06-11-2019, 05:19 PM
(06-11-2019, 03:45 PM)Jake Wrote: Congrats on the weekend and the trailer! A few thoughts on your towing experience thus far that may help in the future...
1. Check trailer tire pressures. Sidewall will say Max Cold pressure. Set them there. The trailer will be far more susceptible to low tire pressure than an open.
2. Tongue weight. Move the car around in the trailer to figure this out. I keep mine as far back as possible, because I have enough shit in the V-nose and otherwise (parts, wheels, tool cart) that I don't need anything else on the nose to add weight.
3. Leave the truck in Drive and Tow/Haul enabled unless it cannot decide on a gear mid-hill. The transmission logic is smart and should do fine on its own.
4. Yes, you will need to use judicious amounts of throttle up hills. You've got 7k lbs of parasail hanging off the bumper and you want to go 65 mph up a big hill in the heat. The truck will do it just fine, but you have to ask it to gulp in all that air and dump in all that fuel to maintain speed and power.
5. Fuel economy sucks, sorry. The EcoBoost trucks do worse on fuel than the Coyotes as they are more or less always in boost with an enclosed. My 5.0 can do 1-2 mpg better than a 3.5EB with the same enclosed, but the Eco is faster and doesn't work as hard in the same environment.
6. I've found cruise control and towing to be incompatible. Trailers like to be told what to do and some constant throttle helps keep that pimp hand strong. Cruise control will allow too much coasting and suddenly you have the trailer driving the truck a little bit.
You shouldn't have much sway with the trailer properly loaded. The "suck" toward a tractor trailer or large vehicle does happen but should not be super dramatic unless it's combined with heavy winds as you got on the way home. Keep tweaking the configuration and you will get it right. I can cruise with mine at 70+ all day long and have zero drama (it allows for easy burrito-eating).
1. I fixed when I got the trailer
2. I have it adjusted fine now with the weight distro hitch. Can't do that on an empty trailer. I guessed a drop hitch size for pickup. It was slightly more tongue weight than I had with the open loaded up. Doesn't matter now though.
3. It's in tow/haul mode. I leave it cruise control so it sometimes will down shift, lock downshift, lock if there are hills. Instead I just pre downshift.
4. It's more like 6k, but yeah.
5. Yup, something have to get used to
6. Cruise Control is fine with the the weight distro/sway hitch
Everything is fine now for sway. Can't really do much for loading besides hitch drop when a trailer is empty on the initial way back like it was. It's super stable now.