Trailer Towing with FX4 suspension.

[JCMAC]

Hi John,

There is a tow mode that might help....Please read the owner's manual for this function...it may be what you need. FX4 takes a beating here on these forums. I believe unjustly, but it is what it is. We, Ford, would not offer a package suspension that was not fully tested, including trailer tow at weights beyond the owners manual...

Is your trailer level when hooked up? What is the tongue weight? If you do not know...you need to use your friendly truck stop scales to determine your weights.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

Thanks Phil
I am using the tow mode as well as a Reese weight distributing hitch. The trailer when hooked up is quite level as is the truck. A problem may be the hitch ball height, not certain what it should be with no trailer on it. It seems to be a bit high.
With regard to tire pressures, is there a problem in setting the rears a few psi (5 to 10) higher than the fronts? I seem to recall back in the day that more pressure was often put in rear tires to increase handling characteristics.

Regards,
John

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[P. A. Schilke]

Thanks Phil
I am using the tow mode as well as a Reese weight distributing hitch. The trailer when hooked up is quite level as is the truck. A problem may be the hitch ball height, not certain what it should be with no trailer on it. It seems to be a bit high.
With regard to tire pressures, is there a problem in setting the rears a few psi (5 to 10) higher than the fronts? I seem to recall back in the day that more pressure was often put in rear tires to increase handling characteristics.

Regards,
John

HI John,

The pressure increase was mostly for load carrying. Many times the tire pressure was developed for unladen non tow for ride and comfort. Then the nebulous, bump up the rears for trailer towing. What I caution is to not exceed the side wall tire pressure on the tire...this is the max pressure that the tire manufacturer recommends for its tire. In most instances you will not need to approach this pressure.

In the SCCA Racetruck Challenge, we regularly ran pressures above the sidewall, but we had a tire engineer oversee things as these tires were "stock"...Wink, Wink....

 

[JCMAC]

HI John,

The pressure increase was mostly for load carrying. Many times the tire pressure was developed for unladen non tow for ride and comfort. Then the nebulous, bump up the rears for trailer towing. What I caution is to not exceed the side wall tire pressure on the tire...this is the max pressure that the tire manufacturer recommends for its tire. In most instances you will not need to approach this pressure.

In the SCCA Racetruck Challenge, we regularly ran pressures above the sidewall, but we had a tire engineer oversee things as these tires were "stock"...Wink, Wink....

Got it. Thanks.

 

[JCMAC]

Got it. Thanks.

Just got a quote for the Fox 0-1 rear shocks. I was really shocked. Priced out at $ 349 each before taxes. each.

Thanks Phil
I am using the tow mode as well as a Reese weight distributing hitch. The trailer when hooked up is quite level as is the truck. A problem may be the hitch ball height, not certain what it should be with no trailer on it. It seems to be a bit high.
With regard to tire pressures, is there a problem in setting the rears a few psi (5 to 10) higher than the fronts? I seem to recall back in the day that more pressure was often put in rear tires to increase handling characteristics.

Regards,
John

Another approach just occurred to me, it was goaded by getting prices from Ford for the Fox 0-1 rear shocks. Up here in Canada the price at local Ford dealership for for a pair of the Fox shocks is around $700 CDN before taxes and installation. I find that quite expensive. I am now looking at replacing the FX4 rear shocks with the standard non FX4 2019 ranger shocks if they fit and are a more reasonable price. What do others think?

 

[TechnicallyReal]

I don't know how much less dampening the FX4 shocks provide compared to the standard shocks, but I would guess that there's not a large enough difference between them to warrant spending money on the standard shocks.

I found the standard shocks to be too soft and floaty for my liking, when towing. The EIbach's I replaced them with were from TireRack and cost me $206 USD for the pair, plus shipping, taxes, and brokerage. Shipping was fast at least. In total was $302 USD. I'd do it again if I had to.

I could also sell you my standard shocks, which have less than 11,000km on them

 

[Tom_C]

I towed my little ATV last weekend for my first tow experience. I pressed the trailer icon button beside the 4W knob on the center front console area... is that the tow mode? I looked through the manual and never found anything describing those console buttons, but the manual is less than perfect and I may have missed it.

 

[TechnicallyReal]

I towed my little ATV last weekend for my first tow experience. I pressed the trailer icon button beside the 4W knob on the center front console area... is that the tow mode? I looked through the manual and never found anything describing those console buttons, but the manual is less than perfect and I may have missed it.

That's Tow/Haul mode, which changes the transmission behavior and disables Auto Start-Stop

 

[Tom_C]

Hi John,

There is a tow mode that might help....Please read the owner's manual for this function...it may be what you need. FX4 takes a beating here on these forums. I believe unjustly, but it is what it is. We, Ford, would not offer a package suspension that was not fully tested, including trailer tow at weights beyond the owners manual...

Is your trailer level when hooked up? What is the tongue weight? If you do not know...you need to use your friendly truck stop scales to determine your weights.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

Hi Phil. First I will say I like having you around as a 'voice of reason'. I'm no car expert, and I usually stay away from making comments like "this sucks donkey balls', etc.

I saw another of your posts about the FX4 shocks and you said something like they don't suck but maybe could use some dampening, or something to that effect (no damper joke).

I did change my rear shocks cause for 99.9% asphalt driving I wasn't pleased with the ride of the FX4. Would you expound on your FX4 shock comments for my education please?

 

[JCMAC]

HI Ryan,

Hope your experiment goes well. Only word of caution from me is to not exceed the Maximum pressure listed on the sidewall of the tire...

Just to mention that I have concluded that I will be using the standard load tires with 30psi in the fronts and 38 in the rears. This is the result of experimentation. The trailer now tracks very stably and the standard load AT tires ride much quieter and smoother than the Light Truck all terrain tires i got with the truck when it was new.

 

[TechnicallyReal]

Just to mention that I have concluded that I will be using the standard load tires with 30psi in the fronts and 38 in the rears. This is the result of experimentation. The trailer now tracks very stably and the standard load AT tires ride much quieter and smoother than the Light Truck all terrain tires i got with the truck when it was new.

That's great to hear

I haven't gotten to experiment much myself but I did recently do a trip at 30 psi all around (stock pressure in stock Hankooks) and it was definitely not as stable as when I was running 35 psi all around (which felt rock solid).

 

[JCMAC]

Thanks Phil
I am using the tow mode as well as a Reese weight distributing hitch. The trailer when hooked up is quite level as is the truck. A problem may be the hitch ball height, not certain what it should be with no trailer on it. It seems to be a bit high.
With regard to tire pressures, is there a problem in setting the rears a few psi (5 to 10) higher than the fronts? I seem to recall back in the day that more pressure was often put in rear tires to increase handling characteristics.

Regards,
John

My final comment is that finally I have good towing thanks to a new set of rear Bilstein shock absorbers, they have made everything right again. The FX4 rear shocks are useless except for off road.

 

[JCMAC]

HI Ryan,

Hope your experiment goes well. Only word of caution from me is to not exceed the Maximum pressure listed on the sidewall of the tire...

After all this I decided to replace the rear shocks with Bilstein B8 5100's. The result has been an outstanding improvement!

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