# Whos Towing With A 2010 F-150?



## Duanesz (Jul 10, 2009)

My wife and I have been talking about having 3 vehicles and the extra cost involved in having 3 with only 2 drivers. Right now we have her mini van and f-250 diesel and my focus. I need to have a car that gets good mileage with my drive to work. then we have the mini van which hauls the kids and grocery's and finally the 250 to pull the camper 25rss.

I kind of hinted if she would drive a pickup we could kill two birds with one stone her truck could be the tow vehicle too.

We went to the dealer today and drove a new crew cab lariat wow is that a nice truck. She liked it rode smooth quiet power seemed pretty good also. I would get the max tow package with the 3.73 gears.

I have not been to impressed with my 7.3 as far a power goes. So how does your new 150 pull and what were you pulling with before?


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## Dan Borer (Feb 6, 2009)

I have an '09 F150 with MaxTow and the 3.73 limited slip rear. I tow my '08 Sydney 29RLS with it. It does a wonderful job while towing and my many trips up and down the central valley of California towing yeild a little over 10 mpg. I also have occassion to run from Calexico up to Fresno on a regular basis solo and average right near 20 mpg. I have 57,000 miles on it in the 17 months I've had it and I just put on Bilstein HD shocks and replaced the only half worn Michelin tires with BFG All Terrain KO tires in load range E. Towing the Sydney 250 miles last week and noticed some improvement on an already great tow vehicle. Look at some of my old posts to see what I think of the truck/trailer combo. The only concern with this F150 is how much can be carried in the bed of the truck while towing. I weighed my rig as we left on our last trip and here is what I have loaded with food, water, clothes and ready to roll:

Truck truck/trailer GWR

Front 3140 3200 3600
Rear 2680 3640 4000
Total 5820 6840 7000
Hitch 1020 1150
TT Tires 7220 9600
TT Total 8240 11,300
Combined 14,040 16,900

As the numbers show, I am close on the truck GVWR and hitch weight. I can still add over 1,300 properly placed pounds until I hit the TT GVWR and will still be well under max towed weight and GCWR. The new style F150 is a great tow vehicle and I don't see any need to move up to a 3/4 ton vehicle or a diesel at this time. As stated in previous posts I can pull the Grapevine in both directions without any issues while on cruise and only slow if something slow pulls out in front of me.


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## pocman (Apr 9, 2010)

I have a 2010 F150 with the 5.4 3.73 max tow package and tow a 2010 Outback 301BQ. We are a family of 3, I towed the camper 2600kms home from Ohio where I purchased it, no problems. The park we use is only about 160kms from home, but I would not hesitate to tow it further. On the bigger hills, I do slow down to 75kms/hr, but I don't push the truck either. I can maintain 100kms/hr on the highway at 2200rpms and the trailer is not pushing the truck.

Our camping season here is 10 weeks long, I could not justify buying a bigger truck. Its a great family vehicle, we also have a 2009 Honda Civic that we use quite a bit as well.

I don't think that I would tow a 5th wheel, given the pin weight, but a 7000-8000lb trailer would be reasonable.

Good luck


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## svinc (Jun 1, 2010)

I have a 2010 F150 Lariat 5.4 Maxtow package Supercab 3.73 LSD 4x4 and took it out this weekend to pick up my new 250RS from lakeshore RV in Michigan. I am from Pittsburgh, going up I averaged 16.8MPG (no trailer) coming back I was around 9.8mpg

With the E2 WDH and the trailer sway/integrated brake controller that trailer was straight as an arrow. It did a wonderful job towing home.


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## vacane (Jun 4, 2010)

I tow with a 2010 F-150 5.4 XLT SCrew with 3.55 gears. Wish I would have found one with the 3.73 but I wanted the longer bed and black so I will just settle for putting in 4.10 or 4.30 gears in the Spring. We have a 28RSS that weighs probably a bit over 6K when loaded and don't have any problems. Wish it was a little better on the big hills, but the gears will help with that. The new F-150s are great trucks and the ride is smooth and quiet.


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## Duanesz (Jul 10, 2009)

Hows the tow haul mode work? I see the gear shift has 123 D. How do you get it to stay in 4th gear for towing so the trans don't hunt for a gear to be in? It has two overdrive gears like .87 and .62 for 5th and 6th. I know on my 03 150 it did not like to pull in overdrive and would shift in and out to maintain speed.

Duane


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## gpndave (May 21, 2010)

I bought a 2010 F150 HD tow pkg, 4x4 a couple weeks ago and have logged 5000 towing miles across the Rockies and back so far. I am towing a 210RS weighing 6000lbs loaded and using a Equalizer WDH. Great tow vehicle. The six speed tranny in tow haul does the thinking for you. It really earns points on the down hill sections by down shifting and holding when you tap the brakes. I only manually down shifted once climbing a 11,000' pass east of Vail, CO. 
This is my first truck as I was towing with a Jeep GC. This F150 was built to tow and kudos to the software engineers who prorgammed the tow/haul tranny. 
BTW - per owners manual, I had to put 1000mi on the truck before towing. On those first two tanks it averaged 18 mpg. I am getting 9-10 towing.


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## Dan Borer (Feb 6, 2009)

All you can or need to do is hook up the trailer, punch the Tow/Haul button and be on your way. The computer does it all from that point on. My 29RLS weighs 8240 pounds and the trans does downshift as needed but does it very smoothly and without any fanfare. The trans temp never varies and always remains in the lower half of the gauge. There was an issue with the early '09 programming and the dealer reprogrammed the computer and it has been perfect since. Ford really did a great job on this truck.


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## MacTeam (Jul 27, 2008)

We have a 2008 F150 crew cab with the 5.4l 3.73 max tow package. We tow a 2010 295RE (gross 8,600lbs). No real issues towing on our last trip to Prince Edward Island and back (3,600km) except that on one very windy day I really had to hold on to her, not so much sway but just the back end of the truck got pushed around a lot. I didn't have much in the truck bed which might have helped if I had.

Also going through the long hills of northern NB she really strained. Average fuel economy was 27l/100km (no idea what that means in mpg).

Next summer a 2011 F-250 diesel will replace it and all shall be well again.


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