tow vehicle
- Thread starter V8KILLR
- Start date
Nope, wrong again!
Stopped at the local Ford dealer ship last night (which is right across the street from my office) and the 03's they had on the lot had 108W on their F1's.
Maybe the dealer went out and replaced all of them because Ford installs inferior tires?
UNGN,
I respect your posts as you usually have some accurate info to share. But it is obvious that you dont know much about the fore mentioned trucks. I have several friends with them and Mike has one. The info we stated is factual. Why do you have such a hard time believing us?
Stopped at the local Ford dealer ship last night (which is right across the street from my office) and the 03's they had on the lot had 108W on their F1's.
Maybe the dealer went out and replaced all of them because Ford installs inferior tires?
UNGN,
I respect your posts as you usually have some accurate info to share. But it is obvious that you dont know much about the fore mentioned trucks. I have several friends with them and Mike has one. The info we stated is factual. Why do you have such a hard time believing us?
I believe you guys.
I believe that a lighning will tow a trailer like mike has just fine. I also believe that if he put my "little" 20 foot enclosed trailer that weighs 4400 lbs empty on the back of his lightning and then put a 3500lb car inside, you would be 2900 lbs over the rated towing limit for the truck.
Check any thread about trailer reccomendations. When Enclosed trailers are mentioned, it seems 24' is the minimum length that the posters recommend. I've seen a Lightning with a 24' Trailer on the back and the front tires were nearly in the air. Dumb.
Lightnings are great trucks, but the FACT is they aren't rated to tow more than 5000 lbs. If you want to tow more than this with one, go right ahead. I'm not going RECOMMEND anyone do it though.
If I was looking for a truck to TOW A TRAILER, I don't think Lightning would be on the list. But, that's my OPINION. 99%+ percent of the people in the world could disagree with me and I would still have the same opinion.
I believe that a lighning will tow a trailer like mike has just fine. I also believe that if he put my "little" 20 foot enclosed trailer that weighs 4400 lbs empty on the back of his lightning and then put a 3500lb car inside, you would be 2900 lbs over the rated towing limit for the truck.
Check any thread about trailer reccomendations. When Enclosed trailers are mentioned, it seems 24' is the minimum length that the posters recommend. I've seen a Lightning with a 24' Trailer on the back and the front tires were nearly in the air. Dumb.
Lightnings are great trucks, but the FACT is they aren't rated to tow more than 5000 lbs. If you want to tow more than this with one, go right ahead. I'm not going RECOMMEND anyone do it though.
If I was looking for a truck to TOW A TRAILER, I don't think Lightning would be on the list. But, that's my OPINION. 99%+ percent of the people in the world could disagree with me and I would still have the same opinion.
KevinBroadwater
Member
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2002
UNGN you can take a horse to water but you CAN'T make him drink!!I agree with you 100%
T
TTA89
Guest
Again it depends what kind of trailer your looking to tow. I guess as luck would have it we made the 1000 mile round trip journey without any problems and had the cruise on 80mph the entire way.
My buddy showed up with his bigger trailer and I took a couple pics.
Lightning with Open trailer next to F350 Dually with Enclosed Trailer
And from the back
Now if you need to tow your entire shop with you and need something as big as that then of course no way in hell am I going to say the Lightning would tow that. Thats obviously rediculous.
Truthfully it looks way more of a pain than its worth. Its a pain to load the car, I drove it into the trailer after 10 min of messing around with wood to get the car to clear the ramps and had to take the T-Top out and climb out cause the doors couldn't open when I finally did get it in there. Securing it to the floor blows.
The upsides are a moving rollaway of tools, there was even a Quad in there for driving around the pits and sleeper above the 5th wheel.
I guess if you have a dedicated racecar that needs transmission and other assorted rebuilds everytime you go to the track you need something like that. I only have street cars, I don't need to bring a garage to the track with me and for that I can live with a normal open car trailer that can get pulled behind my 12 Second Lightning with ease and SAFELY.
So again... If you are like the majority of us that have an open car trailer a Lightning makes a GREAT tow vehicle.
My buddy was messing around with this new digital camera and took a quick movie of us going down the highway. Check it out.
Rolling down the highway with the LS1 in Tow and the cruise on 80
i own a 20' halmark, with the car inside of it ti weighs 7,00 or so , i had a f-250 03' off the lot, great truck, but not fun to drive every day on rough roads and it cost too much for me, i decided to get a 02'f-150 ext cab, tows my trailer just fine, and it only with a 4.6 v8, i used to pull the trailer with a 92' short box reg cab f-150, and it towed it just fine, no prob with tires, front tire loading or anything else, i pulled with all the above from NC to NY, though the mountains of pa and i usually kept a 60mph pace, could yank it to 70 if i wanted to, it was a little slower in the mountains but never below 55, so the way i see it is what ever you want, get, but remember that you dirve the truck a whole lot more without a trailer than you do with, so you might be happier with a truck that can pull the trailer and keep some money in you pocket to play with, rather than have a truck that can pull a 40ft trailer and less play money, if i can pull 800 miles with a 5.0 or 4.6, then i think anyone would be fine with the same, the only thing i recomend is brakes on both axles of the trailer, you can never stop fast enough. i drove small wreckers for a few years, those things with a lincoln on the back are nose light and dangerous, and they have no extra brakes on the towed load, so in retrospect the trailer is way way safer with brakes.
grant
grant
- Joined
- May 23, 2001
I know someone witha 20ft Hallmark also that pulls it everywhere with a 96 Tahoe Vortec with never a problem. Cruises at 70 usually. He has the best hitch and duel axle brakes.
I actually tried to tow my trailer a few times with my wife's '96 Yukon. Even with the load leveler bars cranked, the rear springs were suffering. We added helper springs, but they appear to have damaged the weak factory leafs. Ours had 3.73's and factory TT package. Power was OK on the flats but in the mountains 55 was the best we could achieve. Gas mileage towing was worse than my V10 Ram, with 100+ less Lbft of torque on tap.
We gave up and switched to a 2500 Yukon XL.
Its also been our experience that if tow over 7K lbs with with a stock 4L60/700R4 you better make friends with a good trans guy.
- Joined
- May 23, 2001
I forgot to post the Tahoe has the larger set of airbags installed and the load leveler bars also.
It would be better with more power in the mountains without a doubt.
It would be better with more power in the mountains without a doubt.
That is a good point about Airbags, Bob. That would be the hot setup for towing with a 1500 pickup or SUV to save the rear springs. That stuff wasn't available back in 1996, so we went with bolt on helper springs.
Even with a 2500 pickup (Dodge for example), I'd rather go to a $200-300 airbag set up than have those clanking factory overload springs back there.
Even with a 2500 pickup (Dodge for example), I'd rather go to a $200-300 airbag set up than have those clanking factory overload springs back there.
Cummins?
Get a Cummins High Output and never look back if you're looking to tow something heavy and don't want to worry about upgrades or recalls every three months.
Click here to see my '03 Cummins H/O 4x4.
If you want truly Heavy Duty, get a built-for-the-task heavy duty motor. 305 hp, 555 lb/ft of torque, and a stellar reputation. Plus, with the new Ram HD, you get four real doors. The lowest fuel mileage I've gotten so far (about 7100 miles now) is 17.9, it averages ~18.5-19mpg around town and gets ~22-23 mpg on the highway. Pulling a loaded trailer of ~3500 lbs has no effect at all on the fuel economy - it does not even know it's back there. It is every bit as quiet as the Duramax and maybe even a tad quieter.
I know of several Duramaxes and Powerstrokes that have had reliability issues as well as two different Duramaxes (just here in my area) that went back to Chevy under the Lemon law.
I'm not flaming any one truck and if I could, I would put the Cummins in the Ford or Chevy because I think that overall they are more comfortable vehicles. I just wouldn't buy their diesel because of what I've personally seen.
Just my 3.8 turbocharged and intercooled cents. If you want a diesel you will love the Cummins.
Get a Cummins High Output and never look back if you're looking to tow something heavy and don't want to worry about upgrades or recalls every three months.
Click here to see my '03 Cummins H/O 4x4.
If you want truly Heavy Duty, get a built-for-the-task heavy duty motor. 305 hp, 555 lb/ft of torque
, and a stellar reputation. Plus, with the new Ram HD, you get four real doors. The lowest fuel mileage I've gotten so far (about 7100 miles now) is 17.9, it averages ~18.5-19mpg around town and gets ~22-23 mpg on the highway. Pulling a loaded trailer of ~3500 lbs has no effect at all on the fuel economy - it does not even know it's back there. It is every bit as quiet as the Duramax and maybe even a tad quieter. I know of several Duramaxes and Powerstrokes that have had reliability issues as well as two different Duramaxes (just here in my area) that went back to Chevy under the Lemon law.
I'm not flaming any one truck and if I could, I would put the Cummins in the Ford or Chevy because I think that overall they are more comfortable vehicles. I just wouldn't buy their diesel because of what I've personally seen.
Just my 3.8 turbocharged and intercooled cents.
If you want a diesel you will love the Cummins.wistleofdeath
the noise in Illinois.
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2003
where I used to work we drilled holes and installed monitoring wells for environmental work. We our equipment is mounted on HD pickup trucks (I.E. F-550 and ect). We had them all from the old 7.3 to the new 6.0 litre powerstrokes, the Duramax, and the cummings. Personally id go with a newer 7.3 with the six speed tranny. The 6.0 had awesome power and would tow our 7,000 Lbs skid steer all over the place but it had issues always going back to ford. same thing with te duramax always going back to the dearship. the cummings was fine unless you loaded it then it just felt like a dog. Our little drill rig was a CME-45. It is the smallest rig CME makes and we had it mounted on the back of a F-550 with a newer 7.3 the total combnation weighed in a 17,984 LBS and that motor pulled it just fine (as fine as small diesel like that could pull that weight). Also we averaged about 12 MPG. not to bad for 17,984LBS
I'm going to school to be a caterpillar equipment tech. at my shop at school we have a v-12 twin watercooled turbos, twin liquid intercoolers (42 PSI under full load ) . and each piston is 13.5" in diameter. Put that motor in a truck, that might pull a fully loaded enclosed trailer up a hill or two
and that motor pulled it just fine (as fine as small diesel like that could pull that weight). Also we averaged about 12 MPG. not to bad for 17,984LBSI'm going to school to be a caterpillar equipment tech. at my shop at school we have a v-12 twin watercooled turbos, twin liquid intercoolers (42 PSI under full load
) . and each piston is 13.5" in diameter. Put that motor in a truck, that might pull a fully loaded enclosed trailer up a hill or twoWere the Cummins that you had experience with the High Output version and even more importantly, what were the gear ratios? Also, were the Cummins you drove 5 spds, 6 spds, or autos?
I had a couple of the 7.3 Turbo Fords and liked them. But I can honestly say that I am certain that the truck I have currently would have dragged either of my old ones backwards easily.
Again, no flames, just my experiences.
KnightRider
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2001
I would personally stay away from the 6 liter ford. The 7.3 was a better engine, atleast so far. I have been hearing about a lot of problems with them.
Personally I won't own anything but a Cummins. They are bullet proof and always have been. If I were to get a Ford or a Chevy get an automatic, they are great trannies. If you get a Dodge get a 6-speed. But it is all about what you like. Good luck
Personally I won't own anything but a Cummins. They are bullet proof and always have been. If I were to get a Ford or a Chevy get an automatic, they are great trannies. If you get a Dodge get a 6-speed. But it is all about what you like. Good luck
