Hey everyone. My wife and I have decided to purchase a travel trailer. We love the Rockwood 2104S and was curious if my truck could tow it safely. We will mainly use it on three day weekends close (100-200 miles) to home. We eventually want to take it to Yellowstone and Colorado. My F-150 is rated to tow 5,800 pounds. The Dry Weight that was posted on the unit we looked at was 4,184 pounds. I would expect about 800-1000 pounds of water and gear being added to the trailer and 700 pounds for our stuff in the cab including our weight.

Calculating payload is where it gets complicated as a first time tower.

Can I tow it safely up and down mountains or in windy areas? I'm worried about temperature and power.

What accessories would you recommend to help? I've heard of an equalizer for the trailer.

We could always drop down to the 19 footer that weighs 500 pound less but, do not like it as much.

Thanks so much for your help.

 

So if you're rated for 5800 lbs, you probably have a 2 wheel drive super cab with 3.73 gears. If your truck doesn't have the factory heavy tow package you'll be limited to keep your trailer frontal area to no bigger than your truck. I would expect on your truck the biggest part of heavy tow you would be missing would be a heavy duty trans cooler.

If that is the case, and you don't have heavy tow (v6 trucks rarely have it) you might be alright if you avoid the hills and the fast lane, and watch the transmission temp if possible., you'll be pushing the limits of the drivetrain, not necessarily the truck. It is important though to properly set up your weight distribution hitch. There are very specific instructions, and you need to observe your axle ratings (listed on another decal in your door jamb) and verify you are properly loaded by utilizing a scale at a truck stop, it will be able to give your weights for truck and trailer axles separately.

i was in a similar situation a few years back which just drove the direction of my purchase as I replaced my tow vehicle.

 

So the dry weight really isn't the best measurement to use. You need to use the GVWR or Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of the trailer. That is the maximum the trailer should weigh. You also need to pay attention to the GCWR or Gross Combined Weight Rating. Thats the maximum the truck and trailer together. Yes there are things you can do to make the truck handle the load better, air bags, trans coolers, upgrading to LT tires. However none of those things changes the factory rating of the truck. My rule of thumb is to stay 20% under the factory tow rating. My 2011 2WD ecoboost is rated to tow 11,300. My trailer GVW is 8200. Its still a pretty good load on the truck, but it handles it extremely well.

 

use the trailer GVWR or wet weight, that is the dry wt plus all the cargo capacity. Then figure 10% of that will become tongue wt. Tongue wt will be come payload for the truck. That amount is going to be the load on your truck itself.

 

there is some good info in this post, but the language used could be confusing.


Ford offered two trailer towing packages. One of which was the Max. trailer towing package, which was not available with the 3.7L V6 (at least not in the US, Canada might be different).


What this means is you either have the trailer towing package, or you don't. if you don't, you are restricted to 5,000 lbs and the trailer frontal area can't exceed the frontal area of the truck. which means, by the books, all travel trailers are probably out.


If, your truck came with a hitch from the factory, then you have the trailer towing package and you can tow up to 5800 lbs and the trailer can have up to 60 sqft of frontal area, or enough to cover a travel trailer.


Ford only offered one size auxiliary transmission cooler regardless of the engine or trailer towing package. if you have the a factory hitch, you also have the best transmission cooler ford offered in this generation of f150 - so more than enough.


like senix said, look at the GVWR for the trailer and use that to decide whether you can tow this trailer or not. more than likely, you are going to be close to this value once you get loaded up going down the road.


a good weight distributing hitch will also be required, along with a trailer brake controller of some kind.


more than likely, even if you stay below your maximum of 5,800 lbs towing, you are very likely to be over your GCWR of 11,100 lbs, so if you still have any kind of warranty you might want to take that into consideration. the GCWR is actually quite a bit more restrictive than you'd think.


just to illustrate what I mean: I recently took a load to the landfill, after weighing in and out I had 3100 lbs of stuff in a 2800 lbs trailer, so a total of 5900 lbs. by the book, my expedition is rated to tow 6,000 lbs... so right at the max, but should be good, right? but I rolled across the scales at 12,200 lbs with just me and my nephew plus the other stuff that's always in there (car seats ect.) which is a few hundred pounds over my 11,900 lbs GCWR for my combination. so technically, even with being 100 lbs shy of my rated trailer weight, I was several hundred pounds over my combined weight rating.... that would bother some more than others (and it didn't bother me a bit, fwiw), but it could be a warranty issue if they find out you were over any of your ratings.


Just my opinion: I think you are on the bubble as to whether you will be happy with this or not. that little v6 is a heck of a good engine, but it will want to pull some RPM's to go down the road, especially up hills. Might be OK for you if that doesn't bother you, though.

 

As far as your platform goes, your limiting factor is your drive line. The truck, structurally, can handle it no problem. For me, this means that you can control the load safety which is the biggest concern. Because of this, I would look at certain mods for your truck if you wanted to tow the trailer.
1. A good trans cooler and trans temp gauge if you dont already have one.
2. A good weight distribution/anti-sway setup
3. An expectation that you are going to cruise in the slow lane and be slow up hills etc.
4. Look into your towing laws. Your truck can safety handle the load, but if you legally are bound by Fords ratings then don't risk it regardless of what you do to the truck.

 

Reps for that, that is exactly correct.
I had the 3.5 n/a v6 (related to the 3.7 n/a from 14 down) and i towed 3000 lbs with it regularly. i did tow 6k once and it liked to rev but it did it and it at no point felt unsafe.