2023 Ford F150: Trailer Tow Package

[hikingcamera]

Ford does a good job making this confusing as [fill in your own word here]. I did a ton of research on this trying to understand what our truck could tow, listening to YouTube channels, reading forums, etc.

We have a 2021 and of course each year has its own differences, but hopefully the differences between '21 and '23 are not significant. We do not have the Trailer Tow Package (53A) or Max Tow Package (53C). Instead we have the Trailer Technology Package (17T) and the Class IV hitch (53B), as well as some other features that were included such as the 20" wheels, 3.55 axle ratio, and 36 gallon fuel tank. We sat down with the dealer and pulled the detailed components of each package from their sales guide, and my vehicle had everything from the Trailer Tow Package (53A) included in the other upgrades and packages.

Now, I did find some online posts that interpreted some charts they had as indicating there was a difference in the number of tubes and fins in the cooling system and a solid front stabilizer with some tow packages, though my dealer interpreted those charts differently, and it was a bit hard to find all the sources of the charts, so I had to take it with a grain of salt. Ford perhaps too loosely throws around the term "tow package" in a variety of different ways, making it confusing to determine what they are talking about where.

I've also seen different versions of the tow guide, some that apparently only dealers can access, that have slightly different language as well.

After all this, I decided to contact Ford directly. I gave them my VIN, explained that we did not have the trailer tow package, and explicitly asked them about our truck's tow limit, and they confirmed it as 11,300, despite not having the official 53A Trailer Tow Package.

I'm still not 100% convinced that I have the definitive answer, but I have that chat transcript in my files, and even if the limit is 7,000 lbs, out trailer is under that as well and anything heavier would be payload limiting. Still, it is very confusing, and Ford really needs to do a better job of being explicit about tow capacity. Many forums and YouTube videos I watched referred to a VIN lookup for tow capacity by Ford, but the links do not seem to work and I cannot find the site anywhere.

Anyway, the experience of towing with our F-150 has been great. We have a 23' Flying Cloud Corner Bed, 6000-lb GVWR, around 750-lb tongue weight. Our F-150 has over 1800-lbs of payload capacity, which means we can't bring the kitchen sink, but works fine for us, and when the kids get older, if we need to, we'll just bring less. It's camping. We don't need all the gadgets and gizmos. I'm honestly more concerned about the limited payload of our trailer. No extras can go in there. I wish they'd given it another 500-lbs of GVWR.

Hope that is helpful! Though it probably is not.