Flat Towing 2019 Ford F-150 with 5,000 Pound Trailer Hitch on RV

Question:

My truck gvw is 6500lbs. My motor home is a 37 ft Gulfstream Sun Voyager with a Gm 8.1 liter 496. The hitch is a 5000 lb gvw. Is my hitch too small to flat tow my truck

asked by: Jim M

Expert Reply:

The 6,500 pound GVW of your 2019 Ford F-150 refers to the most it can weigh with seated passengers and cargo loaded. Since the truck won't have any passengers inside when flat towing it behind an RV it's not going to weigh this much. I looked up the base weight of your F-150 and depending on your exact model and specs it has a weight of around 4,000 to 5,697 pounds.

Since the higher end of this range does still exceed the hitch capacity on your RV I highly recommend taking the truck up to a local weigh station (while it's loaded as if you would be taking it on a trip) to get an exact weight.

In order to flat tow your F-150 you will need a base plate kit, a tow bar, safety cables, a lighting solution, and a supplemental braking system. I will make my recommendations below in case you don't have some or any of these components.

Base Plate Kit - Roadmaster Direct-Connect Base Plate Kit # RM-524431-5
Tow Bar - Roadmaster BlackHawk 2 All Terrain # RM-422 with Safety Cables # RM-653
Lighting Solution - Roadmaster Diode 7-Wire to 6-Wire Flexo-Coil Kit # RM-15267
Supplemental Braking System - SMI Stay-IN-Play DUO # SM99251 if your RV has hydraulic brakes or the SMI Sir Force One # SM99243 if it has air brakes. WIth either system you will also need to add the Brake-Lite Relay # RM-88400 to prevent the truck's brake signal from overriding the turn signal from the RV when applying the brakes during a turn.

The Roadmaster Direct-Connect Base Plate Kit allows for a virtually invisible setup when the truck's not being towed and the BlackHawk 2 All Terrain Tow Bar features a non-binding design for easy release and a large hookup radius that doesn't require you to be perfectly in line when setting everything up for your trip. The Diode Kit lets you wire the truck to accept the RV's basic signal lights while also preventing any feedback and the SMI Braking Systems will automatically apply the brakes in the truck in correspondence to the braking in the RV (the harder you brake the more power it sends back).

I have attached installation videos for the products mentioned that you can also use for reference.