5,000 mile F150 Ecoboost 10speed pulling 8,000 review

[Procrastinator]

First, my history. I have been camping and towing RV's for about 18 years now. I have owned and towed 3) 5th wheels and 3 travel trailers in that time. The largest was 38 feet long and the shortest was 28 feet long.

I have towed with these trailers with three different dually's a '98 Ram 3500, a '05 Ram 3500, and a '05 F350. I also towed with a heavily modified '03 Excursion.

When I transitioned to travel trailers, I bought a used Hensley Arrow off craigslist.

My current truck is an F150 3.5 Ecoboost 10 speed with Max Tow option. The max tow has 157" wheelbase and the 6.5 feet bed, a 36-gallon fuel tank, and additional oil cooler. As soon as I bought it, I replaced the factory tires with 10 ply E load tires. I also replaced all the shocks with Bilstein 5100 series and "leveled" the front with them. I added Air Lift's ride control airbags and their onboard air compressor so I can adjust the air pressure within the cab as needed.

Our current trailer is a Coachman Freedom Express 292BHDSLE. Its dry weight was 6622 lbs. According to Forest River's website, the GVWR is "TBD". Prior to this trip, we loaded the trailer and truck with "everything" that we were taking on this trip and we scaled the truck empty, with the trailer with no weight distribution, and trailer with weight distribution.

Yes, we were close to running out of payload on our truck, but we were within specs. The trailer was coming in around 7,500 lbs and we surely added a few hundred pounds more in the last-ditch loading.

The trip was from St. Louis, Missouri area, westbound across I-40 to Santa Cruz, California and returning eastbound across I-80. The total miles that we drove was 5017 miles. I budgeted the trip at 8 mpg and I am glad I did. Total average mpg was 9.2 mpg with towing the trailer about 98% of the miles.

The F150 is not a one-ton dually and it did not perform like one. Like others have written, it has plenty of power. There was only one time on a mountain pass in Wyoming that I finally felt the floorboard under the gas pedal, and even then I was passing almost every other slowed vehicle. At all other times, the truck had plenty of power to spare to crest any hill or mountain faster than I felt like towing the trailer up (ie drinking gasoline even faster)

Yes, in high wind situations I could feel the wind more than I could when towing with my dually. However, the trailer never swayed or got out of control. The towing ride over a long distance was the best I have ever had too.

The worst time towing was in high winds in Oklahoma. The winds were very strong and I was observing large motorhomes and semi-trailers leaning hard and steering into the wind. During this time I learned a very important lesson. The Ford factory anti-sway system and Hensley Arrow type hitches were fighting one another. At this point of the trip, I began to worry that I had made a mistake in buying and towing with a 1/2 ton because the trailer was swaying but I was really fighting the truck and trailer in this wind. My mpg had dropped to 6.3 mpg and it was still coming down. Eventually, I stopped on the shoulder, disabled the factory anti-sway, and immediately took off again. Now, the Hensley could do its job without the truck nanny making it worse. That was a day and night difference.
The factory anti-sway uses the truck's brakes to stop or mitigate sway, but the Hensley couldn't do its job without the F150 sway control. Think "Hensley Bump", and the truck was continuously activating its brakes making the sway worse and then braking again harder. Once I disabled the factory sway, the trailer movement disappeared, and my mpg gallon "jumped" up the 9.4 average.

Yes, now that I moved to a 1/2 ton I am paying more attention to tongue weights and water tank levels than when towing, but I am so pleased with how this thing towed and performed. My wife feels it is one of the best riding set up we have ever had, and she towed over 1000 of those miles and she likes the way it towed too.

After this trip, I can honestly say that I have no regret choosing this truck over my previous HD trucks at this time in my life. If my needs (trailer) change, so will the truck but for the money, it is an amazing truck and it does an amazing job.

[carringb]

Procrastinator wrote:

Bionic Man wrote:
Glad things are working well for you.

Do you think the Ford anti-sway system would be adequate with a standard hitch in place of the Hensley? They are not the only manufacturer using that type of system, I would think there is something to it.

I think the Ford anti-sway would be fine for anything but a Hensley or a pro-pride. As you get into the engineering of those two hitches, you will learn about the "Hensley bump". It's important to have the trailer brake prior or at lease the exact same time as the truck. If not you will get the bump. The Ford anti-sway uses the truck's brakes to stop the sway. I don't know if or how much it uses the trailer brakes. All I know is the hitch works great when not handicapped by the ford system.

^What he says...

The Ford "sway control" system (which is really sway recovery) first tries to limit yaw by individually braking the truck's wheels. If unintended yaw continues, it will apply the trailer brakes next.

The Hensely/Pro-Pride are susceptible to the "bump" any time the truck brakes first. The "bump" can actually induce its own steering moment, which was something I didn't like when towing on ice (when letting off the brakes coming into a sweeping turn, the bump could cause sudden oversteer on ice if I wasn't chained up).

I also suspect that cross-wind induced yaw (where the steering moment is created by an adjacent truck blocking the crosswind momentarily) could potentially be interpreted by the computer as sway, when it really isn't.

[Procrastinator]

Bionic Man wrote:
Glad things are working well for you.

Do you think the Ford anti-sway system would be adequate with a standard hitch in place of the Hensley? They are not the only manufacturer using that type of system, I would think there is something to it.

I think the Ford anti-sway would be fine for anything but a Hensley or a pro-pride. As you get into the engineering of those two hitches, you will learn about the "Hensley bump". It's important to have the trailer brake prior or at lease the exact same time as the truck. If not you will get the bump. The Ford anti-sway uses the truck's brakes to stop the sway. I don't know if or how much it uses the trailer brakes. All I know is the hitch works great when not handicapped by the ford system.

[Bionic_Man]

Glad things are working well for you.

Do you think the Ford anti-sway system would be adequate with a standard hitch in place of the Hensley? They are not the only manufacturer using that type of system, I would think there is something to it.

[kw_00]

Great review, thanks for sharing your experiences with different set ups including your current. Lots of info that you gave and I’m glad that you did. It answers some of my questions about TT and sway control as well with a different set up. I’m glad that it works for you, enjoy!

[jbc28]

Great review. If we ever go to a smaller TT a F150 EB would be at the top of the list.

[Groover]

Lynnmor wrote:
Adding air bags, expensive shocks, an over-priced hitch and then limiting water and other weight, seems like a lot of trouble to avoid the proper 3/4 ton truck.

"My wife feels it is one of the best riding set up we have ever had, and she towed over 1000 of those miles and she likes the way it towed too."

That alone makes it worth everything that he did. Honestly, it was close but I like my 2016 F150 better overall than the 2019 F250 diesel that I rented for several weeks. The ride is so much better and the F250 still needed a load distributing hitch even though the ratings said that it didn't.

[tragusa3]

SidecarFlip wrote:
Don't consider 5K miles to be an adequate review of anything concerning longevity. report back in an additional 20K and let us know your impressions as well as what you've replaced, what broke and what you 'think' at that time.

I've towed about the exact setup for 40k miles (towing) over 5 years. We crossed the country and mountain ranges each time. We switched to a motorhome now, but still have the truck with 80k miles on it. Haven't done a single thing outside of maintenance.

Great write-up!

[FishOnOne]

Impressive report...

[Procrastinator]

To answer a few of the questions, I try to tow between 68-72 mph locking out 9-10 speeds. My speed depends on traffic, road surface temps, and headwinds only due to gas consumption (I am cheap). My speed also depends on how soon I want to get where I am going. Somedays we did 400 miles, other days we did 600 miles.

I am thinking about adding the Hellwig sway bar, I added one to my 7.3 Excurion.

As for longevity, well its got a 200,000-mile warranty on the drivetrain and I buy and sell my vehicles about every 80,000-100,000 miles not because I need to but because I am normally bored with it.

All in all the 3.5 and 10 speed is a great combo.

[Lynnmor]

Adding air bags, expensive shocks, an over-priced hitch and then limiting water and other weight, seems like a lot of trouble to avoid the proper 3/4 ton truck.

[Procrastinator]

manley wrote:
Great write up. I tow very similarly, and have added a Hellwig sway bar to the rear, but no airbags (yet). I also have the same shock setup as you.

I feel the exact same problems with crosswind. Question: how to disable the factory anti sway?
Also, what capacity airbags? (2,000 or 5,000?)

To disable the factory anti-sway, you have to be at a complete stop. Go into your towing settings and scroll to anti-sway and hit OK on the steering wheel.

Not sure if I would disable it if running any of the friction type of hitches.

[Groover]

manley wrote:
Great write up. I tow very similarly, and have added a Hellwig sway bar to the rear, but no airbags (yet). I also have the same shock setup as you.

I feel the exact same problems with crosswind. Question: how to disable the factory anti sway?
Also, what capacity airbags? (2,000 or 5,000?)

Obviously I can't speak for what the op used but I initially put 5,000lb dual channel air bags on my F150 but felt that they ruined the ride. I pulled them off and installed 2,000lb single channel bags and an much happier. I still only put 35psi in them when pulling an 11,000lb trailer so they have plenty of capacity.

[SidecarFlip]

Don't consider 5K miles to be an adequate review of anything concerning longevity. report back in an additional 20K and let us know your impressions as well as what you've replaced, what broke and what you 'think' at that time.

[Learjet]

that must be tough on the brakes, if the Ford system kept applying them in your situation?

[manley]

Great write up. I tow very similarly, and have added a Hellwig sway bar to the rear, but no airbags (yet). I also have the same shock setup as you.

I feel the exact same problems with crosswind. Question: how to disable the factory anti sway?
Also, what capacity airbags? (2,000 or 5,000?)