Yet another Towing related question

[Logun1970]

I've owned my 2008 Expedition King Ranch EL 4x4, 192,000 miles (3.73 ratio, HD towing package, transmission replaced by previous owner @ 125k) for 2 yrs now. Daily Driven, 5000 miles oil changes regularly since I've owned it. I avg about 16 mpg.

I'm looking to purchase a travel trailer and looking at changing out tires and buying new rear springs to offset sag and upgrade the shocks. Still has the stock exhaust on it was thinking about changing that out as well.

We are a family of 6 w/ kids ranging from 1 yr to 10 yrs old. We're going to tow with what we have rather than spend buy an Excursion or a bench seat 3/4 ton unless God has other plans at this point. So if you would please try to answer within the bounds of what's given here. The numbers are close to max I do understand but we've been in a 43' Class A before this (we were full timing), so we know how much crap we generally bring and we're minimalists, so we know we'll be closer to the dry weight than the gross (going from experience here). We expect to use it locally (here in Arkansas) as well as to the beach in FL and maybe eventually go out west (that depends on how well the Expy does around here).

I've not bought anything as far as WDH at this time, which that's supposed to increase the tow hitch weight according to the Ford site.

My question at this point is a tire question. Which ones? D or E load rating or ????

All info below comes from my vehicles door sticker, the Ford Fleet Towing site for 2008 and the TT's manufacture site.

Here are the numbers for the "tow nerds"
Expy-
Curb Weight 6,318.00
GVWR 7,900.00
GCVWR 15,000.00
Payload 1,582.00
Towing Capacity 8,750.00

Estimated Payload -
Passengers 650.00
Cargo 100.00
Total payload (minus hitch weight) 750.00

TT info -
UVW 5,986.00
GVWR 7,600.00
Hitch Weight 746.00

Totals after the math is done -
Hitched
Available Payload 86.00
New GVW 7,814.00
NEW GCVW 14,668.00
Towing Capacity 8,750.00


This is all I can think of to post at the moment. Thanks in advance.

 

[Fasttimes]

As long as you go with a high-quality D rated tire I don't see the need to go to the E. Good brand D will do just fine in my opinion with the set up your talking about.

As you stated in your stats, the number I would be most paying attention to is the payload. Traveling with 6, make sure you keep most if not all of anything out of the truck and in the trailer. You'll want to stay at or bellow that payload. Get a good WDH dialed in and you should be good to go. I'm at or near the limit, sometimes even above, but feel fine in my set up now that it's all dialed in correctly. I'm running Michelin Defenders LTX M/S tires with a max inf of 42 and I've been very happy with them in my towing. I max inflate on trips and I have no problems with bouncing or sloppy feel in any way. Now, to be honest it took me an entire year of trips pulling my 30' (27' model) to get dialed in where it was perfect. Takes a lot of trial and error and white-knuckle driving to get there. I have a 10,000# Equalizer WDH and have been very happy with that as well.

 

[ediddily]

Can you provide the axle ratings from the door jamb sticker?