TOWING MADE EASY
Ford F-series puts technology to work
Even if you know how to tow a trailer, it never hurts to have a little help. That was Ford’s message at a recent demonstration of some of the technologies it has put into the all-new F-Series Super Duty, designed to assist with towing.
Half of Ford’s truck business goes to fleet buyers, and unsurprisingly, those who buy the Super Duty models — the F-250, F-350 and F-450 — are primarily using them for work.
The F-150 buyers tend to be recreational in their towing, says Mike McGarrell, truck communications manager for Ford of Canada.
“They might tow the boat to the cottage for the season, but those in the Super Duty are likely to be towing for work every day.”
The company demonstrated two of its technologies: trailer reverse guidance, and a blind-spot monitoring system that can account for the trailer as well as the truck. Both are exclusive to Ford.
When it brought out the refreshed F-150, Ford introduced a trailer backup program that lets the truck do some of the work. By turning a knob on the dash, the driver can indicate that the trailer should go to the left or right. The truck takes over, spinning the steering wheel in the correct direction, while the driver works the throttle and brake. It won’t make anyone an expert, since the driver still has to figure out where to position the trailer when backing into a space.
But it irons out the issue of which way to turn the wheel, which can be confusing because the trailer goes the opposite way. A simple trick is to grab the wheel at the bottom, rather than the top, and turn in the direction desired.
The Super Duty can’t do this because it has hydraulic steering, unlike the F-150’s electric power steering that can be autonomously driven via an electric motor. McGarrell also says that because most Super Duty owners are experienced at towing, it’s unlikely they’d use it anyway.
Instead, the heavier-duty truck can be optioned with as many as seven cameras, which broadcast different angles in the dash’s centre screen as a towing assist.
A technology that did come over from the F-150’s self-backing feature is a software program that can determine the trailer’s angle. McGarrell says it took seven years to develop the system, which determines the position of a special sticker that the truck owner attaches to the trailer tongue.
Blind-spot monitors warn if another vehicle is alongside, helping to prevent a driver from moving into a lane that’s not clear, but up until now these monitors have been for the vehicle alone. When the system knows the trailer’s length, it automatically adds that to the truck’s length, and the warning light now comes on when another vehicle is beside the trailer, not just beside the truck.
Work is the nature of these beasts, and so Ford has also addressed the upfitter switches. They’re something most light-truck buyers don’t even know exist, but these toggles are used to operate add-ons that have been “upfitted” to the truck, such as snow plows or auxiliary warning lights.
A module has been added that lets an operator plug in a laptop and then program the switches for specific parameters.
A salt spreader, for example, could be set to start throwing salt only when the truck hits a certain speed, or an auger might work only when the doors are closed and the transmission is in park. For multivehicle fleets, the operator can just go down the line, plugging in the laptop and uploading the program into each truck.
It may seem like cars and SUVs get the bulk of new technologies today, but make no mistake: Trucks are keeping up, too.