Any Experience with Ford Tow Haul Feature
TV here is a 2013 Expedition with the 5.4 and six speed auto transmission. We pulled our flatbed 1600 miles with total weight of 3500 pounds. DW did the vast majority of the driving and complained...
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Thanks for the responses. This is our 4th Expedition with the 5.4, and we've towed the same load with two of them. As I mentioned, it's helpful on the downgrades. We always took the others out of overdrive and even into 2nd. Living where we do you learn to control speeds without braking. Too often we smell the brakes of that car ahead of us that's had its brake lights on the last two miles. Every once in a while there is an accident because they lost their brakes. Two women were killed when just that happened a few years ago as they descended Pikes Peak Highway.
This load we haul is less than half the vehicle's tow capacity, and this engine has quite a bit more hp and torque than the older ones. Since you all are saying it's operating as designed, we'll just go with it and not worry. But I'm probably going to continue to believe it's dropping a gear too far with such a light load.
We're going back the same route in several weeks and plan on using the 2004 Expy this time. The load will be the same, and I'm going to take careful note of how the engine performs on upgrades simply turning off overdrive. We both try to do that manuallyk before the transmission does it.
The trip down doesn't have any steep upgrades to speak of, but we will miss the TH feature on the several 6 to 8% downgrades, requiring dropping into to 2nd with the older car. The return trip of course will see us climbing those grades. Just take it slower, drop a gear and keep the rpm's up.
Thanks again. It's always great to get good input.
This load we haul is less than half the vehicle's tow capacity, and this engine has quite a bit more hp and torque than the older ones. Since you all are saying it's operating as designed, we'll just go with it and not worry. But I'm probably going to continue to believe it's dropping a gear too far with such a light load.
We're going back the same route in several weeks and plan on using the 2004 Expy this time. The load will be the same, and I'm going to take careful note of how the engine performs on upgrades simply turning off overdrive. We both try to do that manuallyk before the transmission does it.
The trip down doesn't have any steep upgrades to speak of, but we will miss the TH feature on the several 6 to 8% downgrades, requiring dropping into to 2nd with the older car. The return trip of course will see us climbing those grades. Just take it slower, drop a gear and keep the rpm's up.
Thanks again. It's always great to get good input.
