Not excited at all! I just laugh at some of suggestions made in this forum, some of which appear to be unsafe. One makes a choice to either follow the manual or listen to the suggestions in this forum.

 

That feature is on the '09 FE "only" if you have the OEM trailer package.

 

I'm sure it will make your head explode, but both of my 06 Mariners not only have a class 3 hitch (visually identical to the class 2, btw) but I have asked and received excellent towing performance from both of them.

Pulling a 25kw towable generator (weighing in at around 3500 lbs fully fueled)
Pulling my Jeep Liberty over 500 miles after the engine blew (4300 lbs)
Pulling a 97 Grand Cherokee the same 500 miles (4000 lbs)
Pulling my Jeep Liberty AND a 6x12 enclosed box 2 miles in ELECTRIC ONLY after the fuel filter plugged with bad diesel fuel (4300 + 4000 + the MMH at 3500 = 11,800 being moved by an ELECTRIC MOTOR)

The MMH / FEH drive system is VERY capable, FAR more than the gun-shy lawyers at Ford will allow the general public to know.

Do what you want, but understand that you won't be doing any damage to the powertrain unless you beat on the thing while you have a load on. This isn't a sports car when it is hitched up. Keep the RPMs down while you are getting to highway speed, and LET THE SPEED DROP while climbing any big hills.

Pulling the generator or the Liberty was at highway speeds, and the mileage actually didn't drop that much for those trips. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to get 19mpg at 65-70 mph with those loads. RPM was about 3k, IIRC.

Would I suggest this weight for driving big hills like a 7% grade? No. The East Coast of the USA lacks some of those man-sized mountains that you refer to. At the same time, I have also been pulling things of all shapes and sizes for years, and am WELL versed in how to control a towing setup, and properly load / configure it in the first place. The "electronic sway detection" of the Explorer scares the crap out of me, because braking is NOT the proper solution to sway in 100% of the cases.

I know this b/c I had it happen to me, and when I braked... It not only made the sway WORSE, it put me in the median backwards at 45mph. The proper solution in that situation (Towing with a tow dolly and car on) would have actually been ONLY activating trailer brakes to drag the system down. I didn't have those then, and I won't tow without them again. Letting the vehicle decide for me based on someone else's criteria is a recipe for problems however. If you don't know how to control it, you shouldn't tow ANYTHING.

 

Is it possible that this situation was made worse, etc. because you were towing over capacity. The whole thing isn't just about if a FEH/MMH has the power to tow much more than Ford claims but is there a handling issue also to consider.

 

True enough statement... However that situation happened before I ever owned the MMH - It was with a Jeep Grand Cherokee, pulling my 500 lb tow dolly and VW Jetta. 4500 lb towing vehicle, 500 lb dolly with non-adjustable tongue weight (of about 200 lbs) and 2800 lb car. Well within the "proper" manufacturer's limitations for that class 3 towing vehicle.

Being within (or not) the manufacturer's lawyer-approved limitations does not a safe tow make.

 

Got it!

Some years ago on a Xway, a pickup towing a boat/trailer tried to get around slow moving traffic in the fast lane. They went way over right lane, then tried to cut across three lanes and infront of this slow moving van.

Good plan but they seem to forget they were towing something and the hole wasn't big enough. Trailer hit the van started to fishtail, hit another vehicle and then the trailer started to come around.

It did a 180 without rolling! The van and the pickup end facing eachother up against the median. Amazing!! Must have been the perfect setup.

This happened right infront of me and I almost ruined a pair of Fruit of the Looms!

 

Sounds about like the ride I took, except for the passing people part.

I was in the process of driving the GC to Texas to deliver it to its new owner, with my Jetta as the way back home. This was when a tropical storm was farting around just off of Tallahassee, Fl, and I was in a 30mph crosswind with gusts. Not the most fun to be driving in, towing or not.

A gust hit me, JUST as the GC must have been on top of a puddle. It hydroplaned for an instant and jumped to the right about 2 feet, which started the dolly and car swinging. I tried braking, but that made it sway even harder. 3 BIG sways later, it forced the Jeep to aim to the left, toward the median. The GC entered the median and managed to catch enough traction that the car and dolly were going faster - I spun and wound up going BACKWARDS (with a dolly you are NEVER supposed to back it up) at 45mph with everything in the median, sliding toward the oncoming lanes. Somehow the car aimed itself back toward the lanes I had just left, caught a tire on the pavement... I spun AGAIN back toward the direction I should have been facing... And finally the world stopped moving.

I ended up with the GC at about a 45 degree angle pointing onto the road (in the right direction), the dolly and car pointing 45 degrees off of the road... And STILL attached / strapped down. ZERO damage to anything, but an impressive amount of grass clippings literally layered onto everything.

There were some VERY interesting tire marks in the median from where I had gone. A state trooper coming off his lunch break showed up about 30 seconds later, wanting to know where the driver of the VW had gone - He thought it had been an accident and never saw the dolly. After realizing that the vehicles were connected... He was VERY surprised.

I had to unhook the car to get everything back onto the roadway, but all in all.... Not a situation I EVER want to repeat. I'm still amazed that I didn't need to change my own shorts after that E-ticket ride.

 

With regard to towing "over capacity" I believe the correct frame of reference, except for the powertrain issue, is that of the non-hybrid escape. The issue of control of the load is related to tow vehicle mass versus the towed load mass, & braking systems.

So if you're willing to take the possible hit on Ford's warranty, tow away up to that limit.

 

Don't forget to consider the load in the cabin. The vehicle is clearly designed to haul 5 people (heavy ones??) ... So if you were to only be hauling 2 of them, you get 600 lbs to "play with", if you get my drift. But if you load up the cabin and roof rack with people and toys and stuff ... then you might think twice about that trailer load. Life is dynamic.

 

This is why I would never buy a used American car, or from an American for that matter. That just calls for trouble.

After many years of spending my hard earned money on repairing other peoples ignorance, I purchased a imported vehicle, mid-size SUV. 2009 was the 10th year since I purchased it, 411,000 miles and except for 1 pair of ball joints (because of the bad roads here), not a single repair.

And my continious gas mileage log shows an average of a little over 28 mpg. I guess this says it all.