought gas a couple of times and had fuel mileage and power go bad until the next fill-up. Almost all gas is advertised as having 10% ethanol. I sometimes wonder if they get the occasional tanker load where someone screwed up and you are buying gas with more than 10%. Nothing more than a SWAG, but it would explain the temporary loss of performance.

smokeywren

Your twin-turbo hot rod is controlled by numerous sensors and computer programs loaded in the powertrain control module (PCM). First step when the engine doesn't seem to be running right is to scan the PCM for codes. There are dozens of different codes that might be set, but to save time and effort the tech needs to know what are those codes.


The days of the shade-tree mechanic are over. Now you need a bunch of diagnostic equipment that can read and interpret the electronic codes. As a minimum you need a scanner programmed with Ford software. For my '99 F-250 PSD, those cost over $2,000. I haven't invested in one for my EcoBoost yet, and probably won't. It's less expensive to let the Ford dealer's service department earn my business. Simple fixes like gapping the spark plugs might work, but odds are you'll be dancing in the dark.

massspike

Had something similar happen a few weeks ago...I have my 2016 5L at 90% of max payload and like you don't normally have a problem. But as I was leaving a camp site a friend gave me 150lbs of wood which I quickly tossed in the bed without thinking. It towed like crap to the next campground (similar to what you experienced). I had put all the wood on one side of the bed which already had the heavier load and is the same side as me and the backseat passenger...so not only had I pushed it to the payload limit I had at least 300lbs more on one side. Lots of bounce, hard to keep straight, and the engine/tranny complained at highway speeds.

brantlyj

Just a thought, what were the weather conditions like? I used to have a car get what is called heat soak. Any time the temp and humidity were both high it could barley get out of it's own way.. I would imagine that it could easily effect turbo engines just as easily.

brown1

plugs should have nothing to do with rear end bounce/sway but i replaced mine at around 35k or so and they were in rough shape. stupid easy to do for any shadetree mechanic. 30k for plugs seem to be consensus for the eb's.