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- '24 Silverado CCSB 2.7 (a Mav. Hybrid next time?)
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Starting to see more questions around the topic of âhow much can I tow?â. Perhaps a better question is âhow much can I (safely) tow?â. You get to determine how you define safe. If youâre someone who wants to stay between the lines regards established guidelines (GVWR, GAWRâs, payload) this is fairly straightforward to figure out. If you think in terms of adding (or subtracting) safety margins from established guidelines then youâre on your own. There are exactly zero people out there that can tell us âwell I know Ford has over-designed the Maverick (or any vehicle) GVWR/payload/whatever by x% therefore Iâm good to pull a load (trailer, extra payload, whatever) thatâs xx lbs above established calculated guidelinesâ. The other side of this is âwell to be safe I always base my towing plans on using only 80% (or 91.7% or whatever) of my calculated loadsâ.Ok, I'm having trouble figuring this out I order a XLT hybrid lux package. I have a 1,450lb(dry weigh) pop-up camper, 4 people(let's say 800lb) going camping, with(let's say 600lb of gear). Will I be ok? Or will I need a AWD Ecoboost. The numbers are making my head goâ
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If youâre hoping or planning to tow loads approaching those magic 2000 lb (Hybrid) or 4000 lb (4K tow package) numbers, you should do your sums and go from there. Iâm not trying to be the weight police. People overload their cars and trucks all the time and get away with it. What you definitely need to do is figure out ahead of time how much under or over loaded youâll likely be and then go from there. Ignorance is not bliss if youâre seriously overloaded.
Some towing truisms from Ford F150 owners are here:
(19) Towing Ramblings | MaverickTruckClub.com - 2022+ Ford Maverick Pickup Forum, News, Info
The Maverick is not an F150 by any stretch of the imagination but the towing truisms apply regardless of what your tow vehicle actually is. Most times you end up being payload limited for one reason or another.
Have a look at page 43 and 44 of the Ford 2021 RV and Trailer Towing Guide, familiarize yourself with the various definitions. The 2022 Guide in this forum is preliminary and incomplete, it will get fleshed out later this year.
2021 Ford RV & Trailer Towing Guide
There is one surefire method for determining how much you can tow according to established guidelines. However very few people will actually do this because itâs a PITA and we all think we can accurately estimate all of our weights and applied loads in a towing situation. So for looking at a travel trailer:
1) Load the truck with everybody and everything that will be in it when towing - kids, pets, toys, firewood, any aftermarket truck stuff youâve added, everything.
2) Drive to a truck stop that has a Certified Automated Truck (CAT) scale and fill up with gas.
3) Weigh the wet and loaded truck.
4) Subtract the weight of the wet and loaded truck from the GVWR of the truck. Your GVWR is located on the white driverâs side door jamb sticker. The answer is the payload capacity available for weight placed on the hitch ball (aka trailer tongue weight or TTW). If you have a Maverick with 4K tow package, this is 400 lbs. If you have the Hybrid, we all think this might be either 200 lbs or 400 lbs, we donât yet know for sure until someone crawls under the back and snaps a pic of the hitch receiver weight rating on the Hybrid.
5a) For the Maverick, you shouldnât need a weigh distributing hitch (WDH) because your limited to 4000 lbs towing (2.0l EB with 4K tow package) or 2000 lbs (Hybrid), so you can ignore this step and go to 5b. However, if you have a body-on-frame PU truck and can go over 5000 lbs, then subtract another 100 pounds from the payload capacity available for hitch ball weight to get payload capacity available for trailer tongue weight (TTW). (That ~100 pounds is the weight of a good WDH with built-in sway control, such as an Equal-I-Zer.)
5b) Divide the payload capacity available for trailer tongue weight (TTW) by 13% and the answer is the max GVWR of any travel trailer you want to consider towing. In other words, your real-world tow rating or max towing capacity.
Someone whoâs read the trailer tow guide will say âhey, you talk about using 13% but the Ford Tow Guide says 10%, what gives?â. The actual range youâll note in the Tow Guide is 10%-15%. In the real world, when we try and balance our trailer loads, how often do you know for sure that your TTW is going to be exactly 10% of that 3963.7 lb small travel trailer unless you measure it? Most times we just make an educated guess. Just as U-Haul rightly recommends, you aim to put most (~60%) of the weight in the forward part of their trailer to aid in sway stability (watch that little video clip they have regarding preventing trailer sway). Using 13% instead of 10% may be a safety margin, or maybe not, it all depends on how accurately you know what actual trailer tongue weight/load is. Most regular towers use ~13% for that reason.
For those of you planning on towing a boat, you may think âhey I know that boats typically have most of their weight rearward on a boat trailer and that TTW can sometimes be less than 10%, so what do I do?â. The answer is, it depends. In general, if you can, try to get TTW in the 10%-15% range. But youâre likely to be OK with something less than 10% for boats youâre looking at.
What Bass Pro has to say about this (probably the size boat Maverick owners are looking at):
How to Measure Boat Trailer Tongue Weight | Bass Pro Shops
What Boston Whalers has to say (look under Tongue Weight section):
Classic Whaler: Boston Whaler: Reference: Trailering: Trailer Set Up (continuouswave.com)
For those of you who wonât be going to a CAT scale (i.e. most of you), play around with some numbers (either hand calculated or using a simple online calculator like this - TowCalculator.com ) and see what gets you in the ballpark regards what you can tow and still stay within recommended guidelines. Note: the online calculator uses 12.5% for tongue weight vs. 13%, just so youâre aware.
So, using your example, and what we think we know about the Maverick XLT Hybrid - base curb weight ~3674 lbs, GCWR 6010 lb, actual door sticker payload rating ~1436 lb (got this from an actual XLT Hybrid payload sticker pic), GVWR ~5100 lb (base curb weight + actual door sticker payload rating), the simple calculator spits out the following (note: I assumed a GVWR of 2000 lb for your pop-up trailer and that you really do tow it dry, i.e. no cargo whatsoever in it):
So in general Darnon is right, youâre over quite a bit on GCWR (~500+ lbs) and a little (~155 lbs) on payload.
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