F350 with Host Yukon flat towing

I had one in my 2005 Ford and it worked well. Now the others have caught up and I have the OEM controller in my 2015 Ram. Prodigy used to be the company that everyone would use and I hope they have diversified their offerings to remain relevant. Can you go to a salvage yard and get one?

Grit dog wrote:


How much is the camper on the truck? 80k mi seems low for rotors especially with an exhaust brake.
Towing a vehicle, no problem, but brakes on the "trailer" wou,d be good. Especially if a lot of mtn miles.

About 4,500, no exhaust brakes although I use the tow/haul mode a lot. Do a lot of mountain driving - I blame the DW's heavy foot on the brake :).

Kind of kicking myself now for not going with the Ford integrated trailer brake system when I ordered the truck.

I flat tow a Wrangler behind my camper 1/2 the time when traveling. With the weight I, and you, will be carrying in the bed you don't want to add any more weight to you GVWR. I have the blue ox tow bar and a brake buddy. There are many brands out there so choose what you like and to your budget. Like many posters stated above you need a supplement brake system for your toad. An extra 4K+ lbs pushing you forward when you try and stop will destroy your trucks braking system and present a hazard for you and drivers around you. The set up will not be cheap initially but will pay off in the long run.

A supplemental system is required by most states if you exceed 3000lbs or can stop the whole rig in a specific distance. That said you are nuts to have even a Miata pushing you down a mountain or into the back of a semi. Brake Buddy has a good state by state listing of regs. Once you have the brake system dialed in you should not even notice the car is there. All my trailers have brakes on all axles and with a 4wd tractor w/loader and box blade on my 22' I can dial em up so it feels like I dropped an anchor off the tailgate of my F250. I've crossed scales at a metal recycler just shy of 24K and as long as I had good brakes, no worries.

ab257 wrote:

Jfet wrote:
Your truck has two ratings. GVWR and GCWR. The first one is for the truck and payload in the truck. The second is for the combined weight of the truck, payload in the truck and weight of towed item.

What is the GVWR and GCWR of your truck?

GVWR is 13,000 which we are pretty close to when fully loaded, GCWR is 23,500 (which is the spec I was looking for).

Pretty sure we will need the brake assist system - had to replace my calipers at 80,000.

How much is the camper on the truck? 80k mi seems low for rotors especially with an exhaust brake.
Towing a vehicle, no problem, but brakes on the "trailer" wou,d be good. Especially if a lot of mtn miles.

Jfet wrote:
Your truck has two ratings. GVWR and GCWR. The first one is for the truck and payload in the truck. The second is for the combined weight of the truck, payload in the truck and weight of towed item.

What is the GVWR and GCWR of your truck?

GVWR is 13,000 which we are pretty close to when fully loaded, GCWR is 23,500 (which is the spec I was looking for).

Pretty sure we will need the brake assist system - had to replace my calipers at 80,000.

We tow a Chevy Tracker behind our Duramax 3500 and the Bigfoot is heavier than a Host. I have to have car(and trailer) braking as we have the smaller discs than your newer Ford. In most states a braking system is required. I just changed from a Brake Buddy to SMI. Never had a problem bulling it.

I tow a JK Wrangler with a F350 DRW and a 10’6” camper, not as heavy as yours and my JK is a two door but I wouldn’t think you would have any problems.
I use the Readybrute tow bar and a Blue Ox baseplate. I use a Curt 34” extension pn 45048, it is also a 2 ½” to 2” adapter so no other parts are needed.

I would suggest a supplemental brake system for your towed vehicle since you are already hauling a heavy camper that relies on the truck brakes. My F250 would feel my 2000 lb flat bed pushing much more than my 8000 lb enclosed trailer because the latter had its own brakes. Your vehicles are probably twice the weight of my flat bed and they will definitely tax the truck when it has 5000+ lbs of camper in the bed.

The advantage to a four down tow is that you have near zero tongue weight so you are not adding a load to your truck's suspension load. Of course you have the strain of getting it all rolling and then you are really looking at your ability to stop the whole affair. Trans coolers, cooling system loads etc. are factors to consider. With a properly setup independent brake controller for the towed you can be pretty darn safe. That and you can move weight from the TC to the towed. Many states have a rather liberal approach that focuses on the combined rig's stopping distance.