Lorimeyer wrote:
We want to get a 2014 Forest River Hemisphere travel trailer that weighs 6,600 lbs. and we're looking at an F150 to pull it.
I found a 2007 Ford F150 5.4L V8 Triton with a towing package. I read online that it will tow a max of 9,500 lbs.
Will the truck handle this particular RV? I'm going to put a brake controller and weight dist. hitch on it also.
Thanks guys.
Do you need the significantly better fuel economy of 1/2 ton truck for daily driving?
When towing, almost all size gas trucks get the same economy, or lack thereof.
The 9500 pound F-150 truck will perform the job you describe. The tires are the weak link and the
only safety concern, since too much overload on them may make them hot and cause a blow out. Fortunately it is an easy fix. If truck load and tongue weight turns out more than you thought, put heavier duty tires on for sure. HD tires will even help prevent squishiness if the load is well within guidelines.
As an example, if you log onto
http://www.tirerack.com, and check for replacing the original tires on a 2007 F-150, you will get a variety of F-150's to choose from. Not all 2007 F-150's are the same and factory capacity guidelines vary widely.
On TireRack, I looked at a F-150 4x4 XLT crewcab, and a similar model listed as Heavy Duty. The first normal duty 1/2 ton has 6 bolt wheels and passenger type Load Range B (35-44 psi inflation) tires. The other HD truck has 7 bolt wheels and Load Range D (50 psi inflation) or Load Range E (80 psi inflation) factory tires. If your truck came with passenger type Load Range B tires, you can safely upgrade the load capacity several hundred pounds by going to heavier tires. This might over the Load Capacity tag on your truck but will usually be within the capacity of a similar truck. The Load Range is likely written on the side of the tires you have on, or are about to buy, now. Letters B,C,D,E with E being heavier duty.
Note that one TireRack listed truck has 7 bolt wheels and one has 6 bolt wheels. This may mean that there is a difference in axles with one being heavier duty. If you mildly overload your axle(s) by 400-500 hundred pounds, the wheel bearings will wear faster. If you overload them by 1000 pounds they will began to wear the wheel bearings really fast. You can avoid wearing out the brakes by simply driving slightly slower; it's an exponential decrease in wear.
The brakes on your lighter duty truck won't make any difference as opposed to a 3/4 ton truck, as they both stop about the same nowadays. The 3/4 ton trucks used to have
poorer brakes than 1/2 tons but they are catching up. Both trucks equally depend on trailer brakes to help stop the hitched rig and no RV stops as fast as decent car, so allow for more stopping distance when towing.
The "Towing Package" usually means a truck has a larger radiator and transmission cooler for sustained towing uphill. A larger transmission cooler used to be a good investment in saving expensive transmissions, but perhaps HD OEM coolers have improved.
Either size truck (1/2, 3/4 ton) will be stable at highway speeds if the trailer load is loaded correctly and the WD (weight distributing) hitch is properly adjusted. The WD hitch does remove some weight from the truck which helps reduce truck load, as in lightened load against Load Capacity. The tongue weight is still there, but partially "distributed" back to the trailer axles. The full non-hitched tongue weight still counts as the recommended 10-15% ratio for stability, even though the truck load is actually lighter when distributed.
Like most camping aficionados that frequent this forum, I prefer a dedicated 3/4 ton or larger, tow vehicle. But I sure wouldn't want to drive them everyday. They are terrible gas pigs and ride poorly. If daily fuel economy was a contention, I wouldn't hesitate to use a 1/2 ton truck for a large camper.
Wes
...
Days spent camping are not subtracted from one's total.
- 2019 Leprechaun 311FS Class C
- Linda, Wes and Quincy the Standard Brown Poodle
