Quote:
Originally Posted by Hersbird
The size of the truck doesn't factor into the frontal aera, unless the truck itself is bigger then the trailer in some dimensions. It's not the difference in frontal aera or the added frontal aera but the overall frontal aera. It's just a bad move by Ford you don't get with Dodge or GM, I have a feeling they would drop it if it were more widely known. Almost every modern travel trailer on the lot is more then 60 Sq ft frontal aera which means the only 100% acceptable tow vehicle produced by Ford is a f-550 with Max tow package. I agree there are other things to consider but I get blasted on any towing forum when I point those same arguments out as applied to the other numbers listed in the tow guides. Those numbers are also worst case scenario and will vary with other factors.
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Yes, the size of the truck does matter. the 60 sq ft limitation is based on the total exposed frontal area, not the trailer overall. (I'll re-read the 2014 brochure linked to make sure I didn't overlook a big change) For years and years the Ranger limitation was trailer frontal area not to exceed that of the tow vehicle and F150 was tow vehicle +12 sq ft.
"Frontal Area is the total area in square feet that a moving vehicle and trailer exposes to air resistance..."
It's a
combination of truck (Ford says the 2014 F150 is 36 sq ft) and trailer
exposed frontal areas. So a bigger truck exposes less of an equally sized trailer, so a bigger truck can tow a bigger trailer.