[Fot] Tow Vehicle Musings

[Barr, Scott]

Hi all,

I've been towing a 24-foot toy-hauler style trailer for a few years now.  It's 14 feet of "garage" space in the back and 10 feet of RV in the front (toilet, shower, fridge, kitchen area).  All in, full of water, car loaded, it weighs about 9,500 lbs.  I load the trailer so I have about 1,750 pounds of tongue weight, which is technically a little over the payload limit of the truck, but not too bad.

I've been towing with a 2017 F-150, with a max tow package putting towing capacity at about 12,000 lbs. V6 twin turbo EcoBoost with 375hp and 470 ft lb torque.  I use a good weight-distributing hitch and a sway control strut.  And I added Air Lift air suspension to help with the extra load.  Generally speaking, the F-150 has been doing just fine.  But when it's windy the trailer gets a little tail-happy, wagging enough sometimes to set off the truck's automatic trailer sway alarm (it's a big baby...).

So I've been trying to determine whether moving up to an F-250 super duty would make an appreciable difference in the towing performance.  An F-250 is 1000-1500 pounds heavier than my F-150, depending on specs of both trucks.  Is that enough to make a noticeable difference?  Are there other factors that would make it that much better than an F-150?

The F-150 with the twin turbo V6 and 10-speed trans makes for a nice street car, with reasonable mileage (about 19 average) - and it's what I drive all winter.  The F-250 Super Duty will get considerably crappier mileage and will be a less friendly daily driver (I assume).  Not to mention that my F-150 is pretty close to paid off and I'd be taking on another boatload of debt to move up to the F-250.  Which is all to say that the towing performance improvement would need to be considerable before I would make the move.

What say you, towing brain trust?  Is it worth the move?

Scott (B.)
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