2023 Ford Maverick Lariat AWD road trip w/ issues

[Maverick504]

Sounds like a great trip to see the county! Can I ask how many miles was on your truck when you started the trip?

Right around 5,000 miles.

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[Maverick504]

AWD ?

All Wheel Drive. Meaning it can’t switch between 2 wheel and 4 wheel drive.

 

[Maverick504]

I've been looking at the Wolf Pup. You add 216 lbs for 26 gallons of water and you're at 3810 lbs before you put anything in the trailer.

Not sure if I want to be at or above max towing for any long distance towing. Especially during triple digit temps in the Southwest.

We didn’t fill up the water tanks until we got to the campground and emptied out the black/grey water before we left to avoid any extra weight. We also didn’t tow it long distance. The camper wasn’t picked up until Albuquerque and it’s a 2 hour drive to the camp ground from there. The furthest drive was 4 hours. It was also in the low 90’s during the day and upper 50’s, low 60’s at night.

 

[Bob The Builder]

There is a rule of thumb in life that says never exceed 80% of the rated capacity. This is code in electrical for example. Personally, I would never ever exceed 80% of 4K while towing in a Maverick in anything other than a short jaunt.. That would be 3200 pounds. You exceeded that, by your own admission on a few instances, plus you climbed the Divide twice which makes our mountains up here look like speed bumps.

These trucks are very light duty. That is not a critiscim, I own one, hell I am 74 and very light duty myself.

Sounds to me you pushed your truck to its limits, BUT not its breaking point. Yet.

Just my $.02 worth. Best of luck to you.

 

[Maverick504]

There is a rule of thumb in life that says never exceed 80% of the rated capacity. This is code in electrical for example. Personally, I would never ever exceed 80% of 4K while towing in a Maverick in anything other than a short jaunt.. That would be 3200 pounds. You exceeded that, by your own admission on a few instances, plus you climbed the Divide twice which makes our mountains up here look like speed bumps.

These trucks are very light duty. That is not a critiscim, I own one, hell I am 74 and very light duty myself.

Sounds to me you pushed your truck to its limits, BUT not its breaking point. Yet.

Just my $.02 worth. Best of luck to you.

I would agree with you if it wasn’t the version with the upgraded tow package. Especially with all the other folks who have towed above the 4k weight limit, which I was under the whole time.

 

[Ranch]

I would agree with you if it wasn’t the version with the upgraded tow package. Especially with all the other folks who have towed above the 4k weight limit, which I was under the whole time.

How much under 4K do you think you were on this trip?

 

[Skisail]

Ford does recommend premium for towing, especially at high temperatures. Not sure what effect that would have on the transmission but may have been able to hold a higher gear with the extra power available.

 

[Chicolini]

Towing weight is not the only limiting factor. Your trailer has a very significant frontal area that puts a lot of strain on the powertrain.

The 80% rule above is VERY good advice. You are totally pushing the design limit by going over the freaking continental divide - twice- in hot weather.

Your skillfully engineered Maverick gave you a warning light which you heeded by pulling over. Good job.

You probably didn't do significant permanent damage, but you surely didn't do your truck any good. It might be a good time to buy an extended warranty.

Just because other owners exceed the weight rating doesn't mean you should.

 

[Ranch]

Towing weight is not the only limiting factor. Your trailer has a very significant frontal area that puts a lot of strain on the powertrain.

The 80% rule above is VERY good advice. You are totally pushing the design limit by going over the freaking continental divide - twice- in hot weather.

Your skillfully engineered Maverick gave you a warning light which you heeded by pulling over. Good job.

You probably didn't do significant permanent damage, but you surely didn't do your truck any good. It might be a good time to buy an extended warranty.

Just because other owners exceed the weight rating doesn't mean you should.

Good post. That's why I'm curious about how much weight the OP was hauling.

He was aware that he was on the high side because he left his fresh water tank empty while towing. That's not an option for me because I plan on doing some boondocking on my trips.

I'm wondering if they left the trailer as light as possible and instead loaded the bed with needed things? Hopefully the OP can give us more details on the weight so we all can avoid the same potential problems.

 

[olman]

Probably a dumb question but were you using Tow/Haul mode ?
Also, did you take a picture of the trouble light ? I always do that in case the light goes out I have some sort of proof to show service department. Had a 2012 Malibu under warranty that was having intermittent issues with the stereo . Showed the dealer videos I took of the display flashing on and off.
Even though they couldn’t duplicate it they replaced the head unit under warranty. Apparently it wasn’t the first time someone came in with that complaint.

 

[UmbrellaCorp]

Are you sure about the weight of your rig? I can’t tell which model you have, but I think the UVW of those trailers starts at a little under 3000 pounds for the smallest and goes up over 3500 as the trailers get longer. It would be easy to push 4000 pounds with a full load. Maybe a combination of near-maximum rated weight, high ambient temperature and wind?

This here, plus any elevation over sea level is a recipe for mysterious CELs all day long.

 

[Old Man]

Can't say for sure most of the ideas I had reading the story have been said. I can say that my 22 XLT FX4 4K has towed well over the max quite a few times with no issue and I live in a very Hilly area in Maine. I know it's the opposite side and end of the country so I haven't really towed in any 100+ weather to comment on whether they will over heat with the extended protections of upgrade cooling.

This also could have been an isolated incident where the system detected a slip for whatever reason and after a few "Cycles" of driving it since it didn't detect it cleared. I have had that happen with past vehicles once or twice be it water in gas that made the computer mad or the like.

Great idea towing over limits. That's why it is dangerous driving anywhere near vehicles that are towing.

 

[BobR]

I recently took a trip in my FX4 AWD 2.0 Ecoboost up to Buffalo from Florida and picked up a 2400 lb 1987 Shelby GLHS and a lot of parts and towed it back to Florida. I ran 76 mph all the way and got 19 mpg
While towing.
I figured that between the car, tow dolly, and the spare part I was towing about 3500 lbs.
We did about 2400 miles over 3 days and never had any trouble with the Maverick.

 

[James K]

I did not use high octane gas.

Ahh, as strange as it seems the motors' performance could trip a trans issue. Several things with your running 87 octane while near max towing in higher elevations that are hot and dry: all less than ideal. Ford recommends high test towing for several reasons. You'll probably be okay but your next trip I'd run high test and you might consider an engine oil change sooner than later.

 

[SuperDave150]

Howdy y’all,

A month ago, I decided to really test my 2023 Ford Maverick Lariat AWD w/ tow package by driving from New Orleans to Albuquerque. There I would pick up a camper trailer and head to Chaco Canyon National Historic Park as well as the Petrified Forest to do some hiking and camping. This would have me crossing the continental divide twice with a load pushing between 3,000 and 3,500lbs.

The trip went great, but I had a few issues occur to the truck and wanted everyone’s opinion.

Everything was running perfectly when I left Chaco Canyon, headed towards Farmington, NM where I would then enter Navajo territory on Hwy 491 before getting back on I-40 and heading towards Holbrook, AZ. Around Shiprock, I could feel my truck starting to struggle with the load. It felt as if the transmission was slipping. A few miles later, my transmission light came on.

I decided at this point to pull over and let the truck rest for 15-20min while we grabbed lunch. I checked my fluids as well as my FordPass app, hoping to find the issue with NO luck. The FordPass app failed to indicate that the transmission light on my dash was even activated. I decided to continue the journey and we drove to Holbrook, transmission light on and not doing more than 55mph with the trucks transmission acting up as I had little to no other choice.

We unloaded the camper from the truck and the transmission light was still on, though the trucks transmission seemed to stop slipping without the load. We loaded back up the next day and drove to Gallup where I was able to have the truck looked at by the local Ford dealership. During the drive, the truck still struggled a bit.

We pulled into the dealership that Saturday morning and began to unhitch the camper once again. This time, as soon as I restarted my truck to drive into the service center bay, the transmission light magically disappeared. Concerned and a bit irritated at this point, I had them run diagnostics on the truck and they found nothing wrong with the truck. There was no code, no history of issues reported by the truck, etc.

We hooked the truck back to the trailer and had no issues crossing the continental divide for the second time on the trip on the way back to Albuquerque. No transmission light nor slippage.

Does anyone know or have an idea of what happened???? I haven’t had any issues since the trip, but should I be concerned?

This is so sad. I’ve been down this road and it isn’t pretty.
I‘m especially interested because this is in my back yard; I’ve driven these roads many times over 30 years in this area.

Either the official Ford towing guide was not read or it was not understood.
https://www.ford.com/cmslibs/conten...ides/2022_Ford_Maverick_Towing_Info_Oct20.pdf

Thanks to @jsus for identifying the trailer specs. Let’s review:

UNLOADED trailer weight: 3594
Add 700 lbs food, drinks, clothes, bedding, dishes, vehicle occupants: 4294 total
Vehicle rating: 4000
Overweight: approx 110 %

UNLOADED trailer tongue weight: 475
Add 70 lbs cargo & goods tongue weight: 545 total
Vehicle rating: 400 lbs
Overweight: approx 130 %

FRONTAL AREA of trailer (approximated from published dimension): 60 sq ft
Vehicle rating: 40 sq ft
OVERSIZED aerodynamic resistance:: approx 150 %

I played this game for a few years, towing at 94 % of capacity. Could it tow it out of the dealership? Yes. Up a hill? Yes. Could I floor it and go 80 MPH? Yes.
BUT WAS IT HAPPY AND DID IT LAST??? No!
When the day was hot or the altitude got high it was on the ragged edge. And after a couple of years I realized that my pride was sending an expensive tow vehicle to an early grave.

BTW my brother has almost identical trailer that he towed with Toyota Tacoma for a while - 6800 lbs tow capacity. Eventually he downsized his trailer to a tiny teardrop because his Tacoma was struggling.

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