Choosing our tow vehicle (Part 2)

So I'd concluded that I would be uncomfortable towing a high-waller with our 2012 Toyota Highlander V6. This brought our RV research to a grinding halt. Almost ever trailer we had been looking at was in the 19-23 feet long, 3500-5000 pound dry weight range. I told Heather that I would probably be comfortable towing a trailer that was 2500 pound dry, 3500 pounds fully loaded behind the Highlander.

We gave up for awhile. Whenever we started daydreaming again, two completely opposite trains of thought left the station:

1. Find something under 3500 pounds loaded that we could tow with the Highlander
2. Find a bigger tow vehicle

It was really #1 that kept leading us back to #2. Online, we looked at Rockwood Roo's, Forest River RPods, Heartland MPGs, Little Guy Teardrops, A-Liners, Livin Lite Camp Lites, Lance 1575s... even pop-up tent campers from Rockwood and Somerset. GVWR and tongue weight dictated our research: I wasn't going to buy it if I didn't feel it could be towed safely and comfortably by our Highlander. That led into lists of must-have features versus nice-to-have features. What were we willing to compromise on? Heather has already described a lot of that decision making process in her blog posts, so I'll cut to the chase.

What we really wanted was a trailer with a walk-around bed so that we weren't climbing over each other to go to the bathroom at 4am, a dry bath (which is what normal people call "a bathroom" and RV people call "a bathroom where the toilet does not get wet when you shower"), and enough cargo capacity to haul Heather's triathlon gear from race to race. We wanted it to have heat and A/C, because Heather usually picks races that tend to occur during extreme weather patterns (though not on purpose, she swears to me).

Add all of that together, and you end up with a trailer that really warrants being towed by a truck. For the hell of it I started researching trucks, starting with the Toyota Tundra and Tacoma. Why? Because every single vehicle Heather and I have ever owned has been a Toyota. We love our Toyotas.  We swear by Toyota. We recommend Toyota to other people.

That's when I waded waist-deep into the ongoing holy war that is the Great American Truck Debate. I knew it existed, as I've seen the TV commercials. I have friends, relatives, and co-workers who have fought in it. They've all got their own war stories and dogma. I thought "well, Toyota makes trucks, I'll just look at those." I started looking at towing features, powertrain options, cab configurations, fuel economy and reliability ratings.

When I looked at the marketshare numbers, I was shocked. Toyota was a distant fourth to Ford, Chevy, and Dodge in truck sales.  Ford dominates the U.S. truck market, so I started doing more research. The (very) long story short? Ford offers the following features in their F-150 Max Trailer Tow package:

• 7-pin and 4-pin trailer wiring harness/connector
• Class IV hitch receiver
• Dedicated tow/haul transmission mode
• Auxiliary transmission cooler
• Upgraded radiator
• Upgraded rear bumper
• Built-in, fully integrated trailer brake controller with trailer sway control
• In-dash trailer brake controller monitoring system
• Backup camera and radar sensor system
• Power telescoping and power folding mirrors designed for trailer towing

No other full-size pickup on the market offered all of those towing amenities out-of-the-box. Ford's twin-turbo 3.5L EcoBoost V6 engine also really appealed to me: more power and torque for towing at lower RPMs than the standard F-150 5.0L V8 engine, with higher rated fuel-economy (a subject worthy of its own post).

So we ended up buying a 2013 Ford F-150 Super Crew 4x4 with the 3.5L EcoBoost V6, 3.73:1 axle ratio, and the 157" wheelbase (6.5' long bed). It's huge. I'm giddy driving it. I tower over other cars and can see everybody trying to text discreetly on their smartphones. It could also tow every single travel trailer that we really wanted, so Heather and I set out to go take a look at the one brand we kept coming back to: Lance.

As Heather has already explained, we ended up with a 2013 Lance 1885.  23' 9" long including the tongue, 4200 lbs dry according to the DOT sticker on the side (advertised as 3700 lbs dry), GVWR (max weight loaded) of 5700 lbs. Our F-150 is rated to tow 11,100 lbs with proper weight distribution and trailer brakes, so we're well within our limits. Better to have too much tow vehicle than not enough, I figured. Our Lance dealer recommended the Fastway e2 weight distribution hitch with sway control, and set us up with the e2 model that features 1000 lb weight distribution bars (the maximum recommended by Lance).

Getting ready for our first tow off the lot