dthills. You said you bought your trailer from a chevy dealer. take out a chevy crew cab half ton with a 5.3 and hook this up to the trailer you bought, drive the same distance and see how the chevy compares, if the chevy can tow it, than thier's something amiss with your f-150, one advantage GM has is the 410 rear diff as an option. If the Chevy falls down, than your Ford is not at fault.

When towing you allway's have to have more truck than trailer, a 1/2 ton can't haul or tow what a 3/4 can and live to repeat the task 365 days a year no matter what hear say is out thier.

For a $1000.00 more a F-250 with a v-10 will save you money in the long run, more power, better mileage when towing and the truck will not break your spirit.

I'm sorry to hear your f-150 has not met your expectations, my advice is get the f-250 or get an pre 97 ford f-250 with a 460 and spend what's neededon it, best of luck in swinging a deal with your Ford dealer, thier is Dodge and GM dealers who want you in thier trucks, Sales are tight.

 

 

Indeed. Too little truck, too much trailer.

Ford was not wrong. It can pull it and stop it safely. Period. That's the reality. But (and there's always a 'but') just because it CAN doesn't mean it's the best tool for the job. You 'can' use channel locks on brass tube fittings, but there's a better tool for the job. You *can* and did tow the trailer you bought with the truck you have, but that doesn't make it the best tool for the job. Sure, many people on this board do it all the time. I used to pull a 26-foot 5000 lb boat all summer long (32 feet from tongue to prop) with my '00. Sure I knew it was back there, but I didn't have any unreasonable expectations. I knew that if I took it through the mountains I was going to get passed by semis. If I was cruising down the freeway, I expected 8-10 mpg at best. Heck, I doubled the weight of the truck with the same motor. It's not rocket science.

-Joe

 

dthills,

Did you run the trailer and truck over a set of truck scales? I bet you'd be surprised to find that the truck may have been over the gross combined weight. This is the critical number. Not what it can tow or how much is loaded (although very important) but the total amount of weight the engine needs to move and brakes need to stop. For rough figures:

Trailer = 6500 lbs
Trailer load =1000 lbs
Truck = 5500 lbs
Truck load (passengers, equip, fuel, etc) = (4 pass)*150lbs each, + 200 (fuel) + 200 (cargo)

Gives a grand total of 14,000 lbs gross combined weight. Thats just estimated, but I know for a fact that my F150 won't even come close to pulling that.

It gets a little heated around here when people start bashing Ford, when in reality the problems originated from bad choices. I think the majority here would recommend for you to either take the dealers advice and buy a bigger truck, or a lighter trailer.

Good luck. I hope you can come to a solution and salvage your plans this summer.

 

I tried to email him to get some of these answers posted here.

He has locked out emails from members.

I think we should close this thread.....sounds like a troll.

 

I locked out e-mails from the forum because my wife runs a home business and she doesn't need a ton of e-mails from members of the forum I fugured I would just answer post here. sorry if you have a problem with that.

oh and by the way its not that I am trying to complain. the point that is trying to be made here is, I believe that Ford Misrepresented this truck plain and simple,and they need to be held accountable for it. think about it

 

The way Ford and all the other truck manufactures "get away" with this is because of the disclaimers...... Even on the TV commercials where they all shout how much they can tow over the competition, at the end of the commercial you see about half the screen in fine print....... Then it only lasts for a couple of seconds...... Yeah, like anyone is going to be able to read it! It ain't right and it ain't 100% honest, but it gets them past the false advertising issue.....

Anyway, it's explained a bit more on this Ford web site....

2005 trailer weights explained

Even thou you were still several thousand pounds under that magical 'tow rating' I'll bet you were still pretty close to the trucks GVWR or even the GCWR....

On another note.... I read in another post that a new F150 owner was having power issues with towing a trailer. Someone mentioned that they went to the dealer and had the computer "re-flashed" with a new program and that resolved the issue??

Good luck!

Mitch

 

Apparently he doesn't have his own e-mail either?

I don't understand what he wants Ford to do about it? The vehicle they sold him is capable of towing the trailer he wanted. He can attest to it as HE ACTUALLY TOWED THE TRAILER WITH IT!!

Ford offers numerous other vehicles that can also tow the vehicle. He chose the one he thought suited him the best. He chose wrong. Lesson learned. If the price difference between the one he wanted and the one the dealer recommended knowing what he was going to be doing with it was only $1000, I'd've certainly opted for the larger of the two. Heck, the dealer (whose job it is to address the customer's needs) even tried to talk him into the bigger truck and he refused. Was the dealer supposed to seize the bank account and freeze his assets to prevent him from buying the wrong truck??

The whole argument is moot. He made a choice to purchase the wrong truck for his needs. How that is anyone else's fault is beyond me.

BACK UNDER THE BRIDGE, TROLL!!!

 

Somebody wants no responsibility for a poor decision.

I don't think anyone here agrees with him.

 

one word DIESEL

 

this kind of concerns me. i purchased my 05 super crew because i wanted the ability to tow a moderate sized camper and my show car. im taking it this weekend out of state, trailering my car to a show. i sure am not looking for any problems......

 

I am with Mitch here. I have a F150 Lariat 5.4 3:55LS and tow a 4,200lbs Travel trailer, loaded out just at 5,000lbs. Just got back from the North carolina Mountains and never had any problems towing up the mountains and if you ever heard of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Black Mountain, you know I climbed. I stayed in 3rd gear nearly all the time, except on some steep grades, but then only dropped to 2nd gear at around 3,000 RPMs. Very comfortable towing @ 5,000lbs. The key is staying around 2,000 pounds off Trailer weight Tow capacity period and you will never likey have a problem towing anywhere you want to go! ( If you were towing loaded 6,500lbs, you were maxing out with a F150) unless you are towing in Florida or along the East coast, 6,500lbs to much trailer for a 150.

 

what is a toy hauler ?

 

Ok. You are right, not the right tool, but let me ask these questions: If it's not a good idea to do these things then why do the builders and designers say go for it. If it has no red line with a rev limiter at 7k rpm then why can't it be done? Common sense thats why, but if they are going to push the limits. Sure go ahead and do it. You are right I did do it, but I'm not willing to bet, at 36k miles after the warranty has expired, $1000s in repairs to justify that it can be done. I can tell you this, that truck was gaspin for air. You bet I pushed it. Ford said I could, infact everything I did was in fords limits. If you have ford tell you that a stock mustang will beat a vette hands down and you get wasted by every vette on the road, what are you going to do? Are you going to soup it up and invalidate your warranty? Are you going to be disappointed with ford not for meeting the expectations that they wrote?
I was pulling approximately 70% of max. Is that considered maybe pushing it a little? And who do you listen to? Probably the person who designed and built it. Consider this: If I am struggling with 6500#, then that should realistically limit me to about 9000# with an F250, since that is 70% of its load rating. Does that sound a little off? Sure it does, but remember ford said. I could of loaded that trailer to 10000#, so if the #'s work the same then I need bigger, but remember, ford said. Infact all these manufacturers are saying the same thing. A diesel is the answer, that I know.
I need to clear one other thing up. When I said the F250 was $1000 over the original price, that was not counting the loss I am going to take on trade with my F150. I paid $34,800 for the truck. I owe $32,500. Trade in and keep in mind that this is highest out of 5 dealerships, is $29000. After rebates on an 05 F250 I am at $32500, now add the other $3500 for negative equity, we hit $36000. That equates to about another $60-70/month. This F250 has the auto, with tow haul and camper package,single CD, pwr locks-windows.A very lightly equipped xlt. Thats it. Steel wheels, no privacy glass. Pretty plain. Now if I could get ford to buy back my truck, I would be able to get into a nicely equipped xlt. I'm willing to give up the luxury of the lariat so I can do something that ford said I could do in the first place. Why did I wait until I had 5k mile on the truck? One because we were informed to let the motor get some what broke in before towing heavy loads and two so we could get some things paid off so we can keep entertaining ourselves and our kids. Am I complaining? You're damn right I am. Why should I have to use common sense when ford worked that out for me in the first place, as long as I am in THEIR LIMITS? Brakes were not a problem. Infact I don't know anywhere in all of this I mentioned brakes, not to mention going 70mph. Yes I made a mistake, but am I responsible for that when the publication put out by ford not by the dealership gave me the specs that said go for it?
Now I see some of the feedback that says I bought the wrong truck. Did anyone of you write the book? So what you are saying is that ford lyed. Thank you, you are right. This truck goes in the shop next week for the leaky rearend and to fix the timing issue. The rear end just so happens to be leaking where the axle goes into the gear housing. It started after I dropped the trailer off as well as the black crap rolling out the tail pipe. hmmm. Remember ford said... Refer to my next response. Check those #'s before you buy.

 

Mitch and crashz,

Thank you. I checked those guides. My GCWR on this truck is max 14500#, well I did some figuring and I was at about 14,300#. That's pretty darn sneaky. At least I wasn't over. The info. in my manual is on pages 180-185. The 05 trailer weights site says pages 16-21. Finally an answer. I guess I'll let it go at that. It sounds like I'm not the only one pushing it though. 17" rims would give me another 500#, but still to close. Need bigger truck.

Thanks for pointing that out.
Darrin