Re: [A/S] Towing

["Tim Shephard" <timshephard@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I owned a '98 Expedition and towed my '71 Safari with it.  My Safari is
rated for 3500#.  I never weighed it though.

I ended up selling it because of its poor reliability, lots of mechanical
issues, and its poor towing performance.  Mine was only the 4.6L V8 Trition,
so if you have the 5.4 your at an advantage.  I'm pretty sure my rear end
gears were 3.55, if you have 3.73's your at a further advantage.

But even so, I don't think its enough of a tow vehicle because when was
towing on some 6% grades in Lake Tahoe, I had the transmission in second
gear and the accelerator floored and could only maintain 20mph.  It was
awful and I felt I would be doing some real damage if I kept trying to do
this long term.

We had talked about taking the trailer across country and I vowed there was
no way I would do that with the Expedition.  Now with my  new truck, a 2001
Silverado 2500HD with the 6.0L and 4.10 rear end, I am not worried at all
about where I would go.

In fact when we went to Lake Tahoe with the Expedition we went up hwy 80
toward Truckee which was a lot easier drive with less drastic hills than we
had on the way home which was hwy 50.

There is no way I could have went up hwy 50 with the Expedition.  Well this
past season we went twice up hwy 50 with the Silverado and had no problems,
no downshifting to second and never ran out of petal.

Even more than that, it doesn't feel like we are damaging the tow vehicle
when driving or stopping like it did with the Expedition.

Just my experience.

-Tim