Sirikenewtron

Anyone else with a 2018 f150 5.0 towing high elevation mountains? Just a few more months and it's new truck time.

5.0GN tow

I didn't tow at high altitude, but did tow with my 2013 5.0 STX SCAB 4x4 with 3.55 gears. I pulled my 8 to 9k(depending on trip) GN horse trailer with it all over the Eastern and southeastern US. It handled multi mile 6% grades with no issues, maintaining 70MPH on cruise. It would drop to 4th on occasion at 3500 or so RPM and usually ran in 5th with 6th locked out at 2500rpm. If I had to pass it would drop to 4th or 3rd and accelerate without problems. It never heated up even in 100 degree heat. Had we not been planning on a 20K LQ trailer I would still have it. We had to do the SD first and then the big trailer as my budget could only handle one a year. The 5.0 is a much better towing engine than people give it credit for.

Sirikenewtron

The mountains/elevation where I'm at eat up the pre 18 5.0's , in my experience towing with them at least. I was peddleto the floor wwith rpm's screaming far too much.

​​​​​​I was really hoping the new updated 5.0 with 10 speed would make a significant difference.

Ryan_2020

Do you mind sharing where you are towing? And/or what kind of grades and lengths of hills you are pulling?

I towed a 4500/5000lb trailer with my '13 5.0 with 3.73 gears from northern BC to South Lake Tahoe (all down the coast) and I think I only hit 2 mountain passes where I was 'rpm screaming'. At that point my engine/trans were hotter than normal but never shutdown hot.

I am obviously lighter than yours and not sure what all the elevations are (I know some in BC were 4000+ feet) but that was my experience.

.....my '17 5.0 with 3.73 tows even better, but if I was looking at 6klbs and 8k elevation I would go ecoboost.

Sirikenewtron

I frequently tow through the Teton Pass that's around 8,500' elevation and up to 10% grade, Wyoming Montana ...I also tow up and through Colorado/Denver , The Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel which is slightly over 11k elevation, also Flagstaff.
I do a lot of Towing up to and through Tahoe as well.

Blown F-150

I own a 2014 Eco FX4 Crew and my Uncle has a 2017 5.0 XLT Supercab. We used his truck to haul a 16x7ft Enclosed trailer and a box full of stuff from Vancouver to Calgary (Canada). With us and the trailer at the scales it was 1400kg on the front axle, 1900kg on the rear and the trailer had 2200kg on the axles.
This is a trip at altitude over the rockies. His truck is a max tow equipped truck with 3:73 gears.

Honestly, I would say it tows just fine, it just loves to down-shift and rev. The 2017 is certainly louder than his 2016, it seems like they "capitalized" on all the 5.0 folks that love the sound. I think you would be fine to try out a 5.0 as the 10 speed can only improve towing and with a tune, they make great power.

Same trailer with a little more weight and my Eco does tow better, aka, less throttle and RPM's. It's hard to go back to N/A once you have the low end grunt of the boost.

Engineer Guy

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