6,800 lbs with Surge Brakes?

[ControlNode]

Hi Jason,

Chassis wise, the truck does not know it is at altitude. The motor does... The reduction in towing capacity you quoted is to maintain Sea Level performance. You can tow at altitude at 7500Lbs but you can expect degradation in performance.

Best,
Phil

Well, Chris paged you and I'm John. Anyway, on to more of my thoughts on it: The only reasons for a reduced rating I can figure would be related to power or thermals, the chassis and brakes don't care about altitude. The turbo on the engine makes it so the engine appears to care less about altitude (especially from driver's POV without looking at lots of extra data from the engine), but the turbo may be putting some work in to pull in enough air at high altitudes and could be creating more heat. And I'm not really sure if thinner air at high altitude reduces thermal transfer from the radiator or not, but I would guess it's possible for less dense air to pull less heat away. Maybe even at 10,000 ft any thermal transfer difference is so small it's not really a concern.

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[P. A. Schilke]

Well, Chris paged you and I'm John. Anyway, on to more of my thoughts on it: The only reasons for a reduced rating I can figure would be related to power or thermals, the chassis and brakes don't care about altitude. The turbo on the engine makes it so the engine appears to care less about altitude (especially from driver's POV without looking at lots of extra data from the engine), but the turbo may be putting some work in to pull in enough air at high altitudes and could be creating more heat. And I'm not really sure if thinner air at high altitude reduces thermal transfer from the radiator or not, but I would guess it's possible for less dense air to pull less heat away. Maybe even at 10,000 ft any thermal transfer difference is so small it's not really a concern.

Sorry John,

got tangled up in my underwear on names....

If there were any Thermal issues, there would be much stronger words written than to "obtain Sea Lever performance" in my opinion.

Best,
Phil

 

[subquark]

I said it before and it bares repeating, I was impressed by the ability of the Ranger to tow my 5,600 pound load. The U-Haul trailer doesn't really allow for the vehicle to be placed well, just right to the front. And this caused a tremendous amount of tongue weight. So much so that backing down a decent slope on a driveway, the Ranger's front wheels slid!

Despite that, the Ranger had tons of power, even at 55 mph (I sunk my foot in to see the response, but let up right away). And from a standing stop, no issues either.

You can see that I should have placed the ball mount two inches, or so, higher, but at this point it was too much tongue weight to get the trailer off the ball (I tried, but the built in jack couldn't do it).

Of course, the U-Haul has surge brakes and I'd never want to tow more than a tiny utility without brakes, but I also wouldn't panic regarding the Ranger's stopping power in an emergency (sure, the trailer might pass you, but the Ranger feels solid).

Safety first, even if I didn't exemplify that with tongue weight.

Edit: Decent amount of squat on this 2-wheel drive. It ain't leveled otherwise ...

Better safe than upside down in a ditch! Oh no Soupie!

 

[Cabose-1]

Watch at 8:30. He later got a letter from Ford stating there was an asterisk by towing capacity, and that capacity was rated at hiiver dam at 85 degrees on flat land, etc, etc, etc. Our owners manual has something similar to it too. For every 1000 ft take away 10 percent, blah blah, something like that. So yes, altitude matters, on all vehicles? i dont know, really dont care, should i tow 5000 pounds with the ranger regularly, or even 7000lbs. Why not? I do, and use surge brakes all day long. Awesome truck. Just not willing to pay 45 grand for an xl f150 when the ranger does the same job with more luxuries.

Truth be told, we can overthink this too much. Just dont tow like this guy, and you will do fine. Be safe, be mindful of what your doing.

 

[N559br]

All I can say is my 1977 Piper Turbo Arrow had a service ceiling of 22000 feet because it could no longer maintain sufficient climb performance. I believe the non turbo had a service ceiling around 15k, but getting to that altitude took a long time. Turbo or not lack of oxygen creates a reduced performance envelope. Which is why Ford shows these reductions in the owners manual.

 

[UncleWillie]

Good stuff, yall. Thanks so much for the great info! Tow rating on the Ranger is the one of the largest reasons I went with the Ranger over other mid-sized trucks. I think I psyched myself out when reading through the forums here where so many were criticized or worried about any trailer over 4,000 lbs. This goes back to the "can you" vs "should you" that I was talking about.

Altitude isn't a concern here in the Southeast. Most of my drives stay between 0-800 feet above MSL. Also, these first few planned trips are around 600 ft with essentially no gain, and some rolling Piedmont hills. About 1.25 hours one-way, which should be a great test run to get familiar with the truck, the trailer, and the brakes.

I'll see if I can get a measurement on tongue weight.

@Jason B Is a 28 foot centrer console flats boat. Wind resistance isn't a huge deal, but length and width is. It will be interesting having such a long trailer and wide trailer with a short and narrow truck.

 

[N559br]

I'm pulling a 26' bay boat and didn't find an issue pulling 6200 up hills. Just be careful on narrow roads. Also, make sure your surge brakes are in good nick.

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