will it pull?

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zuess35

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Hey guys and gals needing some input from those who know. Im going to look at a 99 holiday rambler alum lite 32fks tommorow and this will be my first TT. from what I can find the dry weight is 7100lbs and I drive a 2011 F150 with the 3.5 eco boost V6 which I believe is rated to 11,100 towing. my question is will a 32' TT put too much weight on the hitch and rear end or should it be ok? any helpful info/advice would be greatly appreciated. I would much rather look for a smaller TT if that ends up being the case versus getting a bigger truck as the truck is paid for and who doesn't hate car payments lol
 
Hey guys and gals needing some input from those who know. Im going to look at a 99 holiday rambler alum lite 32fks tommorow and this will be my first TT. from what I can find the dry weight is 7100lbs and I drive a 2011 F150 with the 3.5 eco boost V6 which I believe is rated to 11,100 towing. my question is will a 32' TT put too much weight on the hitch and rear end or should it be ok? any helpful info/advice would be greatly appreciated. I would much rather look for a smaller TT if that ends up being the case versus getting a bigger truck as the truck is paid for and who doesn't hate car payments lol
Well this is an age old question. Your rated weights all meet the criteria of being able to work. One of the key things is what rear end do you have when you get to any higher elevations, even though you live in a mountainous state after loading both your truck and camper for a trip. I would not be comfortable for extended trips for any length of time from the homefront of Colorado. Do you have a built in brake controller on your dash?

Also with the age of that camper you may want to look at the manufacture date on the tires , check over the brakes themselves and the bearings at the very minimum before wandering too far, if you purchase the camper.
 
I have a 2020 F150 with maxtow. Not in a million years would I put that trailer behind me. Way more variables than brochure numbers, wind being your enemy. Keep it at 25' and 7k max weight for a decent experience.
 
Agree with the length being more of an issue than the weight, though that is non-trivial. We had a 30’ actual length TT, fully loaded weight of 7800 pounds. Towed it with a Toyota Tundra for 9 months, 10,500 tow capacity. It was awful. Mileage was <7 mpg, lots of wind bothers, just not a good experience, and we were experienced TT owners! We ended up with a 3/4 ton Ram diesel that was a joy to tow with. Not encouraging you to get another tow vehicle, but definitely
ook at a shorter, lighter trailer.
 
Your F150 will physically pull it OK - the engine power is not a concern. The tongue weight, however, is quite possibly a bit much, and the length (about 35 ft overall) will be straining the capability of any half-ton truck.

You need the trailer GVWR (dry weight is meaningless) so you can estimate the trailer tongue weight when loaded. The tongue weight will have to be 10%-12% of the loaded trailer weight to avoid sway, so you are probably talking 800-1000 lbs, PLUS the weight of the hitch and any gear & people loaded in the truck. You will also want to know the truck rear axle GAWR if the total weights are near the truck GVWR.

What your are proposing is to hook a roughly 9500 lb "tail" to a 5500 lb "dog" and hoping the tail doesn't ever wag. If properly set up and balanced, and nothing out of the ordinary happens on the highway, it probably tows fine. But what is there are cross-winds, or some idiot driver cuts you off and you have to swerve or jam the brakes? You get the picture?
 
First lets get this out of the way; never use unloaded weight when considering a trailer. Well, that is unless you plan to camp that way.
Always use the gross vehicle weight rating.
This online towing calculator will accurately and without bias, safely match your truck to a trailer.
When someone asks if their tow vehicle can pull something, I'm reminded of the video of a washing machine gas motor pulling a locomotive.
The question should be, can my tow vehicle safely handle this trailer.

About your truck, if it has "P" rated tires change to LT rated tires. The P designation is car tires with thinner sidewalls. These thinner sidewalls allow tires to bend sideways more when cornering or driving in a stiff side-wind. Mfgrs. install them so prospective buyers notice the smooth ride.
LT tires has stiffer sidewalls to reduce the effect described previously.

Please use that online calculator and post the results here. You will note the calculator requires some actual weights instead of mfgrs. published figures.
The tongue weight of that trailer will be close to 12% of GVWR depending on how it is loaded.
 
Agree with the length being more of an issue than the weight, though that is non-trivial. We had a 30’ actual length TT, fully loaded weight of 7800 pounds. Towed it with a Toyota Tundra for 9 months, 10,500 tow capacity. It was awful. Mileage was <7 mpg, lots of wind bothers, just not a good experience, and we were experienced TT owners! We ended up with a 3/4 ton Ram diesel that was a joy to tow with. Not encouraging you to get another tow vehicle, but definitely
ook at a shorter, lighter trailer.kk

I agree with UTTransplant. I would not attempt to tow that trailer with a half ton truck. Our trailer is plenty for our 3/4 ton truck and it is 28 feet (really 31 from tongue to rear bumper) and 6200 lbs empty. It is 7500 lbs loaded. That is a lot of "sail" behind our truck. I would not want anything bigger.
 
So I have driven both the 2011 F150 twin turbo 3.5 liter and a 2017 F150. The older truck will tow a 32 foot, 7200 pound trailer very happily. The newer F150s are something like 1500 pounds lighter, I wouldn't trust one of them to do it.

That older F150 was one of the heaviest half tons ever made, and the turbocharger means you won't lose power at altitude.

I towed a 10,000+ lb trailer with my 2011 F150, it didn't miss a beat. Also a 27 foot Jayco Jayfeather, it handled that just fine too.

Use a WD hitch. I believe Ford requires it for something that heavy on an F150 and it really helps.

Remember Fords GCWR means one driver no passengers and barely any fuel, but the max trailer weight is still 11,200 lbs and the max payload package gives you a GVWR of 7650 lbs. That leaves nearly 1700 pounds for your trailer and passengers. It's doable if you aren't at the maximum.

I also have to add there's nothing wrong with a trailer weighing more than the tow vehicle... Semis that weigh 15 to 20K pounds pull trailers that weigh 40 to 60K pounds pretty much every second of every day. Yes, they're purpose built towing vehicles, but what would you call a vehicle equipped with the factory max tow package?

I had to edit this - do you have max tow? The F150 in 2011 could be optioned with everything from a 5,000 pound to 11,300 pound towing capacity. If you have huge extendable mirrors then you probably have the max tow package. If you don't you'll have to look up the actual capacity.
 
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I also live in Colorado and tow a 25 footer (6,200 lb dry weight) with a 3/4 ton with a 4.10-1 axle ratio and a 6.4L. The average elevation across the entire state is 6,800 feet. This high altitude reduces what a F-150 can tow. It also reduces what my truck can tow. It's a 2% towing capacity reduction for every 1,000 feet in elevation above sea level. It's stated in the F-150 owners manual.


Drive from the low attitude of Denver at 5,280 feet elevation up the 5,000 to 6,000 feet of any of the mountain passes heading west and reduce your towing capacity by over 20%. Even in Denver it's a 10% reduction.
 
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I also live in Colorado and tow a 25 footer (6,200 lb dry weight) with a 3/4 ton with a 4.10-1 axle ratio and a 6.4L. The average elevation across the entire state is 6,800 feet. This high altitude reduces what a F-150 can tow. It also reduces what my truck can tow. It's a 2% towing capacity reduction for every 1,000 feet in elevation above sea level. It's stated in the F-150 owners manual.


Drive from the low attitude of Denver at 5,280 feet elevation up the 5,000 to 6,000 feet of any of the mountain passes heading west and reduce your towing capacity by over 20%. Even in Denver it's a 10% reduction.
The reason for the reduction is the thinner air which reduces available engine power. If you have a turbocharged engine like the Ecoboost or one of the baby diesels you could get in an F150 for a few years it will tow just as well at altitude as at sea level. It's very important to note that this means that you can not, under any circumstances, use the so-called "regular" gas grade in the mountains. It's 85 octane because the thinner air reduces compression in a NA engine, turbocharged engines will not get along well with it and will automatically severely reduce engine power to avoid pre-detonation (engine knock) if you try it. They're basically knocking under 87 octane anyway, they're not running at 100% power without 91 octane especially towing.
 
Per the Ford article (below)

"With Ford’s EcoBoost engines, they’re capable of maintaining their performance at high altitude better because they’re able to adjust their turbos to spin faster to accommodate the different air intake. However, they can still lose performance."

91 octane is at a much higher pump price in Western Colorado. The Ecoboost gets under 5 MPG towing up the Ike Gauntlet per TFL. I am glad that I can burn 85 Octane in my 6.4L due to its the only grade in town of gasoline sold near my home in Mesa. 87 and 91 are a 30 mile round trip mountainous drive away. 85 gas was $5.999 a gallon when I left home in October, but it's the last chance gas heading over the 11,000 foot summit for another 39 miles.
 
Per the Ford article (below)

"With Ford’s EcoBoost engines, they’re capable of maintaining their performance at high altitude better because they’re able to adjust their turbos to spin faster to accommodate the different air intake. However, they can still lose performance."

91 octane is at a much higher pump price in Western Colorado. The Ecoboost gets under 5 MPG towing up the Ike Gauntlet per TFL. I am glad that I can burn 85 Octane in my 6.4L due to its the only grade in town of gasoline sold near my home in Mesa. 87 and 91 are a 30 mile round trip mountainous drive away. 85 gas was $5.999 a gallon when I left home in October, but it's the last chance gas heading over the 11,000 foot summit for another 39 miles.

Yeah when you consider that Ford recommends 91 octane (minimum) for an Ecoboost to tow regardless of altitude... Well, they'll pull like crazy but you're not really saving any money. 91 is about $1 more a gallon here, it's usually about the price of diesel. Some people who might (or might not) be in my family drag raced (which they might or might not have done on an active runway) an F150 3.5 Ecoboost with a 6.2 GMC 1500, they said the 6.2 eventually won but it was a tight race.
 
Yeah when you consider that Ford recommends 91 octane (minimum) for an Ecoboost to tow regardless of altitude... Well, they'll pull like crazy but you're not really saving any money. 91 is about $1 more a gallon here, it's usually about the price of diesel. Some people who might (or might not) be in my family drag raced (which they might or might not have done on an active runway) an F150 3.5 Ecoboost with a 6.2 GMC 1500, they said the 6.2 eventually won but it was a tight race.
Eventually as with our 2014 Ram 2500 4x4 Cummins the turbo will spin too fast much too often at high altitude and it wears out like everything else does. It was a pricey replacement for the Cummins though. I still have the original with no mechanical engine issues at approximately 300,000 miles on each on our 1978 and 1998 pickups, and over 100,000 miles on our 2016 Ram 2500 Power Wagon. All four have towed.

The diesel engine with a turbo is far superior at our high elevation than any of my gas engines including our small block Mercruiser in the boat. Vega Reservoir is at 7,700 feet elevation and the Mercruiser 5.0L runs with a dinky propeller to make it to 4,000 RPM @ WOT enabling it to hit 35 MPH versus 55 MPH plus at sea level with a full size large prop.
 
Hey guys and gals needing some input from those who know. Im going to look at a 99 holiday rambler alum lite 32fks tommorow and this will be my first TT. from what I can find the dry weight is 7100lbs and I drive a 2011 F150 with the 3.5 eco boost V6 which I believe is rated to 11,100 towing. my question is will a 32' TT put too much weight on the hitch and rear end or should it be ok? any helpful info/advice would be greatly appreciated. I would much rather look for a smaller TT if that ends up being the case versus getting a bigger truck as the truck is paid for and who doesn't hate car payments lol

It should pull that. I pulled a 27' Jayco Jayflight that was about 4700 pounds empty and 7100 pounds loaded. It was ABSOLUTELY loaded, all of the tanks were filled to overflowing when this picture was taken. This was with a 2011 F-150 Ecoboost with the Max Tow package and a WDH for my cousin. You could certainly tell it was back there but the truck handled it just fine. The weight of the trailer wasn't the issue, the wind resistance is what really pissed the truck off. It dropped down to 4th gear a few times to pull a hill that it was able to pull in 5th gear with an 11,000 pound flatbed with a tractor on it, way more aerodynamic.

I'll see if I can find pictures of it hooked up

Found it. Sorry about the watermark, I'm not paying those bastards at Photobucket anything since they won't even let me look at my old pictures without paying them money.
2011-08-04_17-58-14_172.jpg
 
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Hey guys and gals needing some input from those who know. Im going to look at a 99 holiday rambler alum lite 32fks tommorow and this will be my first TT. from what I can find the dry weight is 7100lbs and I drive a 2011 F150 with the 3.5 eco boost V6 which I believe is rated to 11,100 towing. my question is will a 32' TT put too much weight on the hitch and rear end or should it be ok? any helpful info/advice would be greatly appreciated. I would much rather look for a smaller TT if that ends up being the case versus getting a bigger truck as the truck is paid for and who doesn't hate car payments lol
Here's a thread from the F150 forum where we're all going on about how awesome the 2011 F150 is at towing - this was when they were new, before people knew about the timing chain issues (keep the oil changed!), and before Dodge and Chevy had got their head out of their rear end and started releasing their own small turbo gas or diesel engines.


As you can see, everyone loved their Ecoboost for towing, several people discuss towing travel trailers, and even discuss travel trailers larger than yours. You'll be fine.
 

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