2017 Ford Expedition for Towing

[Samersen]

After a fun few days at Jeep Safari and while looking for the next family vehicle I am leaning towards getting a 2017 Expedition either a short or long wheel base. From what I have seen they have checked a few different boxes for me.

• 5 Star Crash Tests
• 4wd/AWD
• 3 Rows (able to hold 3-4 car seats/booster seats with the latch system)

At safari I started thinking it would be nice to load the Jeep on the trailer (2006 LJR) and drive down. According to Ford the towing capacity for the 3.5L ecoboost with the 3.73 gear ratio is over 9000 lbs. https://www.ford.com/cmslibs/conten...df/brochures/17RV&TT_Ford_Expedition_Sep7.pdf Is this a dream number? Would I be better going with the LWB for better stability? A quick google search said a base LJ Rubicon weighs in at ~4k so I figure tack on another 1k for lift, bumpers, tires.... etc and a car trailer is 2500lbs. So rounding up that puts me at 8000 lbs of trailer weight.

Could the ecoboost really do this? What are other's experiences? Am I barking up the wrong tree, and should I just drive my Jeep down and buy a mini van for the wife?

 

[mbryson]

Same 3.5 engine as the Expedition. This is a short wheelbase version. I quite like this car. I don't dig the IRS for towing but other than that, it's pretty sweet. The Expedition has the integrated towing brake available so I'd stick to that if it were my choice. We have three kids (sort of....some out of the house) so we really like the shorter wheelbase version IF it has the bench seat rather than the captians chairs for the 2nd row. We had a 2001 Navigator shorter wheelbase version with the rear captains chairs so we needed the rear seat. With the rear seat up, the cargo area is minute. For this rig, we have just kept the rear seat folded down and it's got as much room as you'd expect in a Suburban or Expedition EL or similar.

Towing experience is pretty good. I have a thread on here somewhere about thoughts/observations.

Well, let's try using the Navigator for a tow rig (again)-2015 Navigator

Most of you know I used our 2001 Navigator for a tow rig for about 2 (?) years. It actually did better than I expected. We're going to try that again, this time with a 2015 version. Ecoboost motor, 6 speed auto trans, heated/cooled seats, bluetooth audio, bluetooth nose wiper, satellite...

www.rme4x4.com

 

[Caleb]

Just make sure you get a good weight distribution hitch that's setup properly and you should be good. The ecoboost will pull it no problem.

 

[mbryson]

Just make sure you get a good weight distribution hitch that's setup properly and you should be good. The ecoboost will pull it no problem.

This is good advice

 

[TRD270]

If you get the load balanced well the IRS isn't horrible. I don't know if I would hunt for 3:73's, I had 3:31's (they aren't offered anymore) in my F150 and it had no issues towing my 4runner around in 6th gear 3:55's should be fine. I think the higher gears might be worse since the motor makes all its torque super low

 

[Samersen]

We went and looked at this yesterday and drove it. We seemed to like it I am going to take it to a shop to get it looked at. But does anyone see any red flags on it?

https://www.ksl.com/auto/listing/5641639?ad_cid=9

 

[rholbrook]

I thought mine did exceptionally well at towing. I had the v8 and it was a limited with air ride. I wouldn’t hesitate towing a jeep with it especially with the ecoboost

 

[mbryson]

My wife still loves her EcoBoost Navigator. It's just a commuter at this point. If you lay on it to merge or similar, it's still pretty impressive even though we've had it almost a year.

We've used the "Certified Used" warranty a couple of times now. One was for a water pump replacement. That took 3-4 days to fix. I assume part of the time in shop was that it was warranty classification but they also mentioned they had to pull both turbos off to do the work. Not sure if they pulled the body off the frame or not like they do on the pickups? Have a window switch and a rear camera issue that I want to take it in for again.

 

[Samersen]

We still have not decided on a new vehicle. I test drove a 2016 sequoia and really liked it. it Wouldn’t tow has much as the expedition but I like the reliability history of Toyota.

My only problem right now is that I can not find crash ratings for the new body style. TheTundra has less then stellar ratings so that worries me but I can’t find any ratings on the sequoia it’s self.

 

[Jay5.9L]

They are basically the same so I’d expect the front end crash data to be similar. Such a old design I’d skip the Toyota until they redesign in the next few years