rust47

I have a 2014 F-150 with the 3.7 engine, 3.73 rear end. I am going to use the truck to pull a 24 foot travel trailer. Do you think I will have any problems with this set up? It does have the factory tow package.

77Ranger460

Depends on the trailer weight, what your truck is rated to tow, the trailer tongue weight, and your truck's payload.

acdii

Short answer is yes. The engine will be your Achilles heal for a travel trailer. Even if the trailer, tongue, and truck cargo weights fall under or to your payload capacity, the frontal area of the trailer will make that little engine struggle.

smokeywren

With the towing pkg, your tow rating is over 6,000 pounds. So with nobody and nothing in the truck but a skinny driver, you have enough engine to PULL a trailer that weighs less than 6,000 pounds, without overheating anything in the drivetrain and without being the slowpoke when climbing normal highway grades. But that ~6,000 pounds tow rating assumes your wet and loaded F-150 weighs only 5,400 pounds. If it weighs more, then the max trailer weight is reduced accordingly.


Your GCWR is 11,700 pounds. Assuming your F-150 is a 4x2 SuperCrew, the tow rating assumes your wet and loaded F-150 weighs not more than 5,400 pounds to come up with the tow rating of 6,300 pounds. (Tow rating = GCWR minus the shipping weight of the truck). To get your actual max trailer tow rating, subtract the actual weight of your wet and loaded truck from the GCWR of 11,700. For example, if your wet and loaded weight is 6,000 pounds, then your actual tow rating is 5,700 pounds.

"Wet and loaded" means full of gas, with all the people, pets, and stuff that will be in the F-150 when towing.

With a lightly loaded F-150 that weighs only 6,000 pounds, you'll probably exceed the tow rating of your F-150 with a 24' TT. But that only refers to the pulling power of your drivetrain. Your actual limiter without being overloaded is probably the GVWR of your F-150. A 5,700 pound TT will have hitch weight of about 850 pounds. Payload capacity available for hitch weight is the GVWR of the F-150 minus the wet and loaded weight of the F-150 before you tie onto the trailer. If you don't have at least 850 pounds of payload capacity available for hitch weight, then that trailer with a good weight-distributing hitch will probably overload your F-150.


So to answer your own question, you need the scale weight of the wet and loaded F-150, the GCWR of 11,700 pounds, and the GVWR of your F-150 from the sticker on the driver's doorpost. Then compute the payload capacity available for hitch weight. Divide that payload capacity available for hitch weight by 0.13, and the answer is the max trailer weight you can tow without exceeding the payload capacity of your F-150.


Subtract the weight of the wet and loaded F-150 from 11,500 and the answer is the max weight you can tow without stressing your drivetrain. For most F-150s, the GVWR (and payload capacity) is the limiter as to max trailer weight you can tow without being overloaded. But for your 3.7L V6, the GCWR (and tow rating) may be your limiter.

acdii

There is also the Frontal consideration for that particular engine, so there is more to it that just the weight factor for him. It is 55 Sqft or less.

smokeywren

Yeah, that's about the frontal area of my 7x14 cargo trailer which has about 6.5' interior height, and that sucker definitely drags a lot of wind. I had a 2003 F-150 with 4.6L 2v engine that didn't have enough power/torque for dragging that unloaded/empty trailer from Phoenix over the ridges in southeast AZ and back to west Texas, then cross the southern Rockies before I got home. I blamed that lack of performance on the weakling 4.6L 2v, and soon thereafter ordered the F-150 with EcoBoost drivetrain that's in my sig.


With a rig that's aerodynamically challenged, one help is to slow down to less than 60 MPH. Don't even think about trying to maintain the speed limit when towing a TT with the standard V6 in an F-150.