Just got back from our first trip with new truck/trailer combo. I am impressed. The truck was very comfortable to drive, got good gas mileage, felt comfortable towing, had little sway, and had power to spare ascending 6% grades. Questions: I always have driven my Fords in tow/haul, then downshifted when descending grades over 5%. I have not downshifted ascending at all. ON one climb coming out of Camp Verde...We got a message on dash display saying engine was running hot and would downshift to lower gear. It did and engine temp dropped dramatically. I don't know if that was normal, or because we were climbing 6% in tow/haul, but forced to ascend slower than we wanted due to traffic. Note: truck had sat idle run after filling up with gas/getting food for kids for 20 minutes right before climb started and we are in AZ, it was 98 degrees. Thoughts?Also, there is drive, M, 1 and 2. Along with tow haul. Let me know what you cruise at. We are pulling 9k, 32 ft.

What year is your truck?Also do you buy 91 octane gas while towing?91 octane is recomended while towing to allow the engine to run leaner, and thus will give better mileage. Did you somehow have the engine in manual shift mode? This would have prevented it from downshifting on it's own when heavy throttle is applied, thus the message on the dash. I would think that having it in drive, and then turn on the tow/haul mode, it would still be shifting itself. However if in M mode, that requires upshifting and downshifting with the up and down buttons, and the transmission is not trying to change gears on it's own. M mode is what I used while going down a 5% grade in city traffic, where the speed limit is 35 MPH, and all the cars in front of my have their brake lights on! I just downshift, and coast down the steep hill. Then hopefully remember to shift back into D at the bottom of the hill, so that the transmission will select the gears for me.Fred.

Thoughts?When you're passing twice the amount of fuel and air of a normally aspirated engine, turbocharged engines will get hot very quickly.When you have a very small engine and cram it full of air and fuel you won't have much of a duty cycle.When pushed to the max in hot weather the EB will get hot and derate to save itself. A premium fuel will give you a slight cushion from the derate. Octane boost will give you even more.

Thermal dynamics...Smaller V6 will have less surfaces to conduct/radiate/convect/etc heat awayAs Turtle says, it has the performance of a big block (amount of air/fuel), butin a small V6Heat rejection rates will be less, so the cooling systems must work harderwith higher flow rates (GPH, CFM, etc) both inside the engine and outsideso, when working that hard..the cooling systems lose ground and heats up everythingComputerized, so it is smart enough to dial back the amounts of power...shiftdown to both save the tranny & engine.

OP, there is a bit of misinformation here(which is probably due to some not owning a turbocharged engine) so watch out who you get info from and do a bit of research to verify. First off, higher octane does make the engine run lean. It only allows the engine to advance timing since the higher octane fuel is more resistant to "pre-detonation". High loads and high temps will generally increase the chances of pre-detonation with regular octane so a premium octane is recommended in these cases.Secondly, high temps are not only due to it being a small engine. With a turbocharged engine of any size you have to watch your EGTs(Exhaust Gas Temperature). EGT's will shoot up really high when the engine is at low rpm, but a high load/boost on the turbo. As I said this will happen in any size turbocharged engine whether it is your Ecoboost, a 6.7L Cummins, or a 15L Cat/Cummins. The cause is being in to high of a gear in a high load/boost situation. With the amount of torque these engines put out they can pull a hill in a higher gear, but it is not wise to do so for long hills due to the EGTs. Take my 6.7L Cummins for example. Power wise, it will pull 7k up a hill in 6th gear at 1500 rpm doing 70 mph all day long. However, this low rpm and high boost situation causes my EGTs to sky rocket on lomg hills so I drop it down to 5th to around 2000 rpm to keep the EGTs down. This happens with big 18 wheeler diesels as well so it does not matter the engine size and each engine type has its right rpm range to keep its EGTs down. What probably happen in your case was that it was pulling a hill at too low of a gear which caused your EGTs to go up along with your turbos. Since your turbos are water and oil cooled, this caused your coolant temp to go up as well. The truck nannies probably kicked in to drop you to a lower gear to raise the rpms so your EGTs will drop. With my 2011 Ecoboost, I have an app that tells me my temps. If I am pulling a hill in the 2000-3000 rpm range then I EGTs would start to climb on a long hill. If I dropped it down a gear to pull the hill at 3000-4000rpm then the EGTs always stayed at a safe temp along with the coolant temp.

Golden_HVAC wrote:What year is your truck?Also do you buy 91 octane gas while towing?91 octane is recomended while towing to allow the engine to run leaner, and thus will give better mileage. Did you somehow have the engine in manual shift mode? This would have prevented it from downshifting on it's own when heavy throttle is applied, thus the message on the dash. I would think that having it in drive, and then turn on the tow/haul mode, it would still be shifting itself. However if in M mode, that requires upshifting and downshifting with the up and down buttons, and the transmission is not trying to change gears on it's own. M mode is what I used while going down a 5% grade in city traffic, where the speed limit is 35 MPH, and all the cars in front of my have their brake lights on! I just downshift, and coast down the steep hill. Then hopefully remember to shift back into D at the bottom of the hill, so that the transmission will select the gears for me.Fred.Truck is 2014. I did not put in M - as I did not even know what that was for. My CLass C did not have an M. I merely put it in D and clicked tow/haul and was good until longer downgrades where I would shift to 2 or 1 so that I did not use brakes. This truck - I kept in D with tow/haul. Question, how do you manually downshift in M mode? I will try higher octane fuel. The truck did shift automatically, dont know why it gave me the dash warning. I thought it did its job!

F150 ecoboost towing | Good Sam Community

Tystevens
Explorer
Jun 17, 2015
ShinerBock wrote:
Watch this video.

Ford SelectShift

Yep, just tap the '-' button once, twice if needed. Remember to tap the '+' once you get to the top of the hill, or you'll be limited to 4th!

Good luck. Just takes a trip or 2 to get things worked out.
CantCampEnuf
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
ShinerBock wrote:
Watch this video.

Ford SelectShift

Shiner that was great. Thank you for link. Will try this on trip to CA next weekend. Only one climb, but 7 hours worth of towing.
ShinerBock
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
Watch this video.

Ford SelectShift
CantCampEnuf
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
So when ascending hill, i see RPM are too low... I decide I need to downshift, is that pressing accelerator to floor to DS? IS that the only way to do it? I am sure I dont want to shift the truck in 2 and go up hill.... correct?
CantCampEnuf
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
Tystevens wrote:
OP, it sounds to me like the truck did its job and handled the situation. I personally wouldn't worry about it.

But ShinerBock's description of what is going on with lower rpms and EGTs is on point. I would continue to just operate in D. If you see temps rise, or have a long climb w/ your rpms stuck under 2k rpm, downshift a gear and let more air run through the engine. Personally, I downshift before the truck gets to the point of having to do it on its own (only have seen temps rise a couple times in conditions similar to what you've described, so it isn't like it is an every-trip scenario), but the truck is managing the issue appropriately, and I feel confident in saying you didn't hurt anything.

Good luck. These Ecoboosts really tow well. Compared to the naturally aspirated 1/2 tons I've owned or driven, the EB takes the take with a trailer hooked up to it!

Great. Thank you! I was very pleased in how this truck towed. In comparison to the Excursion/Sprinter combination we used to have... no contest. Ecoboost felt better, preformed better and got 11.5 mpg.
Tystevens
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
OP, it sounds to me like the truck did its job and handled the situation. I personally wouldn't worry about it.

But ShinerBock's description of what is going on with lower rpms and EGTs is on point. I would continue to just operate in D. If you see temps rise, or have a long climb w/ your rpms stuck under 2k rpm, downshift a gear and let more air run through the engine. Personally, I downshift before the truck gets to the point of having to do it on its own (only have seen temps rise a couple times in conditions similar to what you've described, so it isn't like it is an every-trip scenario), but the truck is managing the issue appropriately, and I feel confident in saying you didn't hurt anything.

Good luck. These Ecoboosts really tow well. Compared to the naturally aspirated 1/2 tons I've owned or driven, the EB takes the take with a trailer hooked up to it!
CantCampEnuf
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
tragusa3 wrote:
I don't have the background of some of the knowledgeable posters you've had, but wanted to add that I manually downshift on grades. The engine is very reluctant to do so itself. It never seems to be "lugging", but I feel more comfortable up above 2k rpm while climbing. Hearing the comments of better cooling at higher rpm, I may start keeping it even a little higher.

So, define manually downshifting to me. Will you shift to 2 or lock out 5 and 6 while in D? Or will you go M and pick your gear?
marcsbigfoot20b
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
Just came back from Greer to Phoenix. Some pretty decent hills and 90+ degrees. Even in my 7.3 Ford I have to downshift to 3rd to keep my EGTs down. Lugging the engine even on small but long hills and the temps shoot up. Just one more reason that I want the power to tow 65+ UP the hills so I can have plenty of airflow to keep things cool.
tragusa3
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
I don't have the background of some of the knowledgeable posters you've had, but wanted to add that I manually downshift on grades. The engine is very reluctant to do so itself. It never seems to be "lugging", but I feel more comfortable up above 2k rpm while climbing. Hearing the comments of better cooling at higher rpm, I may start keeping it even a little higher.
Turtle_n_Peeps
Explorer
Jun 16, 2015
RobertRyan wrote:
Turtle n Peeps wrote:
Thoughts?

When you're passing twice the amount of fuel and air of a normally aspirated engine, turbocharged engines will get hot very quickly.

When you have a very small engine and cram it full of air and fuel you won't have much of a duty cycle.

When pushed to the max in hot weather the EB will get hot and derate to save itself.

A premium fuel will give you a slight cushion from the derate. Octane boost will give you even more.

Totally agree. You making a basically small engine do something that a bigger gas engine or diesel do with less stress.Also the EB's fuel efficiency drops off under load, you have to drop it down in gears to save the engine

I can take my 6.6 liter LBZ Dmax and turn it up to 600 HP. Or I can just buy a 15 liter C15 with 600 HP.

This is a good example of what Ford is doing with the EcoBoost. They take a small engine and turn it up. Where as the big Cat can live all day at 600 HP the Dmax will not live very long at all at the 600 HP level.

The HUGE size of the C15 along with its cooling system can suck up and reject a lot of heat; the Dmax will melt down like a stick of butter in the Az sun at the 600 HP level.

Much like the example above the Ecoboost does not have a lot of duty cycle.

Bottom line is, it's easy to make HP with a turbocharger. It's extremely hard to deal with the heat it puts out. OP, you ran into both.

Forum Discussion

F150 ecoboost towing

About Travel Trailer Group

Related Content

F150 Ecoboost Stock Versus Tuned

Ecoboost 3.5 Towing MPG Sucks

Max Tow F150s

F150 tow vehicle

My 2018 F150 Towing Experience