What are you guys towing?

[LaBalbe]

Someone globally is towing something cool

My grandfather flew one of those in WWII; never set foot in a plane again until the 60th anniversary celebrations for D-Day, when they flew a bunch of veterans out there. As a kid, I always dreamed about getting one for him one day, but the opportunity has passed.

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[Lateknightucd]

A 14’ teardrop trailer for the first 2023 camping trip. 85 degrees today and snow expected Monday. That’s Michigan for you. ??‍
It’s a NuCamp Tag XL. Basically a king bed and storage inside with a galley in the back. No toilet but it’s just me, my son, and the dog so we make do. This was a shake down for a larger trip to the Rockies, North into Canada and back home in June.

 

[Stevedbvik1]

A 14’ teardrop trailer for the first 2023 camping trip. 85 degrees today and snow expected Monday. That’s Michigan for you. ??‍
It’s a NuCamp Tag XL. Basically a king bed and storage inside with a galley in the back. No toilet but it’s just me, my son, and the dog so we make do. This was a shake down for a larger trip to the Rockies, North into Canada and back home in June.

How’d it pull? See you on the trail this Saturday hopefully !

 

[TheDo114]

A 14’ teardrop trailer for the first 2023 camping trip. 85 degrees today and snow expected Monday. That’s Michigan for you. ??‍
It’s a NuCamp Tag XL. Basically a king bed and storage inside with a galley in the back. No toilet but it’s just me, my son, and the dog so we make do. This was a shake down for a larger trip to the Rockies, North into Canada and back home in June.

That color is so nice!

 

[ControlNode]

How’d it pull? See you on the trail this Saturday hopefully !

Those are sub 2k lb campers, it should have pulled just fine unless there was way too much weight behind the trailer's axle.

 

[Lateknightucd]

How’d it pull? See you on the trail this Saturday hopefully !

A definite improvement on the hills compared to the Outback. I barely noticed it back there!

I'm still planning to make the run on Saturday with you guys. We're navigating end-of-life decisions for our 16 year old dog so I'm a maybe if that goes south.

 

[Lateknightucd]

That color is so nice!

Thanks! I couldn't be happier with it!

 

[Stevedbvik1]

A definite improvement on the hills compared to the Outback. I barely noticed it back there!

I'm still planning to make the run on Saturday with you guys. We're navigating end-of-life decisions for our 16 year old dog so I'm a maybe if that goes south.

So sorry for you guys to go through that. Been there many times. Will be thinking of you.

 

[Tincup]

Just picked up this 2021 Mission Aluminum trailer,

It weighs in at 1140Lbs. Going to be towing my old Dodge pickup ( 4400Lbs)

 

[DaveB729]

Hey all, new member here and wanted to join the conversation on towing. I’m hoping to get some opinion/advice about pulling our new travel trailer. Truck is a ‘21 XLT FX4. I’ve installed a brake controller and replaced the factory bump stops with medium Sumo Springs. Also have a Blue Ox Sway Pro WD hitch. We recently purchased this Forest River NoBo 19.6. Dry weight is right around 4300. It’s just the wife, dog, and I, and most of the campsites we go to have full hookups, so most of the time I won’t need a full tank of water. The truck has been pulling the trailer great around town and this past weekend we took it for our first camping trip (sorry, forgot to snag a photo so the only one I have is from when we picked it up at the dealer). Our trip was about 70 miles away, mostly interstate driving, with a 15-20 mph head and cross wind. I kept it around 63mph most of the way and MPG dropped to 9 according to the trip computer. Coming home we had a bit more of a tailwind and MPG moved up to 11. I’m a bit disappointed in having that much of an MPG hit but it wasn’t completely unexpected. I was, however, pretty impressed at how well the truck handled the tow, even with the nasty wind gusts.

Anyways, I’m wondering what your experience is with the Ranger pulling up steep hills. We have a couple trips planned this summer with a route that includes a hill with a 7% grade for about 6 miles. Is the Ranger truly capable of this without causing damage? How slow can I expect to be limited to? Is it best to keep it in tow mode and let the transmission do all the thinking, or upshift manually? what about controlling the downhill? Any advice or experience is welcome. I’m completely okay with taking it slow, but want to be prepared for what to expect. Thanks all

 

[Big Blue]

Nice looking setup. My rigs a little lighter than yours, I'm about 4000 loaded. Pulling a TT is a huge mileage killer and headwinds just make it worse.

As far as suggestions. First keep it in tow mode. It help with engine braking on the down hills as well as better shift points. Second lock-out at least 9th and 10th gears, maybe even 8th on longer climbs. Third keep the speed down under 65, under 60 is better. It tough on the interstates. Did a 7500 mile trip out west and back last year and set my absolute fastest speed at 70, averaged 11.5 mpg. Lastly get yourself a ODB2 guage setup so you can monitor engine temp and transmission temp. I use the Torque Pro app, but there are many options.

Oh yeah, amost forgot check your tire pressures. You might want to bump them up a little when towing.

Travel safe and enjoy your trailer.

 

[DaveB729]

Great suggestions! What tire pressure do you recommend? I’ve been bumping them up to 40, not sure if I should go higher than that. Also, and sorry for the noob question, what does it mean to ”lock out“ gears and how do I do that?

 

[Big Blue]

Great suggestions! What tire pressure do you recommend? I’ve been bumping them up to 40, not sure if I should go higher than that. Also, and sorry for the noob question, what does it mean to ”lock out“ gears and how do I do that?

When your in D press one of the buttons on the side of the shifter. The first press will bring up the gears in the dash. On my XLT it to the left of the center display. The current gear will be highlighted. If you press the minus button it will lockout gears starting from the top down, they will disapear from the list. If you press the plus button it will added back in. This resets when shut off the truck like tow mode. As far as tire pressures. My sticker says 38 psi but I run them normally at 34-35 for ride quality. For towing i run then around 40 psi. Just don’t go over the maximum listed on the tire sidewall. Everyone will be different based on the tires you have and the load your carrying.

 

[ControlNode]

Nice looking setup. My rigs a little lighter than yours, I'm about 4000 loaded. Pulling a TT is a huge mileage killer and headwinds just make it worse.

As far as suggestions. First keep it in tow mode. It help with engine braking on the down hills as well as better shift points. Second lock-out at least 9th and 10th gears, maybe even 8th on longer climbs. Third keep the speed down under 65, under 60 is better. It tough on the interstates. Did a 7500 mile trip out west and back last year and set my absolute fastest speed at 70, averaged 11.5 mpg. Lastly get yourself a ODB2 guage setup so you can monitor engine temp and transmission temp. I use the Torque Pro app, but there are many options.

Oh yeah, amost forgot check your tire pressures. You might want to bump them up a little when towing.

Travel safe and enjoy your trailer.

I'll add make sure you are using premium fuel while towing as the manual states you should. Manual also states max speed while towing is 62mph. I pulled a 6,200lb brick shaped (no aero angles to the leading edge at all) trailer for the race club a couple weekends ago about 300 miles and got just over 12mpg with premium and the Ford performance tune.

 

[ProtonDecay]

Hey all, new member here and wanted to join the conversation on towing. I’m hoping to get some opinion/advice about pulling our new travel trailer. Truck is a ‘21 XLT FX4. I’ve installed a brake controller and replaced the factory bump stops with medium Sumo Springs. Also have a Blue Ox Sway Pro WD hitch. We recently purchased this Forest River NoBo 19.6. Dry weight is right around 4300. It’s just the wife, dog, and I, and most of the campsites we go to have full hookups, so most of the time I won’t need a full tank of water. The truck has been pulling the trailer great around town and this past weekend we took it for our first camping trip (sorry, forgot to snag a photo so the only one I have is from when we picked it up at the dealer). Our trip was about 70 miles away, mostly interstate driving, with a 15-20 mph head and cross wind. I kept it around 63mph most of the way and MPG dropped to 9 according to the trip computer. Coming home we had a bit more of a tailwind and MPG moved up to 11. I’m a bit disappointed in having that much of an MPG hit but it wasn’t completely unexpected. I was, however, pretty impressed at how well the truck handled the tow, even with the nasty wind gusts.

Anyways, I’m wondering what your experience is with the Ranger pulling up steep hills. We have a couple trips planned this summer with a route that includes a hill with a 7% grade for about 6 miles. Is the Ranger truly capable of this without causing damage? How slow can I expect to be limited to? Is it best to keep it in tow mode and let the transmission do all the thinking, or upshift manually? what about controlling the downhill? Any advice or experience is welcome. I’m completely okay with taking it slow, but want to be prepared for what to expect. Thanks all

Awesome rig, thanks for sharing. Here's ours - also a '21 XLT FX4, but towing a BS HQ15:

We've got a bit over 33K now, nearly all of it towing the trailer, which comes in at just under 6K fully topped off. We've towed it the length of Baja twice and once up into Canada. We'll be heading to Alaska this summer for a couple of months. We try hard to find off-grid, off-road epic places, which means we regularly tow some gnarly grades, both highway and off-road. Here's a quick summary of what we've learned along the way (also happy to share more if you have questions):

1) The truck is more than capable of towing the trailer - maybe not always as fast as we'd like, but we've never given up because of the grade. We can pull pretty much any highway grade at whatever the highway speed is, up to around 62mph, which is kind of the limit before fuel mileage goes down hard.
2) There are many options to tow effectively, as others have posted. We like towing in Sport mode because that gives us the ability to control things a bit more. We downshift to pull hills somewhere between 2700 and 4500 rpm, depending on how the truck is behaving. Towing off-road on steep sections >10% as measured at the truck we need to get into 4L pretty quickly in order to avoid overheating things, but we've never had that problem with highway grades.
3) The suspension of the 5G Ranger is pretty harsh stock, so we swapped out to 50% Icon and then use Airlift air bags to adjust load height as needed (5lbs with WD bars attached, more like 40lbs when not, which is whenever we go off-road). Now it rides smoothly under nearly all conditions.
4) The brakes on the Ranger are adequate, but we burned through our stock trailer brakes pretty quickly and opted to upgrade to disc brakes. We love disc trailer brakes and won't have another heavy trailer without them. Let me know if you want more info on these.
5) We've tried various tire pressures from stock to 55lbs and find that the sweet spot for towing ours (about 600lbs tongue weight) is anywhere between 38-40lbs cold. That keeps tire temps down, fuel mileage up and the ride fairly mild.
6) Fuel mileage - yeah, 10-11 is what we see on average while towing between 55-62. 70mph drops to 9, 80mph drops to 8, and we saw 14 in Baja where the average highway speed is 40-50mph.
7) CAT Scales are your friend - don't be shy about using them whenever you need. The operators don't care if you experiment with different weight setups as long as nobody else is waiting. Last time I weighed it was $13 for the first weight, $3 for additional - if you get the following combos: truck+trailer with WD bars attached, truck+trailer without WD bars, and just the truck, you can pretty much figure out everything you need.
8) If you haven't already, get your trailer tires balanced (and aligned if you have a suspension that provides) - this will significantly help your tire life.
9) Get a good TPMS for the trailer and use it (we like Consumer Pro). If you get one with temp measures you can also get a feel for the expected differential between road temp and tire temp, which may save you some headache if things start to heat up unexpectedly (brakes and bearings will heat up your tires enough to notice - not quickly, and not all that accurately). On that note, infrared temp gauges are fairly cheap - we check our tire and rotor temps with one whenever we fill up.
10) Lastly - don't be scared of using your truck well within the manufacturer specified limits. IMHO Ford has a real winner in the Ranger and I hope more people come to realize that.

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