Downshift or exhaust brake?

4x4ord wrote:
I haven't towed hills with my Ford enough to know how to use the system on a hill like that. What I do know is that if I set the cruise control to 35 mph it would descend the hill at 35 mph. My wheel brakes might be very hot at the bottom of the hill though. If I used cruise and I needed to slow a little more for a corner I would have to manually brake which would cancel the cruise and I have to hit resume.

I wouldn't want my service brakes getting hot so on the Ford I wouldn't use cruise. I would try setting my exhaust brake to auto. My expectation with the Ford exhaust brake set to auto is that the system would adjust the exhaust brake based on the brake pedal and accelerator use. So if I slowed to 30 mph using the brake pedal it would try to maintain 30 mph. If it could only mai tain 35 or 40 mph that is how fast I would be descending the grade. If it was maintaining 30 mph and I wanted to go a little faster I would touch the accelerator and speed up to say 35 mph. When I take my foot off the accelerator my expectation would be that the auto system would now be trying to maintain 35 mph.

What are you saying? Do you feel that your Ford uses service brakes to slow when the cruise is on?
I have set my cruise at 55 (not towing)going over Cape Foulweather, and it will apply the EB to slow, if I want to slow more I tap the service brakes, and the EB on full will apply and slow even more.