RACarvalho

I posted this on the new F150 forum but I realized that this should be here...

Ok, so We have had the truck for almost two months now and we did a 1500miles round trip from Indiana to Florida towing our (former) 5400lbs travel trailer.
I'm writing this to share our experience and collect advise of those that tow with the same drive train/configuration.

Our previous tow Vehicle/experience:
Our previous tow vehicle was a 2006 BMW X5 with the 3.0l engine.
We towed 12k miles with it on everything from the flats in Indiana to the 11000ft uphill in Denver,CO to high cross winds in Utah and 110F in Nevada... With that configuration I would drive in manual, 4th gear and set the cruise control at 62mph (GPS) so the transmission will be almost all the time with the torque converter locked and in some long uphills I would have to engage the 3rd gear. In 4th the engine would be at 3K rpm.
Doing that, we would get 9.9-10mpg towing.

How the F150 did (from the towing perspective):
On the way to Florida I left the transmission do it's thing, only setting it on tow mode and I set the speed at 65mph (GPS) for I wanted to check what/how Ford guys had set this drive train.
On the flat it was ok, driving in 8th and sometimes 9th gear, but it was extremely annoying if you had any incline for the transmission would be shifting between the 9th and the 6th(sometimes 5th) all the time...
Any incline it would downshift 3-4 gears... In some instances the transmission would reach the temperature of 105C.... But even with the annoying shifting, we went all the way -700 miles - so I could get a good average for mpg. we got 8.6mpg.
On our way back, I eliminated the overdrives (8th, 9th and 10th) and drove in tow mode without them. At 65mph and 7th gear (which is 1:1) the engine would run at just below 2500rpm and it was a pleasure. Almost no shifting and when shifting, it rarely would go to the 5th gear, so usually only one gear shifting. The way back was the same route and we got 9.9mpg towing (it was 10mpg most of the time but for the last 1/4 of the trip we got high opposit winds...) and the transmission was all the time at 93-95C temperature.
So what I learned was that, for this configuration, when towing you should manually block the overdrives: The ride will become more comfortable, the transmission will be spared and you will get more mpg.

Has this being your experience towing?

I don't know why Ford don't disable the overdrives when in towing mode....

untraceable

Similar to the 6 speed. Also why I believe even with the 10sp, you should still be getting the lowest axle ratio you can. 8-9-10 are all overdrives now, and 7th is a true 1:1 which is higher than the 6speeds 4th gear which is 1.14:1.

mass-hole

Sounds like someone needs some 5star transmission tuning.

I supposed its because the gear spacing is so tight that trying to kick down one gear at a time might be even more obnoxious. Like "hey, i need more, no thats not quite enough, one more, no, one more, meh, one more, yeah thats good." 10 seconds later you are finally in the right gear.

chimmike

8th gear seems to be the sweet spot for me when towing, but I get substantially better mpg when in 9th (and I've occasionally had it hold 10th gear for several miles while towing the TT!)

One thing I found is I don't use tow/haul unless I'm getting off the highway or something, to utilize the engine braking to coast/slow down and assist the brakes. I just stay in normal drive.

I'm surprised with the 3.73's it doesn't want to maintain 9th gear...I've got 3.31's.

RACarvalho

What do you tow?
Do you have the V8 or the ecoboost? What cab/bed do you have?
I have a crew cab with 61/2bed and heavy duty payload package...

acdii

For the V8 the shorter gears are better since they help get the engine up to the RPM range where the most power and torque is made, so the 3.5 and 2.7 would be just the opposite with taller gears since their power band is much lower. My 14 had 3.15 and surprisingly enough it towed quite well, though needed to be in 4th to keep it from lugging, my 16 has 3.55 and is OK, but I think it would actually tow better with 3.31 gearing instead. Mine has the 6 speed though, so might be a different tow with the 10 speed.

5.0GN tow

When I towed heavy with the 5.0 and my 3H GN, I found locking out 5th and staying around 2500 was the sweet spot too. It would drop to 4th on longer steeper grades but usually not down to 3rd. The issue with the eco and holding gears and leaning on the turbos is heat. There have been more than a few reports of overheating usually due to long, high altitude pulls in high temps. Unlike the SD trucks which run a whole seperate cooling system for the transmission, turbo cooling, egr, oil, etc, the F150 has a single system that has to cool all of it. It makes the heat soak possibility much higher when the spike from hot CAC, transmission and engine all hit the single system at the same time.

chimmike

20' TT. Weight obviously not the issue, but the massive frontal area making it a veritable wall at 70mph...well, you know.
3.5 EB, Screw short bed, 3.31 gears. So, not as 'equipped' to tow as your rig is obviously.

One thing I noticed, and it may also be true for the 5.0.....when towing, use premium fuel. Man...it for sure made a noticeable difference in how much power it could make at lower rpm AND got better mpg. It can run quite a bit more ignition timing, and so I suppose even with the 5.0, would make a difference. It may allow you to keep 8th well into spots where it would've downshifted to 7th for you.

RACarvalho

Before I bought this truck I made a torque/power curves comparison between the BMW M54 engine (my previous tow vehicle - a BMW X5 with the M54 engine, which is an I6 engine) and the Coyote V8.
I was interested in knowing from the data what would be the predictable behavior of the Coyote engine under the same load (towing the same trailer).
I knew that the power the M54 was generating at 3000 rpms was enough to tow the trailer at 62mph so I looked for that amount of power in the Coyote curve to find out what rpm level the Coyote engine would deliver the same amount of power....
I was surprised to learn that below 2000 rpms, the Coyote was delivering LESS power than the M54.
The M54 also have a torque curve profile like the Ecoboost (no so "tall" for it doesn't have turbos) it's like a inverted "U" which favors torque at low rpm's.
From that I knew that the Coyote would have to be above 2000 rpms to tow my trailer at 65 mph.
Obviously the Coyote delivers way more power than the M54 after that 2000rpm mark so I'm glad that the sweet spot is just 2500rpm (@65mpg in 7th gear).
Which is perfectly in line with what I was expecting....
Just for comparison, on the X5 I was towing at 3000rpm @ 62mph....

And that also explains why the engine can not tow that load at that speed above gear 7....
The name of the game is available power: The Ecoboost have the power available at lower rpms because of the turbos, for the Coyote to have the same power available at any time w/o gear shifting, you need to keep it at a higher (~500rpm more) RPMs.

RACarvalho

100% agree with that....
On supercharged or turbocharged engines, premium gas also make the life easier for you have less chances of pre-detonation and the turbos will run cooler....
My previous tow vehicle REQUIRED premium gas and it sucks for It does 10mpg towing with premium....
I'll read F150 manual and check If I can use premium, if yes, I'll try it during the next trip to find out what mpg we get..... Tks!