Well, as the story usually goes, buy a new camper and a new tow vehicle is the next thing on the wish list.
We bought our 2011 surveyor 234t HTT in January this year and have been towing with our '99 chevy silverado. Our truck seems to do fine while towing but I know it's getting up there in age and mileage so I'm just beginning to look for the next generation tv. I'm leaning towards switching brands and going with a ford this time. The chevy has served us well but I rode in my BIL's F250 this summer and really liked it.
My boy's ( AKA shepherd mix dogs ) are getting bigger,at 87and 79 lbs respectively. I would love to have a full crew cab for the dogs and/or our teen kids, if they want to go, just so there would be room for all. That statement alone sounds like I like the dogs more than the kids. This may have some truth to it :).
Anyway I'm looking at F-250 or F-150 as a tow vehicle. Our camper is approx 4000 lbs dry weight. The F150 would handle it and then some and I think the F-250 might be overkill but I seem to gravitate to overkill.
Anyone with thoughts or advice I should consider when weighing pros and cons of either?
Depends on what years you are looking at.
My 2010 F150 5.4L max tow package (11,200 lbs) pulls my HTT (about 6000 lbs) with no trouble and plenty of power to spare.
One of the problems I have with it, is that it wants to cruise on the highway in 6th gear between 70 to 75 mph with the HTT in tow.
I find myself backing off the gas cause it just wants to go.
The newer 3.5L Ecoboost has more power and gets a bit better mileage in the non towing mode.
It will out tow my 5.4L easily (and anyone elses V8's) as it builds up 90% of it's max torque by 2000 rpm. Pulls just like a diesel.
It doesn't apparently get better mileage when towing. When you're using the 3.5L ecoboost 365 hp motor hard, it uses gas just like the bigger motors.
But when you're not towing, it gets 10 to 15% better mileage than the larger displacement motors.
Would I like a F250, yes, but in my case the F150 is overkill for what I'm towing and why spend the extra money?
Being an owner of both at one time or another, here is my 2 cents worth. F-150 will do the job just fine. I use to have a home remodeling business. I upgraded from f-150 to a F-250 diesal with manual transmission. The hydraulic system is an enclosed system which means, when one thing goes out like the slave cyclinder, the whole system is replaced. At 60,000 miles, it was replaced twice along with a broken clutch fork which is a ford problem they will not admit too. I purchased another F-250 diesal 6.0. Automatic transmission. The motor of this is another problem from ford. Being in fire service, our rescue squad had a 6.0 in it. The head gaskets went out twice with new heads. I wanted to warn you of problems I see with ford 250's and above. The F-150 will be cheaper for you in the long run. The super duty is very expensive to maintain for local regular driving. I bought a v-6 Toyota Tacoma and it tows my almost 4,000 lb. camper with no problems and it is a crew cab truck.
Myself I would get the 150 if your not going to be towing all the time. The loss of gas mileage while towing will offset the initial price of vehile and maintenance. I have a 5.4L super crew. I pull a trailer and equipment everyday and mileage kills me. For that reason I am saving my pennies for a 250.
I'm still using the chevy silverado and it still seems to be going strong (knock on wood). Since it is winter and the camper is in hibernation this has become less of a priority. I have still been scanning craigslist etc for the right truck. I'm leaning toward the F150 considering that we don't tow regularly, the f150 would be more than enough to handle our HTT. Plus, with my camper parking in the back yard, off a corner lot , the F150 is a little shorter in length which would make getting the trailer in position a little more convenient.
Boy howdy. That is the question among questions. I have 2 cousins. 1 has a silverado 1500 (2007-5.3-auto-short bed-extended cab-4X4) 1 has 2007 Dodge 3500 SRW (Cummins 6.7-6 speed man-long bed-crew cab-4X4) -- I understand the difference between an auto and a stick, but that Cummins gets better mileage towing (anything) than the Chevy gets empty.
Why am I saying this? Simple!!! There is just so much you can do with a Gasser (especially a Ford) as far as tuning goes. But a diesel (including a Ford) you can tune and perform other tricks. That will get you the MPG of a trypical midsize car (even when towing) and give you the power to pull/haul just about anything you can imagine.
---Gassers tend to be limited --- I also understand $$$$ tend to be limited also.
I know if it was my decision, I would HAVE to go with the F-150 because that would crush my $$$$$ supply. But I would choose a 3/4 or 1 ton with a diesel if I had the $$$ to purchase one (in a heartbeat). Never hurts to have TOO MUCH TRUCK.
My friend in Tennessee has a econoboost F150 and a similar trailer. He loves it.
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An F250 is more of a pure truck. Stiffer springs, bigger brakes, heavier-duty suspension components, and a ride to match. 🙁
My choice? F150 econoboost with air bags and a highway rear differential [~3.4 ?] It'll be a lot more comfortable when not towing, and there are a lot more used ones out there to choose from.
I miss my truck!
[img width=640 height=424]http://i1065.photobucket.com/albums/u384/BaronDugger/digduck.jpg[/img]
I would ask yourself this question: Do I ever plan on upgrading the trailer...maybe to a 5th wheel or larger trailer? If so, what is the timeframe? If you plan on keeping this new truck for a long time, I would go with the bigger truck, as you can pull a lot of different size trailers and 5th wheels later down the road.
Also, the price difference in gas money isn't that much. If you can afford a new truck, you can afford to pay for gas. You don't buy a truck to save on gas!
We were in the same situation.
Bought a hybrid and needed to get a truck to pull it.. I know, we bought the cart before the horse.
Our budget wouldn't allow for anything new so we had to look at trucks at least a few years old. We also didn't want to get anything too old or with a lot of miles.
F-150's could pull what we have, but the cargo capacity would become an issue. We have 3 daughters (13, 6, and 2) that seem to take a lot of things with them. Our hybrid has a tongue weight of around 500 pounds. Add the weight of all passengers, bikes, coolers, cornhole boards, firewood, etc. and it would end up being very close to the cargo capacity of the F-150s in the years we were looking at.
We began to look into getting a F-250 because of the cargo capacity. While searching we quickly realized that there wasn't much of a price difference between the F-250 and the F-350. Some of the duallies (F-350) were even cheaper than some of the 250s as a lot of people don't like the extra width of the truck.
We ended up getting a 2005 F-350 dually and don't have to worry at all about cargo capacity.
For our spring rally I loaded a couple tables, 5 gallons of sweet tea, bikes (and bike trailer for the baby), an electric scooter, all our groceries, an extra cooler of ice, and a whole lot more and didn't worry about it. Lol
Just before we bought the 350, some friends of ours were driving to Georgia towing their new hybrid. They were towing with a Suburban. 2 adults, and 3 or 4 kids (I think one kid had a friend).
A big truck went by them and blew them off the road, causing them to roll over.
Told the wife about it and she didn't debate on whether or not we should just get the bigger truck for a little bit of safety as well.
These kids aren't getting smaller and I'm sure they will want to bring a friend at some point.
While you don't "need" anything bigger than a F-150 (depending on what year, motor, etc. you get), it also won't hurt if you decide to get something a little bigger.
*we also looked into Chevy while truck searching and they are nice too.
Good luck.
Thats the reason I got a 350. Prices between the 250 and the 350 was several thousand bucks. I of coarse bought used. I came away with a much nicer and bigger truck with 30,000 less miles for about $4000 less than the equivalent 250. I asked why the 350 was cheaper and the guy told me that the 250 had become a very popular truck and nobody wanted the 350.
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