We have a lot of members that tow heavy and tow often, and we also have a lot of members who ask for advice for their first heavy tow with their Excursion, so I thought we could make a list of tips from people that have more experience towing to help make it easier. I will start with what I can think of that I've learned, but my list is in no way comprehensive. I hope everyone else will add on, or chime in with corrections or questions.

1) Know the weight of what you are trying to tow. It seem simple but you can be way off. My brother went to pick up a "little" backhoe someone wanted him to move and when he got there and saw the model number it was a 12,000 lb model. Hardly little when you are using a 3/4 ton truck to move it!

2) Know the weight your equipment is rated for. The factory receiver hitch on the excursion is rated at 5k for non weight distributing hitches and my 04 is 12.5k for weight distributing hitches. My owners manual lists a maximum trailer weight of 11,000 lbs. I have used my hitch for over 5k non WD and lots of other members have as well, but to keep the weight spread over the axles evenly, a WD hitch helps. Don't forget the capacity of your ball and ball mount. The towpower stuff sold at walmart has a maximum of around 6,000 lbs.

3) Match the size ball on your hitch to the size on the trailer tongue. I helped a guy load up locust fence posts on a utility trailer behind a suburban once. He stacked the whole load to the height of the roof. We started down a hill, he hit the brakes, and the 2 5/16" tongue popped off his 2" ball and rammed right through the tailgate of the suburban. Which brings me to

4) always load more weight to the front of the trailer to give you tongue weight. Its best to use scales like at your local truck stop to help you get the best tongue weight, but if you tow often enough you can judge from how it loads the rear springs on the truck. The ideal trailer load would be with the weight nearly evenly balanced on the trailer with about 10% of the total weight on the tongue. In the real world, most people err on the side of more tongue weight. If you ever try to tow a trailer that is rear heavy you will understand why. It will snake back and forth and push your truck around. Hitting the brakes will only make it fishtail worse. Its scary and dangerous.

5) check your pressures. If you are loaded up with a good portion of your trailer tire's capacity, they should be near the maximum on the sidewall. Trailer tires can require some serious pressure, too, so fill them up before you leave home. My trailer tires require 115 psi each to handle their rated weight, and there is not a gas station compressor i've ever found that will let you put that much air in (or even measure that much air). you also need to check your truck tire pressures. My LRE stock size tires require 80 psi rear to handle their rated capacity. The door jamb numbers are for a stock, unloaded vehicle. use your axle weights from the scales to help you determine how much air to put in. Don't forget to check the pressures on your spare tires, which brings me to:

6) bring a full size spare for your truck and one for your trailer. Towing stresses tires, so some people feel that flat tires are more likely. once thing is certain, and its that you'll have twice as many tires to worry about. Along with your spares, don't forget that there is a good chance your trailer has a different lug pattern and a different jack height than your excursion. If you have added a lift or changed wheels, your excursion may also have a different lug pattern and jack height than your factory break down kit! Its good advice to carry the stock jack, but to also bring along a bottle jack rated at 10k or higher, and a block of wood (minimum 4x4) to help use the bottle jack on the trailer frame or your lifting excursion. I think a hi lift jack is a great addition while towing because it allows you to lift up most trailers right from the frame, really quickly, without having to crawl under them.

7) slow down. adding a 7k trailer to your excursion DOUBLES the weight, and your 2 front tires are still the ones doing all the steering. Leave more space between you and vehicles in front of you. Allow a longer distance before you pull back into your lane when passing on the interstate. Don't try and force the engine to maintain freeway speeds on hills by pinning the accelerator. Allow your vehicle speed to slow to keep the engine in its powerband.

8) monitor temperatures. I have a scan gauge ii its honestly the best $120 I spent with regards to my truck. The factory idiot gauges won't tell you anything until there is a problem. This is not useful when towing. My SGII will tell me when my temps start to climb so I can slow down or pull over to let the truck cool off. just sunday I was towing up a long grade and my engine coolant was almost 230 degrees. Guess what the factory water temp gauge said? It never moved off the middle. Worthless. Its also useful to know your transmission temps and your oil temps. EGT's are great on a diesel but expensive and hard to add (SGII can't do them, and I don't have a way to monitor them).

9) Find an empty parking lot and practice backing up before you hit the road When going backwards, steering inputs have the opposite effect on the trailer as they do going forward. I like to try and plan my trips so that I don't have to back up with a large trailer. I scout out restaurants and gas stations ahead of time. Truck stops are usually designed with large turn arounds and lots of room so you won't have to back up. Plus their fuel is cheaper, and the stores are stocked with useful items you may need while towing, like tarp straps, cargo straps, wheel chocks, safety flares, high pressure tire pressure gauges, CB radio's, trailer lights and reflectors, and etc. For restaurants, do NOT go through the drivethrough. even if the vertical clearance is enough, the U turn where you order and pay is never a sufficient radius to allow a trailer longer than 10 feet or so and you can very easily get stuck or take out their landscaping. If they don't have truck parking, park in another lot and walk over. For sit down eating, i have found that cracker barrells always have trailer parking and their lots are always designed so you can pull through. I appreciate that.

thats all I can think of for now... I know other people will have lots to add.

 

Great advice, you did a great job of covering the major issues, thanks for posting.

To expand a little on point 4: getting your load balanced front to rear can make a big difference, especially as you get nearer to your towing weight limits.

Too much weight too far to the rear of the trailer, and you'll get the 'tail wagging the dog' trailer sway effect. If this happens, and you have electric trailer brakes, don't brake using your tow vehicle brakes, use the manual lever on your trailer brake controller to help straighten the trailer out.

Too much weight on the tongue (at least without air bags, weight distributing hitch, or similar) will push the back of the X down, so the front of the X will feel light in comparison. This causes vague light steering (and the headlights aiming higher than desired), which isn't ideal either.

So too much weight on either the front or the rear of the trailer is not desirable. As far as getting the load balanced, often you can eyeball it to see if the trailer sits roughly level when the load is on, by looking at the trailer from the side at 30+ feet away. One tip if you tow the same load on the same trailer regularly, once you have found a good balance point, is you can put a piece of tape or paint or similar on the side of the trailer that corresponds to a known reference point e.g. towing a race car on an open deck trailer, you can put a piece of tape or paint on the side of the trailer that corresponds to the center of the front wheel. Then every time you load the trailer with the same load, you just line up the front axle with the tape or paint mark on the trailer, and you know you're balanced.

Once you've towed with a trailer with electric brakes (ideally on both axles, separately wired for redundancy), rather than one with surge brakes, like the UHaul auto transport trailers, you'll opt for the trailer with electric brakes every time, if you have a choice. Braking is much smoother without the trailer exerting pushing and pulling forces on the tow vehicle as you brake & accelerate; and also with a trailer with electric brakes you can activate the manual lever on the brake controller to help get the load under control in the event of sway, whereas with surge brakes you have no such control available. Also trailers with at least 2 axles are preferable, since if you have a trailer tire blow out, the other tire on that side will help keep the trailer more stable, giving you a chance to pull over safely. Whereas if you have a catastrophic blow out on a trailer with a single axle, it's likely going to be a more stressful experience. [Side note: I could be wrong, but IIRC, at least in CA, you need trailer brakes for any combined trailer + load weighing more than 1500 lbs].

Lastly, when strapping a trailer down, it can be useful to cross the straps so e.g. right front of load is connected to left front of trailer. That can help give the load more lateral stability than if, say, the left front of the load was connected to the left front of the trailer.

 

If you get into a situation where your trailer is starting to sway, pull the manual brake lever on your trailer brake controller and it'll slow the trailer down before you hit the brakes on your truck and straighten everything right out.

This trick has saved my butt going DOWN long grades on more than one occasion.

Make sure your trailer brakes are properly serviced on a regular basis and properly functioning too!

 

If towing a tall trailer, measure the highest point of the trailer. Not from what the brochure says. Write it down on a static cling sticker (like the oil change reminder stickers) with a Sharpie and stick it on the upper left corner of your windshield. That way you'll remember how high your trailer is as you come to an overpass or gas station with the height clearance sign so you'll know if you're under it.

Make sure you pay attention to those height signs.

 

lots of good advice in these posts:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...e-x-ready.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-diesel-2.html

 

If the sway is getting uncontrollable you can accelerate out of a sway, but you are still going to have the sway when you try to come back to a stop. Its definitely not something you want to try going downhill. I had to do this once... I stupidly tried to haul 20 foot long sticks of angle iron on an 8' utility trailer. After accelerating out of the sway I let it coast to a stop as I came towards a small hill and went 25 mph the rest of the way home (and threw some big rocks on the front).