rdollie

Hah, didn't know that about the F150 but I did find out the exact same thing the hard way about our Volvo XC90 V8 (Volvo is owned by Ford.)
Because it was (is) our first boat I didn't know any better and was leaving tire marks all over the Seattle suburbs shoving the trailer up hills and around corners in reverse! (I stopped using the annoying little lock-out key since it falls out as soon as you stop or move forward.)

I eventually bought a tester, found there was no reverse signal, and went back up the harness (I installed the factory harness, trailer control module, and Hidden Hitch myself) until I found the 7th wire folded back and taped onto the harness. After that it took 5 minutes of work to put it together properly and I never had a problem after.

MIQ

its crazy, but ford has about 50 options on their trucks. One of which is the "tow package"

So if the first buyer of the truck was either cheap or didnt plan on towing, they went with a lesser hitch...

1Mainiac

Most Ford trucks come with the relays and fuses in a bag in the glove compartment they have for years. Unless you order the truck it comes with the hitch the dealer specs so it is not always Fords or any other manufatures fault they have a small hitch. Dealers save the extra money cause very few customers bother to look at the hitch so they order with the class 3 and expect you to buy the weight distribtution hitch to tow your travel trailer. GM for many years left the brake and Battery charge wires coiled up on the frame so you had to find them to hook them up. Ford was the first manufacture to wire battery charge and brakeing as a plug and play option meaning a simple connector under the dash for a brake controller and install a relay and 2 fuses for the rest. This changed a sometimes muti hour wireing install into a 15 or 20 min job saving you a bunch of money. GM did not offer fully wired towing till 2000 and has changed it a couple of times since and it varies from vehicle to vehicle Dodge has also changed it's tow wireing a couple of times. Ford has had a consistant wireing package since the early 90's. Tow ratings are based on vehicle class defined on brakes and tires ect and is derived by taking gross combined vehicle weight and subtracting the weight of the tow vehicle to give maximum trailer weight. So for a F250 they all have the same GCVWR to begin with changing cabs or adding 4X4 or any other combonation make the truck heavier and this is subtracted from maximum trailer weight. These are all standard DOT formulas and apply to all trucks. As long as the average customer does not pay any attention to his hitch and most use weight dist setups to tow their travel trailers once or twice a year on vacation I doubt much will change.

raymonds

Just found this thread. Where can I find out what the towing capacity of a 1998 F250 is with a class V hitch. The specs. on cars.com says trailer capacity is about 2600 lbs. Is that for a ball on the bumper? Surely with the proper hitch a 1998 4WD F250 can tow more than 2600 lbs.