What are you guys towing?

[Grumpaw]

I feel like I'm driving a low rider sometimes when towing, shaken not stirred. WDH doesn't seem to help much. The joys of towing.

I don't know how your suspension or miarma's is set up, but pretty sure my trailer is larger and heavier than yours an I get no porpoising at all.
I have the Eibach's on the rear, Blue Sumo's, and the Roadmaster Active Suspension, which I believe is the main reason I have no problems.
I also have some decant E rated 10 ply tires that I can pump up to 50 psi with no worry, and that definitely helped.
I think the porpoising comes from the rear suspension being too soft, with maybe a part of the problem is the road surface in certain areas.

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[dtech]

I don't know how your suspension or miarma's is set up, but pretty sure my trailer is larger and heavier than yours an I get no porpoising at all.
I have the Eibach's on the rear, Blue Sumo's, and the Roadmaster Active Suspension, which I believe is the main reason I have no problems.
I also have some decant E rated 10 ply tires that I can pump up to 50 psi with no worry, and that definitely helped.
I think the porpoising comes from the rear suspension being too soft, with maybe a part of the problem is the road surface in certain areas.

yes mostly due to uneven road surface and I've only experienced it at lower speeds, it does get your attention. I have the FX4 package which has been universally dissed on here. Maybe some day I'll upgrade the shocks, right now figuring out how I'm going to mount my new 1up bike rack ($700) onto my TT, going to have to have a 2" receiver welded onto frame. I did take note of what you said regards having an F-150 , your garage size limiting you to a mid size pickup. That was the main reason I bought a Ranger - the house I owned for 30 yrs had the standard small garage, I had stuff hanging all over the walls, now I have a 3 car garage, 2 slots would fit 2 full sized pickups with room to spare and my 3rd slot would fit 2 standard cars parked front to rear. Headed out this weekend with the TT for some boondocking in the Dolores Canyon area of CO - not heavily used and the CO Senators sponsoring legislation to make it a National conservation area.

 

[ctechbob]

Yea, the FX series shocks are hot garbage for towing and should be thrown in the bin at the first opportunity. All 4 of them.

 

[Juany118]

I've honestly never had a problem with any of the dogs I've ever owned using the same break frequency as me. Current dog when he was younger would outright refuse to go to the bathroom on road trips, even. Thankfully he doesn't do that anymore.

The rat terrier obviously has a small bladder. Plus she is a rescue who had a litter (she was a street dog) which reportedly can make the bladder muscles weaker. Add in 10-year-old girl and stops become a bit more frequent. My coonhound can hold his bladder for 13 hours, He just gets ready cuz he's high energy.

 

[Stic-o]

Another day of towing... Kinda sucked, since I haven't reinstalled the programer. I guess I got use to having it.

 

[Grumpaw]

Another day of towing... Kinda sucked, since I haven't reinstalled the programer. I guess I got use to having it.

Nice little Explorer. Don't see too many of the 2 door's around anymore.

 

[Stic-o]

Nice little Explorer. Don't see too many of the 2 door's around anymore.

Just picked it up, for a first car for my daughter. 94k original miles, one owner. Manual transmission.

 

[fjwlobo]

Sometimes I wish the 5G had a stick as I like to think of it being the new theft deterrent .

Most people that might think about trying to steal it would look in, see the stick, turn around and walk away as they have no idea how to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission

Then I get stuck in rush hour traffic and I remember the reason why don't have one

 

[mtbikernate]

Sometimes I wish the 5G had a stick as I like to think of it being the new theft deterrent .

Most people that might think about trying to steal it would look in, see the stick, turn around and walk away as they have no idea how to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission

Then I get stuck in rush hour traffic and I remember the reason why don't have one

it absolutely is a theft deterrent. a few years ago, someone tried to steal a neighbor's car. they got it to the bottom of the hill, but because they couldn't drive a manual, they couldn't get it up the next hill to get out of the neighborhood. so they abandoned it.

 

[Grumpaw]

it absolutely is a theft deterrent. a few years ago, someone tried to steal a neighbor's car. they got it to the bottom of the hill, but because they couldn't drive a manual, they couldn't get it up the next hill to get out of the neighborhood. so they abandoned it.

Can just imagine someone trying to steal a veh with the old "3 on a tree" !!!!!

 

[carbonranger]

Towing a Forest River Surveyor. 4081lbs dry. 470lb tongue weight. Stock suspension for now except road active suspension (thanks @Grumpaw) in the rear. I have an eibach pro truck 2R I need to get around to installing. RAS helped a lot with the ride.

 

[dtech]

Ok I've whined a bit about how the Ranger tows my Forest River NOBO 19.5, 4161 UVW. From a NOBO forum thread about towing, I now get why some on here have expressed concerned about some towing setups out there. Towing with a freakin KIA Telluride, OMG

"Have pulled our 2022 19.5 for about 25,000 miles with a Telluride. Towing capacity of 5,000#. Tows fine. If looking for future get a Towing capacity of 6,000# or larger."

 

[mtbikernate]

My wife couldn't give explicit details on it, but on her commute home last week, she saw a tow rig jackknifed in the interstate exit ramp with as she described, a very large trailer being pulled behind a very small SUV. Sounded to me like the most likely scenario was that the little SUV had insufficient brakes to handle the trailer, so the trailer just pushed it around when they were trying to slow down from freeway speeds to a red light.

She has never towed heavy, but she HAS towed our squaredrop trailer (loaded weight about 1400lbs) behind a Subaru Crosstrek (tow capacity of 1500lbs with trailer brakes, and the trailer is equipped with brakes, and the subie had a brake controller) by herself. So I guess for that car, she was technically towing heavy. She could tell that the vehicle she saw last week was not appropriate for that trailer.

 

[Juany118]

My wife couldn't give explicit details on it, but on her commute home last week, she saw a tow rig jackknifed in the interstate exit ramp with as she described, a very large trailer being pulled behind a very small SUV. Sounded to me like the most likely scenario was that the little SUV had insufficient brakes to handle the trailer, so the trailer just pushed it around when they were trying to slow down from freeway speeds to a red light.

She has never towed heavy, but she HAS towed our squaredrop trailer (loaded weight about 1400lbs) behind a Subaru Crosstrek (tow capacity of 1500lbs with trailer brakes, and the trailer is equipped with brakes, and the subie had a brake controller) by herself. So I guess for that car, she was technically towing heavy. She could tell that the vehicle she saw last week was not appropriate for that trailer.

The thing is any trailer that has a certain weight will jackknife behind *any* tow vehicle, if there is no trailer brake l, w/ controller. It's about weight, and length.

Newton's first law. An object at rest tends to remain at rest, an object in motion tends to remain in motion. Any trailer, of sufficient size, is going to use that ball hitch as a pivot point and essentially try to wrap around the tow vehicle and whether it's a Subaru Ascent or Ford F250 won't make a huge difference, if the trailer lacks trailer brakes and the tow vehicle lacks a controller.

 

[mtbikernate]

Wheelbase length and tow vehicle weight are important factors, too.

Take the trailer brake out of the equation. Try to pull the same trailer with an F250 and with an Escape and you'll notice that Escape gets pushed around a lot more than the F250. This is reflected by each vehicle having different minimum trailer weights for trailer brakes.

We don't know if that jackknifed rig had trailer brakes and a controller or not. What we know is that it was a very small tow vehicle relative to the trailer and that it was a bad day for the driver. There are certainly any number of things that could have been done differently (probably several). We don't know if the trailer was above that vehicle's max tow rating, either. We don't know if it was above the minimum for trailer brakes but below the total max tow.

Clearly the driver messed up and had a bad tow. Bad weather wasn't a factor. It was a nice day that day.

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