Tow Vehicle

**beat taco** · 02-27-2019, 01:27 AM

The reinforcements between a class 3 and 4 hitch on a f150 seem easy to add for someone looking to add piece of mind and strengthen where a class 3 would begin to fail.
https://www.f150forum.com/f82/2012-m...-hitch-314932/

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**larry_arizona** · 02-27-2019, 07:36 AM

Originally Posted by beat taco

The reinforcements between a class 3 and 4 hitch on a f150 seem easy to add for someone looking to add piece of mind and strengthen where a class 3 would begin to fail.
https://www.f150forum.com/f82/2012-m...-hitch-314932/

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It appears everyone of the Ford hitches in that thread is only a class 3. 500# tongue and 5000# weight carrying is class 3 and what is important in our boat applications.

Nobody tows a wakeboat with weight distribution

The interesting post in that thread was the guy who was towing over the 500/5000# rating and his hitch failed.

Word is that Ford has corrected the 2019+ hitch and made a class 4 (1000/10000) available. Next time I am at the dealer, I will snap a picture of the hitch tag.

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**Matt0520** · 02-27-2019, 08:48 AM

Things like this tick me off about Ford. They seem to cut corners all the time with stuff like this. It’s a TRUCK. They tout the eco boosts best in class towing capacity and then they install that hitch. Lol

We almost bought an explorer sport as another family car, until we learned that Ford cut corners there too. When the IIHS started doing small overlap tests they only did it on the driver’s side. So Ford only reinforced that side of the car. When the passenger side small overlap was released, the Explorer failed miserably. Look it up on YouTube. It’s bad.

I’ve been an EMT for only a short time but I’ve seen a couple of these types of crashes, and one was fatal (for the front passenger). I get that companies cut corners to maximize profit, but when they do it with safety (which includes towing) I can’t look past that.

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**haknslash** · 02-27-2019, 10:02 AM

This is a post I made on our jet boat forum for how I plan to tackle the stupid factory class III F150 tow hitch. Hopefully this will help someone else out on here and save them from having to spend a lot of money on the extra hitch that sits below the factory Class III hitch and you also won’t have the weird dual receiver look on your truck. I will post more pics once my new Class IV hitch arrives but here is how I plan to do it from my post on the jet boaters forum....

“Ok after going out in the pouring rain I was determined to see if it is indeed possible transform my tow package F150 bumper to a non-tow package F150 bumper so that I could buy and use a Curt Class IV hitch. And the answer is yessir!!!

Check it out. After looking at the Curt Class IV hitch for an F150 without factory tow package I watched their video and noticed the differences between their bumper and the one that comes on a factory tow package F150. My truck use the lower 3rd bolt where as a non-tow package bumper just uses the middle and upper bolts. This means their bracket is a little shorter than mine which leaves the slot in the frame exposed to mount an aftermarket hitch. The other mounting location they use is up by the top of the spare tire which is fine on either truck package. It's the factory tow hitch and extra bracket material that needs to go...and it's certainly possible. Below I've marked up some screenshots from videos and pics of my truck to explain how I'm going to do this in case anyone else wants or has to do this.

F150 without tow package. He is showing in the etrailer video where you will insert their supplier fasteners once you have the hitch in place.....

Once you remove the rear bumper you will need to remove the metal bumper caps on each side. This will give you good access to the hitch and brackets where I will cut....

Below are pics of my truck and factory tow package bumper. I've marked where I will continue cutting the bumper bracket so that is is shaped like a non-factory tow package F150's bumper bracket. Remove bumper like above and cut along this line on both driver and passenger side brackets. After that I should be able to install the Curt hitch. Then I will reverse the steps of dissembling the bumper caps to the bumper and then mount the newly modified bumper bracket assembly to the frame of the truck.”

**wired1236** · 03-01-2019, 01:01 PM

Let us know how it goes. I have a 2015 and am going through the same dilemma...

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**The General** · 03-22-2019, 06:29 PM

Finally convinced my wife that she needs a truck so she can pull the boat and I’ll pull the fifth wheel. It should match pretty well with the Vivid Orange