Towing a 6000 lb trailer with a Taurus?

beemerphile1 wrote:

Hybridhunter wrote:
That is all fine and great. But a lot of those setups will not be legal in many states...

I sure would like to see you try to prove that. State DOT doesn't care about the manufacturer's tow ratings.

Depends...

Cousin 'was' a Sargent in the Calif Highway Patrol...Sacramento area

Quite because he couldn't take the politics any more

He had his employees (patrol folks) check and had portable scales
for most of his troopers. Mostly GAWR violations

He got into lots of trouble as lots of letters written and his bosses
got heat from state legislators, but he persisted and pushed back that
it was the law. Backed it up with documentation

His last straw was when one of his trooper got his knees cut off by
those old shock absorber bumpers and that he had to pick up one too
many little bodies underneath the dash.

Why my advice has 'first decide if you believe in the ratings or not...
if not, then do whatever and know you took the OEM off the liability
hook...or if you do, learn how the ratings system works"



Or provide the 'sure you can' that most come here looking for...knowing
or suspecting that they are not within their ratings. But those OPs
do not understand that there is no contract, nor warranty like the
OEMs provide for their vehicles. Internet advise is worth the price
paid...nothing...

Hybridhunter wrote:
That is all fine and great. But a lot of those setups will not be legal in many states...

I sure would like to see you try to prove that. State DOT doesn't care about the manufacturer's tow ratings.

Road Ruler wrote:

Hybridhunter wrote:
I just got back from a big trip across the US. On one of the steeper climbs, in 104F heat, AC on max, I had to pull over for 2 minutes to let my F150 with towing package (includes "super cooling" upgrade and engine oil cooler).

Exactly!

The engineers set a realistic tow rating of 5,000lbs on your pick up and "marketing" bumped it up to 9,000lbs to trump the competition and boost their high profit truck sales.

There you go.

Nice assumption. My truck does in fact have the EXACT same cooling system as the F150 rated for 10K. I was towing 4k, with 1000lbs in the truck. My point, which you missed, was that it is well equipped to do what I was doing, and with a little abuse, it got hot. Supposedly what I was towing was well within the capabilities you suggest the SHO has. It's just goofy. I likely would have fried the off warranty transmission had I done that with a 1 year old SHO. Costing me thousands.
Your ideas may work, on flat land, at sea level, with timid drivers.

Frankly Andy, I think you are irresponsible, and over-zealous.

Get this....

A buddy has the same make and size 23' TT as us.

He indicated that he didn't want to try pulling his trailer up the climb to Watkins Glen State Park because he only had a 1/2 ton pick up (note V8 and almost new).

A few years ago we did the climb towing our 23' with a V6 mid size sedan. No problem!

Hybridhunter wrote:
I just got back from a big trip across the US. On one of the steeper climbs, in 104F heat, AC on max, I had to pull over for 2 minutes to let my F150 with towing package (includes "super cooling" upgrade and engine oil cooler).

Exactly!

The engineers set a realistic tow rating of 5,000lbs on your pick up and "marketing" bumped it up to 9,000lbs to trump the competition and boost their high profit truck sales.

There you go.

gijoecam wrote:

Tystevens wrote:

Have you been involved in meetings and discussions between the engineers, marketing execs, lawyers, accountants, and everyone else involved in bringing these vehicles to market? If so, I'd love to hear some stories (honestly, I have no idea about your background, but would love to hear stories if you have been involved!). If not, how do you know that one department has no bearing on the other?

Let's just say that I am but one small cog in the machine that makes Ford products and leave it at that. But know that no one person ultimately makes those sorts of decisions. All vehicles are a series of engineering compromises from start to finish. A Taurus could certainly be designed from the ground up to tow those kinds of weights. For a plethora of reasons, it was not. That doesn't mean it is incapable of towing Anything, it simply means it was not designed to do so. A butter knife wasn't designed to be used as a screwdriver, but everybody has done it (and nobody in their right mind would recommend it).

I've chaired Product Design Teams most of my life. Not automotive, but
some pretty big stuff (biggest robots in the world, etc).

There is little difference between them if they are ISO certified.

Before that, designer or individual contributor and member of those
design teams.

A lot of the process (am also a systems and process controls designer)
of Program/Project management and design are dictated by the regulatory agencies


Those agencies level the playing field. As they mandate how stuff is
tested. Missing in my background is crash testing, but destructive
testing (along with the non-destructive testing) similar or the basic
philosophy is similar.

Maybe "not recommended" for towing means that Ford hooked a trailer up to the Taurus and it was not up to the task whatsoever. Or, more likely, maybe a marketing or accounting exec determined that, since Taurus buyers aren't likely to see any value in a tow rating, Ford wouldn't pay a team of engineers to spend the time and money to evaluate and assign a tow rating to the Taurus.

Likely some combination of the two would be my guess...

Have had marketing plead their case to my team because the competition
was eating us in the market place.

Most times nope, but a few times allowed them to change the specification
(within limits) *AFTER* forcing them to work with several other
members of my teams.

Mainly service and legal

Service insisted on relief in their warranty cost (they are graded
and bonuses based on) because by changing the MTBF number, therefore
the rating (spec) would have more warranty claims. Marketing paid
for the increased warranty costs...and....Marketing got that money
from the Sales group who started all this in the first place

Legal then made the 'new' fine print that tech pub's inserted into
the documentation (labels, manual, etc)

Finally, the rest of the team signed off...as the specification is
the teams contract with me and my boss(s) that also had our promotions,
raises, bonuses, etc based

Marketing works....

How many times has Tundra folks and even non-Tundra folks mentioned
or referenced as how tough and capable a Tundra can...as they saw it
tow the Shuttle on national TV/Cable... :S

Tystevens wrote:

Have you been involved in meetings and discussions between the engineers, marketing execs, lawyers, accountants, and everyone else involved in bringing these vehicles to market? If so, I'd love to hear some stories (honestly, I have no idea about your background, but would love to hear stories if you have been involved!). If not, how do you know that one department has no bearing on the other?

Let's just say that I am but one small cog in the machine that makes Ford products and leave it at that. But know that no one person ultimately makes those sorts of decisions. All vehicles are a series of engineering compromises from start to finish. A Taurus could certainly be designed from the ground up to tow those kinds of weights. For a plethora of reasons, it was not. That doesn't mean it is incapable of towing Anything, it simply means it was not designed to do so. A butter knife wasn't designed to be used as a screwdriver, but everybody has done it (and nobody in their right mind would recommend it).

Maybe "not recommended" for towing means that Ford hooked a trailer up to the Taurus and it was not up to the task whatsoever. Or, more likely, maybe a marketing or accounting exec determined that, since Taurus buyers aren't likely to see any value in a tow rating, Ford wouldn't pay a team of engineers to spend the time and money to evaluate and assign a tow rating to the Taurus.

Likely some combination of the two would be my guess...

I just got back from a big trip across the US. On one of the steeper climbs, in 104F heat, AC on max, I had to pull over for 2 minutes to let my F150 with towing package (includes "super cooling" upgrade and engine oil cooler). I wonder how that SHO would do under the circumstances. No heavy duty parts, and no trans temp gauge to warn the operator that the light duty trans is frying.

The SHO might be all fine and dandy for flat-landing, but it's a car, and towing 6 times it's sister SEL's tow rating is not going to end well.

CKNSLS wrote:

You hook something up to something that's not supposed to be hooked up to....kiss your warranty good bye!

this is the biggest load of you know what and I hear it all the time.

WHAT do you think is going to happen requiring warranty repair and unless you specifically told the dealer that you were towing more than you should and felt they shouldn't cover it how are they going to know?

and even if they did, trust me, over 20 years in the business as a dealer manager we were not going to turn away a job of guaranteed paid warranty work by saying we were not going to cover it if we could. Dealers are not manufacturers.

Seems like a really bad idea to me, and I'm not exactly a member of the weight police, although I do (just) stay within my TVs ratings.