2012 F-150 SuperCrew Lariat EcoBoost with OEM integrated trailer brake controller (ITBC) and 52,000 miles, including about half of those miles towing a trailer of some sort.
It will safely tow and haul (and stop) a lot more weight than the specs state, without being the slowpoke holding up traffic and withouit overheating the engine or tranny.
I recently had to haul an old John Deere 310A backhoe to my step-son's place near Blanco. About 300 miles, including about 100 miles through the Hill Country. I tried to rent a dually or bigger truck with a gooseneck hitch, but no luck. I tried to rent a lighter gooseneck equipment trailer than the 40" gooseneck dually I had available, but no luck. (Renters tend to overload the lighter equipment trailers and tear them up, so the trailer rent places won't rent them.) So I bought a Reese "The Goose" gooseneck hitch that plugs into my Reese 5er-hitch bedrails, and loaded the backhoe on that trailer, and towed it with my F-150.
Long story short, we made it, no problems. We were loaded heavy, so I kept a close eye on the tranny temp and coolant temp. I pumped the tires up to 50 PSI. I have a Lariat Plus with an OEM digital tranny temp gauge. It never showed over 212°, and about 225° is the red line. The coolant gauge is an "idiot gauge" that doesn't show actual temps, but it never showed over "normal". I checked truck and trailer tire temps with a lazer temp gauge, and it never showed over 115° tire temp on the pickup or dually trailer, and was usually under 100° with 85° or less ambient temps.
We lucked into a nice cool day for hauling the backhoe, with clouds and misting rain and ambient temps never over 85° F. So that helped the engine and tranny coolers keep the engine and tranny cool enough.
I saw a CAT scale while loaded so I weighed the rig. I went to a truck stop with a CAT scale after I unloaded the backhoe and weighed it again to see how much the backhoe weighed. And earlier I had weighed the wet and loaded pickup with no trailer, so I knew it weighed 6,040 without a trailer.
Axle … with U/L trailer… with loaded trailer… Difference…Rating
Front …… 3300 ……………………… 3380 ……………….… 80 ……..… 3600
Rear ….… 4520 ……………………… 5080 ……………….. 560 ……….. 3850
GVW …… 7820 ……………………….8460 ……………….. 640 ……….. 7100
Trailer … 6480 ………………………19,040 ………… 12,560 …….. 20,000
GCW …..14,300 ……………………27,500 ………… 13,200 ……… 14,000
MPG ………….. 9.8 …………………………..6.0
Hitch .......1,780...................2,420.............. ....640
Hitch % ... 27.5 .....................11,3
So the backhoe weighed 13,200 pounds. That's heavier than I would have guessed.
I'm really proud of my little F-150 that made that trip with no issues except awful MPG.
Because GVWR of the pickup was the primary limiter, I loaded the 13,200 pound backhoe so it added only 640 pounds hitch weight to the GVW of the truck. The F-150 looked good when loaded - the front end was not sticking up in the air, and the rear end was not dragging the ground. Ride and handling were great. We cruised at about 65 MPH most of the way.
Tow/haul mode worked great. With my 3.15 rear axle ratio, engine RPM got up near 5,000 a few times when it downshifted into second when climbing one of the hill-country hills at 60 MPH. But since the red line on that engine is 6,500 RPM, there was no cause for concern.
I left the tranny in drive with tow/haul mode all the way. It usually cruised in 5th and often downshifted into 4th. It only upshifted into 6th when going down hill. Compared to the 4R100 tranny in my 1999.5 F-250 diesel, that 6-speed tranny is a marvel.
Linear Mode
