Picking the right tow vehicle

[Ron in BC]

Originally Posted by DT6

Biggest problem is the configuration we want is very very hard to find (XLT, supercab, 2.7L, BLIS, tow pkg, nav). Thanks again for the great tips!

Welcome to the club. That's what I wanted. Acres of 4x4 Supercrew cabs but nary a Supercab and especially a 4x2.

We ended up ordering one. We went with the Lariet because my wife really loves those power memory seats. It will roll down the line on Oct. 27. Worth the wait to get exactly what we want.

Ron

[NCBill]

+10 my next truck will be a special order. If I am going to pay the premium for new then I am not willing to compromise. I’ve compromised on every truck I have owned as I always bought used.

Be careful on the higher end models. Every step up means more (heavy) options. As the options go up, the payload goes DOWN. Open the door at a dealer sometime and look at the payload sticker on a King Ranch or Platinum. Then check the sticker on an XL model. You could be surprised.

[War Eagle]

Originally Posted by DT6

... Biggest problem is the configuration we want is very very hard to find (XLT, supercab, 2.7L, BLIS, tow pkg, nav). ...

To each their own, but we will never buy another supercab with the rear-hinged ("suicide") rear doors. They are fine when you're out in the wide open spaces with nothing beside you to block your ingress/egress. But they can be way aggravating when in tight quarters like diagonal parking spaces. You have to open the front door in order to open the rear door (at least that's the way our 1999 F-250 Supercab is designed), and then with both the front door and rear door open, you're trapped between the doors. To load something like groceries in the back seat, you're constantly fighting the doors. So you end up parking out in the boonies of the parking lot and hope no one decides to park beside you. Just my experience. As Donna D always reminds us, YMMV....

[Dave Walter]

Originally Posted by War Eagle

To each their own, but we will never buy another supercab with the rear-hinged ("suicide") rear doors. They are fine when you're out in the wide open spaces with nothing beside you to block your ingress/egress. But they can be way aggravating when in tight quarters like diagonal parking spaces. You have to open the front door in order to open the rear door (at least that's the way our 1999 F-250 Supercab is designed), and then with both the front door and rear door open, you're trapped between the doors. To load something like groceries in the back seat, you're constantly fighting the doors. So you end up parking out in the boonies of the parking lot and hope no one decides to park beside you. Just my experience. As Donna D always reminds us, YMMV....

The suicide doors definitely lead to greater difficulty accessing the rear of the vehicle when another vehicle is parked closely beside yours. I have the same issues with my FJ. However, this issue is pretty miniscule compared to the many positive attributes of the FJ, and I am very happy to overlook it. As Donna D always reminds us, love the one that your with!

[War Eagle]

Originally Posted by Dave Walter

The suicide doors definitely lead to greater difficulty accessing the rear of the vehicle when another vehicle is parked closely beside yours. I have the same issues with my FJ. However, this issue is pretty miniscule compared to the many positive attributes of the FJ, and I am very happy to overlook it. As Donna D always reminds us, love the one that your with!

Not to be overly negative about the rear "suicide" doors, but the rear doors on our 1999 F-250 use two cables each to open, one from the handle to the top latch, and one from the handle to the bottom latch. Those cables use degradable plastic where they should have used metal and are notorious for failing over time. I've had to replace three of the four cables. It's quite a task to first open a door to work on it when either cable brakes, and then OEM replacement cables are not cheap. There is even a little cottage industry out there where enterprising folks have designed metal cable caps to replace the brittle plastic end pieces (I've used them on one cable and they seem to work as designed). Hopefully the engineers have improved the door latch cables on newer models.

[Chotch]

Love my super cab and with no center pillar and almost 180 degrees opening of the doors, access to the back is great.😎

[NCBill]

My prior truck was an F150 Supercrew. I replaced it with an F150 Supercab, thinking I would like it better. I don’t do the next one will be a Supercrew again. In the end it’s a trade off, would you prefer more space in the cab or a longer bed. The Supercrew is available with the longer 6 1/2 ft bed but it makes for a really long truck,

[rbryan4]

While payload capacity is definitely a consideration in an F150, or any other full size truck, it all depends on your intended use. Since I don't do much hauling except for pulling my 19, the reduced payload capacity of my SuperCrew Lariat 2WD with no payload package works fine for me.

I've several hundred lbs to spare with the truck loaded with typical camping gear, the wife and I, and the loaded 19 hitched up. While I appreciate a higher payload capacity as much as the next guy, I don't really need it in this case. It's all about what YOU intend to use it for, not someone else. I look at my F150 more as a towing machine than a "real truck". A machine by the way that is a total pleasure to drive and tow with. Rides like a luxury car, and at the end of a several hundred mile day, we arrive feeling great and not cramped up.

If I ever switched to a 5.0TA, then I would probably opt for a truck for a higher payload.

[Ron in BC]

[QUOTE=War Eagle;262374]Not to be overly negative about the rear "suicide" doors, but the rear doors on our 1999 F-250 use two cables each to open, one from the handle to the top latch, and one from the handle to the bottom latch. Those cables use degradable plastic/QUOTE]

1999 was a long time ago, maybe they use better cables now. I've never had any trouble with my supercab doors on my newer Ranger.

Originally Posted by Chotch

Love my super cab and with no center pillar and almost 180 degrees opening of the doors, access to the back is great.😎

I agree and the first thing that I did with my Ranger, since we don't carry passengers, was remove the rear jump seats. I'll probably do the same for our new F150 and it'll be the perfect easy access secure storage area for our folding electric bikes.

Ron

[Fox hunt]

back seats of my 150 fold up easily to reveal a large storage space my rad bike fits perfectly but i usually travel with it on my bike rack.

[Ron in BC]

Originally Posted by Fox hunt

back seats of my 150 fold up easily to reveal a large storage space my rad bike fits perfectly but i usually travel with it on my bike rack.

Since we don't have the truck that may be premature thinking on my part. If both bikes fit in without removing the seats then they'll stay.

I do have a bike rack but I'm not really a fan of them. Especially since Sunday on I-5 when, as best as I can piece together, a bike came off the back of a car several cars ahead of me. It bounced down the center of the two lanes and a following van tried unsuccessfully to swerve and avoid it. Bikes parts littered the road and the van went off the highway and rolled.

So a reminder for all of you that dangle bikes off the back, please make sure there're very secure. Because when I'm behind a vehicle with 4 bikes swaying back and forth that's what I'm wondering.

Ron

[Diana-in-Texas]

After reading this thread, it looks like there are some people towing the 19 with Jeeps and Toyota Highlanders, (aside from trucks) both of which are rated at 5,000 lb towing, as is our Honda Pilot.

Is there anyone here who is towing the 19' with the Honda Pilot? A GVW of 4100 has been bandied around on the Escape website (as fully loaded with contents, etc.).

My concern is to stay within the 80% of the GWVR (5000 on the 19), which is 4000 lbs. (And, yup, we understand how we pack will effect that.)

We could use the 17' but the double-axle in the 19, plus the extra space is very attractive to us, due to the enhanced safety during a flat or blown out tire.

Advice?
Thanks!
Diana in Texas

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by War Eagle

You have to open the front door in order to open the rear door (at least that's the way our 1999 F-250 Supercab is designed)...

Modern rear-hinged rear doors all work that way, as far as I know. There are two reasons:

1. they are used to allow a shared opening without a pillar, and for a viable seal where the doors meet, one must overlap the other; you wouldn't want to have to open the rear door to get into the front, so it is the other way around
2. there is a fear that a rear door will be opened while moving (such as by a child), which is a more severe problem than with a rear-hinged door (and the source of the term "suicide door"); to prevent this, the front door acts as a safety interlock

These are mostly found on pickup trucks with cabs long enough for rear doors, but not long enough for reasonable front-hinged doors (so the pillarless design is used to allow the opening to be shared). The recent trend has been to get away from these, by simply going larger - in the Ram and Toyota Tundra pickups, the middle cab length is so long that it has front-hinged doors (that's a Ram Quad cab or Tundra Double Cab). There are occasional cars which use rear-hinged doors to handle the length issue: Mazda RX-8, some early Saturns, Hyundai Veloster (passenger side only), etc.

[gbaglo]

My wife rarely has anything to say about cars, but she hates her friend's Honda Element because of the doors.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by gbaglo

My wife rarely has anything to say about cars, but she hates her friend's Honda Element because of the doors.

and my friends wife *loves* her Element, except it doesn't get very good gas mileage.

my previous and current truck are both extended cab not double cab, and I am really happy with both.

the bit about the Ford Super Duty in the tight parking lot, geez, those trucks are so wide that opening the MAIN door (or a crew cab rear door) can be really tough if someone is too close to you. My F250 Super Duty is a longbed (8'), and already has too long of a wheelbase, I can't imagine a crew cab longbed, probably have a 70' turning circle.

[gbaglo]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

and my friends wife *loves* her Element, except it doesn't get very good gas mileage.
.

I presume she never gets the back seat.

[John in Santa Cruz]

they don't have kids... the dogs ride in the back or her husband uses it to haul telescopes + camping gear instead of his Mini.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

My F250 Super Duty is a longbed (8'), and already has too long of a wheelbase, I can't imagine a crew cab longbed, probably have a 70' turning circle.

It would probably feel like that, but the turning circle is 57.8' for the SuperCrew 8-ft, versus 54.3' for the SuperCab 8-ft and as "little" as 47.6' for a regular cab 8-ft. (Specs for XLT 4WD). The F-150 specs for comparable cabs and boxes are almost as long, but use a Ford Explorer and you can turn curb-to-curb in 38.9'. My van takes a couple of feet less than the Explorer (despite the van having longer wheelbase).

As with everything in life, and especially in technology, it's all about hitting the right compromise.

[John in Santa Cruz]

the curb-to-curb turning circle of my Tacoma AccessCab 4x4, with a 73" bed (6'1") was 40 feet. Its a lot harder to make a U turn in my 58' F250, and N point turns when towing the Escape 21, eeek, I feel like humming "Gimme 50 Acres and I'll Turn this Rig Around...", but if I remember to park the cars out of the way, I can do a 360 and back the trailer into a parking space in my driveway which is about 60 x 60 feet of clear area with various lanes coming off it.

[War Eagle]

Originally Posted by Ron in BC

Since we don't have the truck that may be premature thinking on my part. If both bikes fit in without removing the seats then they'll stay. ... Ron

I've posted this photo before, but here's what the back seat of our 2016 Ford SuperCrew looks like with the seats folded up. Lots of space with a nice big flat floor (minimal protrusion of the under seat what-not bins). Also, the rear doors open out almost 90 degrees.