Sanity Check. Input Wanted.

[whoofit]

Two thousand one hundred seventy seven towing miles and counting now. Have managed 3.5 hour hauls without a single issue. No overheating at ambient temps of 92F at speeds of 65mph. Able to use cruise control in sport mode. RPMs rarely exceeding 3500. No handling issues, braking issues or reliability issues. Averaging 12.5 mpg across our typical terrain.

This with actively staying below 3350lbs and never exceeding 350lbs TW. This little 4 banger has been a joy, really. If you happen to buy a certified used Ford Escape, be sure not to purchase ours when we trade it in next year. This one will look flawless but will be well spent...

[thudd3r]

besides weight you also have to consider wind/resistance.  you will be pulling a less than aerodynamic tall aluminum box through the air.  with a rather small tv, expect to feel it pulling you around if things get a little breezy

[whoofit]

[quote timestamp="1435115764" source="/post/12624/thread" author="@thudd3r"]besides weight you also have to consider wind/resistance.  you will be pulling a less than aerodynamic tall aluminum box through the air.  with a rather small tv, expect to feel it pulling you around if things get a little breezy[/quote][p]Rather small TV is an understatement. There is no arguing that. For a while I was weighing this trailer every load out until I got the different loads down pat. We go for 2-3 nights most every weekend since February. Now I know what the different loads are, depending on what we are doing and where we are going, from experience and only weigh the tongue every trip.[/p][p]
[/p][p]We regularly exceed the Ford Towing Guides frontal area rating for this vehicle. Most anything but a pop-up trailer would do that. I pick and choose our routes real careful. Preferring secondary highways to interstates but so far no issues on either. Only on stiff blustery crosswinds have I felt any need to correct. The TV bucks the headwinds well enough so far but we are not high in the mountain passes or in the Midwest and will forfeit those places until we get a proper TV. We also will only stay fairly local, 250 miles or so, as we do not fully trust this combination.[/p][p]
[/p][p]And I hope that anyone who reads this post/thread will not mistake the Ford Escape Ti for a proper TV with the likes of the 16DB trailer because it's not. Our max loadout is at the [strong]Zero Safety Margin[/strong] limit for this combination. We fully expect the TV to be near toasted in two short years.
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