Found the limit for my truck...
 

My son was moving out to Portland OR from STL. He bought a 20' enclosed v nose trailer with 5200# axles and we were planning on loading it up with his second car and all his stuff. We were planning on taking my truck and he would follow with his primary car. After we loaded all the stuff in the trailer we pulled it from his house to the CAT scales and then to my house to get ready for the move (2100+ miles) the next day. What we found was it was although the Ecoboost would haul it on flat ground it was real heavy. I COULD REALLY TELL! While we had it setup with WDH and anti-sway just right it was WAY too much on the rear axle. Cat slip verified it for me. Trailer axles 9850, truck rear axle 5675 and front axle 2925 for a total of 18400. No way was this going to work for that long of a distance and over the Rockies too. So we talked my dad out of his truck and the night before taking off we swapped trucks for 10 days. His truck made it with no problems at all but it was still a heavy load all in all as his truck, a Dodge 3500 Cummins quad cab long bed 2wd, and the loaded trailer weighed in over 20,000#. I have found the limit for my truck and now know when to use a bigger truck. Total for the trip was 4470 miles as we went thru Yellowstone, Jackson, WY, Tetons, and Mt. Rushmore on the way back. Covered 12 states, some many times.

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Your GCWR is 17,100, so you probably had enough power to tow that load across the Rockies on I-80 to Ogden UT, then I-84 to Portland. Your rear axle was severely overloaded, but did you have much more than 10% hitch weight? If you could have redistributed the weight in the trailer and tightened up the WD hitch more to get closer to 10% hitch weight, then you might have been close to "possible" towing it with your F-150 EcoBoost Max Tow. But you did the right thing. That 11,000 pound trailer simply requires more than a beefed up half ton pickup to tow it safely.

Could not do I-80 as it had 8-12" of snow between Cheyenne and Laramie or so West. Had to do I-70 thru Denver, past Moab to Salt Lake City and then up to Portland. Keeping the speed down on the down side of the "hills" was going to be my biggest fear...besides the overloaded rear axle.

Could not reload trailer to balance any more as the car had to be in the spot it had to be in.

Yeah at nearly 1500# over your rear GAWR, was a wise idea to throw in the towel for the F150. Aside from some serious squat, who knows what else could have gone wrong!

Air bags brought it right up to original ride height...it was the 55psi of air in the bags that had me wondering just how heavy it was...normally with my 5er on the back I only put 20 psi in the bags at the most.

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I may have tried the trip, but if you had a diesel handy, may as well use the better tool.

Sounds like you just need to load the trailer properly.

The front end is by far the heaviest end on most cars. Back it into the trailer instead of driving it in and you'd probably have shifted a lot of weight off the hitch.

I agree using the diesel is a better option. No reason to stress the truck so much for so long if you have a better suited truck for the trip.


I can only imagine the fuel saving buy pulling it with a diesel.

On downhills with my 8200# load I can definitely feel the trailer pushing. The ecoboost has no issues pulling hills or getting the load up to speed. You will run out of 'truck' long before you run out of 'engine'. The bigger truck will undoubtedly provide a much more comfortable and enjoyable experience, let alone safer, for all those around you, I applaud your wisdom.

- frieed