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.
2018 F150 Max Tow with 6.5 "long" bed.
2019 Coachman Freedom Express Liberty 292BHDSLE
