Up till today, all the towing I had done with my '09 had been pretty mild stuff. Today I hauled a load of rock about 40 miles. The scales showed I had 6,600lbs of rock. I was using our 20' dovetail that I estimate to weigh around 2k lbs. All in all, I would say 8,500lbs is a safe guess, maybe a little more.

In short, I would say the truck's performance was confidence inspiring. I was very pleased. It was all highway driving, running 55-60mph. The tow/haul mode worked great. It kept the tranny in 5th gear most of the time, running about 1900 rpm. It would downshift to 4th on some hills, hitting about 2700 rpm. Only once on a really steep grade did it need to hit 3rd, at which point it was doing about 3500 rpm with plenty of power in reserve. At no point did I have any trouble maintaining speed. It kinda made me wonder why Edmunds had touble in their test. The truck felt very stable and in control at all times.

Of note, I was running E-85, so that may have helped some, but I can't say how much of a difference it made.

Did it tow as well as my 6.0 SD would have? Of course not. However, it is a huge step ahead of the '01 I had. I feel very confident that my truck had more than enough left in reserve to handle it's maximum rating of 9700lbs.

 

That sounds good. I also went from an F-250 SD 6.0 and was used to towing with it. However, for the little I tow I prefer the comfort and quiet ride of the F-150. I haven't towed with mine yet, wanted to put a 1000 miles on it first.......but that's just me.