“Frontal area considerations” for small tow vehicles

[John E Davies]

I saw that a member appears to be towing an LE2 with a Ranger, and it got me thinking, which is always dangerous.…. I never saw this in print before. The Ranger 2.3 Ecoboost can tow 7500 pounds when properly equipped, but the tow guide is pretty explicit about not having a lot of exposed surface area on the trailer. “Exceeding these limitations may significantly reduce the performance of your towing vehicle.”

 

They show one towing a small boat, which should be perfectly fine. I wouldn’t worry so much with an LE1 because of its much lower weight, but a loaded down LE2 would make me think long and hard before heading out West. The frontal area of that one is about 70 sq ft, and additional rooftop equipment like solar panels will make the drag far worse .

Comments? Has anyone seen these published frontal area limits for other TVs?

John Davies

Spokane WA

[BackofBeyond]

You thinking this:

[Frank C]

On our recent 6,000 mile round trip out to Utah and back, all that time on the road gave us an opportunity to see a lot of other people hauling trailers.  And we saw some absolutely horrible decision making by some people on their tow vehicle & trailer combinations.  Some with such high tongue weights that the nose of their tow vehicle was pointed towards the sky with the front wheels almost completely unloaded.   Headlights pointed towards the sky at night.  And a disaster waiting to happen with their lack of front end steering and braking control on a rainy/slick road.  Some that were obviously exceeding the payload rating of their tow vehicle, with the entire tow vehicle squatted down to the point the that the tires were almost rubbing in the fender wells.  Others towing massive travel trailers with tiny SUVs and struggling to get up the mountains on I-70 through Colorado.  That Eisenhower tunnel section of I-70 in Colorado at 11,000 foot elevation is a real test of tow vehicles.  Normally I’d say let the Darwin principle weed out the bad decision makers, but the problem is that they sometimes take out innocent bystanders too.  

[Landrover]

1 hour ago, FrankC said:

On our recent 6,000 mile round trip out to Utah and back, all that time on the road gave us an opportunity to see a lot of other people hauling trailers.  And we saw some absolutely horrible decision making by some people on their tow vehicle & trailer combinations.  Some with such high tongue weights that the nose of their tow vehicle was pointed towards the sky with the front wheels almost completely unloaded.   Headlights pointed towards the sky at night.  And a disaster waiting to happen with their lack of front end steering and braking control on a rainy/slick road.  Some that were obviously exceeding the payload rating of their tow vehicle, with the entire tow vehicle squatted down to the point the that the tires were almost rubbing in the fender wells.  Others towing massive travel trailers with tiny SUVs and struggling to get up the mountains on I-70 through Colorado.  That Eisenhower tunnel section of I-70 in Colorado at 11,000 foot elevation is a real test of tow vehicles.  Normally I’d say let the Darwin principle weed out the bad decision makers, but the problem is that they sometimes take out innocent bystanders too.  

My Tv tows just fine. 🥴🤥

[Mainiac]

No 6 volt? No problem! Nothing to plug into anyway. Go for it.

[rideandfly]

John,

Before buying our LE2, we towed a 2000lb aluminum travel trailer out west a couple times from NC with a 2013 4.0L Nissan Frontier. Best fuel economy I could get with this rig was  13.5MPG. Called this trailer a lightweight aluminum brick because of the lack of aerodynamics. The Trailer Frontal rating for the 2013 Frontier pickup was 60sf. When we purchased Ollie in Missouri,  towed Ollie home with the Frontier and could not believe the fuel economy @ 15MPG to NC (checked by actual gallons burned) with Ollie over double the weight of our previous camper. In 2014 the trailer frontal area dropped on the 2014 4.0L Frontier to 30sf with same engine and pickup frontal area. Believe these changes were made due to SAE J2807 towing methods.

If you look at 2014 Ford towing brochure, if I read it correctly, even the F-550 Super Duty is restricted to trailer frontal area of 60sf, page 13:

https://www.fleet.ford.com/content/dam/aem_fleet/en_us/fleet/towing-guides/Ford_Linc_14RVTTowGuide.pdf

This is a good discussion on the FGRV forum on the same topic during 2016:

https://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f56/trailer-frontal-area-77307.html