Who is towing with a 2.7?

[bigb]

Is the factory transmission cooler sufficient for towing say 4,500 lbs on mountain grades or is an after market cooler recommended?

Also I don't understand this "frontal area" statement, why would a not having the trailer tow package "significantly reduce the performance of your towing vehicle"? All the trailer tow packages include are things like the hitch, brake controller, backup assist, parking sensors, AAC etc, nothing cooling or performance related so the frontal area restriction doesn't make sense.

 

[bigb]

I think I figured it out. By performance I think they mean handling and weight distribution. If you don't have a tow package you won't have a receiver and I suspect the reduced frontal area is because without a receiver you will be towing on the bumper.

 

[sgtsandman]

I don't know if anyone here has the 2.7. There only a couple people that have a 2024+ Ranger.

As far as the frontal area versus the tow package deal, you might be right. Other than the hitch and the plug, there isn't a difference between the two.

 

[bigb]

I don't know if anyone here has the 2.7. There only a couple people that have a 2024+ Ranger.

As far as the frontal area versus the tow package deal, you might be right. Other than the hitch and the plug, there isn't a difference between the two.

Thanks. I should have titled it "Who is towing with a 2024-2025?" as the manual doesn't differentiate between engines, the frontal limitations and towing specs are the same for both the 2.3 and the 2.7. Only the Raptor has a reduced total towing capacity.

 

[bobbywalter]

its load when heading into 50 mph headwind.

gearing is key there and the tow modes transmission selection is key to keep from murdering itself.

boosted engines can murder themselves is short order.


you can take two trucks with the same engines and transmission, and totally different programming and hate one over the other or destroy one over the other towing the same load over vail pass.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

As your speed doubles your drag roughly quadruples. Frontal area is a huge deal for effort in hauling/pulling.

I would expect something different with the radiator or trans cooler.

 

[Robertmangrum.rm]

I've towed 4500lns with my 2.3. Besides the 12 mpgs, you couldn't even tell it was back there (with the RedArc trailer brake kit). Pulling out took a little extra skinny pedal. But besides that, cruise set a 75 mph, it towed up and down the mountains here out East. No problem

Granted, I have the 10r80, not the 10r60 transmission. So I can't imagine the 2.7 having any issues. Plus, with the new Rangers, you can monitor the trans temps. It has a gauge in the screen settings. I've actually seen side by side comparisons done on the mid sized trucks. They towed a trailer loaded with water tanks to make sure the loads were identical weights. I think it was TFL on YouTube. There are several reviews and tests of them on there.

 

[Snoranger]

My buddy has an f150 with the 2.7L and it’s a beast when it comes to towing. My 3.5L F150 pulled a little better, but I had the max tow package with 3.73 gears instead of the standard 3.31s. The truck, the brakes, the legal aspect, etc are the limitation not the engine.

 

[Blmpkn]

I took it right to the limit (& sometimes over) when I had my 21.. not a 2.7 ofc but it had zero issues.

Not sure about the newer trucks.. but I don't believe there were any differences between coolers and stuff between tow package trucks and non tow package trucks at that point.. the only differences were the real receiver, bumper, and plug setup.

 

[JoshT]

My buddy has an f150 with the 2.7L and it’s a beast when it comes to towing. My 3.5L F150 pulled a little better, but I had the max tow package with 3.73 gears instead of the standard 3.31s. The truck, the brakes, the legal aspect, etc are the limitation not the engine.

Similar story here. Not a Ranger and not mine (yet). Dad bought a 21 F-150 SCREW 4x4 with the 2.7L and towing package. I don't know how much weight he actually towed with it but pulled their 20 something foot camper with no problems. Also handled his 32hp LS tractor with front end loader and implements no problem. Don't know what either package weighed, but the LS tractor by itself is about 3k, I think I've seen that the loader adds about 1k, the trailer is probably at least that much, then the implement.

From what I've read you can definitely see the difference in MPG when towing, but if towing isn't your main usage the unloaded MPG is great. I'll be finding out. Mom is planning to give me the F-150, I'm planning to keep it over the '00 F-250 7.3L. In the 4-5 years that I've had the 250, I'm pretty certain that I've never exceeded 5500 lbs towing. (V8 explorer W/ trailer) That only happened once. Every other tow has been a 500(ish) lb atv on a utility trailer. The F-250 is capable but wasted on me. No vehicle I'm likely to tow exceeds the weight rating of the F-150, no camper I'm likely to buy exceeds it, and I almost never tow anything.

I'm actually surprised to see the towing capacity that Ford put in that chart. I don't know about the '24 model, but dad's '21 F-150 was rated at 7700 lbs with the towing package, 2.7L, and 3.55 gear ratio. I thought back in 2011 one of the reasons they discontinued the Ranger was because it was competition with the F-150. If they are rating the new Ranger at the same capacities as the F-150 it's really competing now. Regardless of the ratings, I still feel like the larger truck would handle the load better.

 

[Snoranger]

Similar story here. Not a Ranger and not mine (yet). Dad bought a 21 F-150 SCREW 4x4 with the 2.7L and towing package. I don't know how much weight he actually towed with it but pulled their 20 something foot camper with no problems. Also handled his 32hp LS tractor with front end loader and implements no problem. Don't know what either package weighed, but the LS tractor by itself is about 3k, I think I've seen that the loader adds about 1k, the trailer is probably at least that much, then the implement.

From what I've read you can definitely see the difference in MPG when towing, but if towing isn't your main usage the unloaded MPG is great. I'll be finding out. Mom is planning to give me the F-150, I'm planning to keep it over the '00 F-250 7.3L. In the 4-5 years that I've had the 250, I'm pretty certain that I've never exceeded 5500 lbs towing. (V8 explorer W/ trailer) That only happened once. Every other tow has been a 500(ish) lb atv on a utility trailer. The F-250 is capable but wasted on me. No vehicle I'm likely to tow exceeds the weight rating of the F-150, no camper I'm likely to buy exceeds it, and I almost never tow anything.

I'm actually surprised to see the towing capacity that Ford put in that chart. I don't know about the '24 model, but dad's '21 F-150 was rated at 7700 lbs with the towing package, 2.7L, and 3.55 gear ratio. I thought back in 2011 one of the reasons they discontinued the Ranger was because it was competition with the F-150. If they are rating the new Ranger at the same capacities as the F-150 it's really competing now. Regardless of the ratings, I still feel like the larger truck would handle the load better.

My F150 with the max tow package was rated at 13,200. If I had the Supercab instead of the crew cab it would have been like 13,500 or a little more. That’s insane for a F150.

 

[JoshT]

My F150 with the max tow package was rated at 13,200. If I had the Supercab instead of the crew cab it would have been like 13,500 or a little more. That’s insane for a F150.

I do not believe that this one has the max tow package. I only saw the "trailer tow package" and the "tow technology package" on the window sticker. Looking at the towing chart the 2.7L only went up to 10k for this year and only 7.7k for the screw with 3.55 gear ratio.

Max for this year was 14k with the 3.5L Ecoboost (slightly less for 4wd) and max tow pack plus heavy duty payload package, max tow by itself was limited to about 11k. If I'd been shopping for a truck (I wouldn't have gone this new, but...) I most likely would have gone with the 3.5L ecoboost or the 5.0L Coyote. Those are both good engines, I would have looked right over the 2.7 that I think actually meets my needs better. As mentioned I don't need that high towing capacity. The interesting thing is that difference (other than engine) between a max tow 3.5L and my 2.7L with towing packages appears to just be upgraded rear axle and rear bumper. The truck was optioned with all of the other stuff from Max Tow, and I don;t see where the bumper makes much difference when towing with a hitch, so really just the axle and engine displacement that are different. Now I'm not saying that means this truck is just as capable, but it does mean that I'd pull right up to that 7.7K lb limit and not worry about it.


Out of curiosity I took a look at the towing chart for my older '99 Ranger (found '00 instead). It should have been about 5.6k lb towing capacity for a 4.0L OHV 4x4 Supercab with 3.73/4.10 gears. Legally that's what it is, but I've modified it with an Explorer 5.0L and will be installing the 31 spline from the Explorer as well. Explorer had a rating of about 6.6k lbs. Explorer also had more curb weight than the Ranger, so that would theoretically bump the modified rating up a little higher (7k maybe). So even the old Ranger has dang near as much capacity as this F-150. I wouldn't tow like that with it though. I doubt it would ever see more than 2-3k lbs of trailer, and generally much less than that. No question that the F-150 is the nicer truck, and the Ranger is probably going back to being a hunting/offroad truck once I get some stuff figured out. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with something that can qualify for the TRS Vegabond group afterall (the truck, not me).

 

[superj]

Gas mileage is the same towing, i think no matter what you use. My father in law lets us use his 2019 f150 with 3.5 to tow an 83bmw on a flat bed utility trailer from waco to corpus christi, so we were in the truck, basically the whole day.

The f150 towed ok and got 10-12mpg. We borrowed his truck because we no longer had our 2017 nissan titan. The titan towed waaayyyy better but it had a 400hp v8 so it had power and torque lile crazy. It got the same mileage with the v8 towing cars across the usa that the f150 got.

 

[sgtsandman]

Yeah, you get into the boost side of the ecoboost and gas milege drops pretty quick.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Yeah, if you are going to use 300hp... you will feed 300hp.