4.0 Towing capacity and how to upgrade?

[sona]

Hello,

I have had my 2006 Explorer EB 4.0 V6 since 2011 and have loved it. It currently has 148k on it.

I like to buy old Saab's and fix them up / tow them home when they break down, so I need a decent tow vehicle.

The real issue I have is that I can't rent tow dolly's from Uhaul. As I'm sure many of you out there with Explorer's have noticed, Uhaul won't rent to Explorer owners due to lawsuits associated with trailer rental accidents.

My solution would be to buy my own car hauler trailer (If I'm buying a hauler, I wouldn't just buy a dolly) However, the towing capacity of my Explorer is only around 3,500 lbs I believe. It has the smaller receiver (1.25 inches I think). Can anyone confirm that this is my towing capacity? Is there a way I can effectively increase the towing ability of my Explorer, or should I consider buying a bigger vehicle with a V8? Upgrading the hitch seems like an obvious upgrade, but the current one seems to be pretty well integrated into the frame of the vehicle and like it would be impossible to remove or change.

I have meticulously maintained my Explorer and drive it across the country all of the time. I would love to hold on to it, but the restriction on towing has been an annoyance since day 1 of ownership.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Pics for fun

 

[Explorer_PL]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Read this:
Can I safely tow a 3500 LBS RV Trailer?

Also, this:
OEM Hitch upgrade from Class II to Class III/IV on Gen 4, 07 Explorer

It seems you have # 1 from below:

Given the mileage on your 4.0 and 5R55S, towing cars might shorten the life of one of them pretty quickly.
Your truck looks mint, nice color combo, but you would need to change the front and rear diffs to 3.73 add tranny cooler, and install/upgrade the hitch to class III/IV to be comfortable.
Still, the v6 powertrain is a problematic one.

I would get a used 1/2 ton truck for towing the Saab's, and keep the Exp for everyday use.

06-10 Explorers/Mountaineers came in 4 trims when it comes to towing:

1:
4.0 v6, 1 1/4" hitch receiver, no tranny cooler, 3500 lbs max, 3.55 rear end

2:
4.6 v8 1 1/4" hitch receiver, no tranny cooler, 3500 lbs max, 3.55 rear end

3.
4.0 v6, 2" hitch receiver, with tranny cooler, 5200 lbs max, 3.73 rear end

4:
4.6 v8 2" hitch receiver, with tranny cooler, 7100 lbs max, 3.55 rear end

 

[Tech By Trade]

The v6 with the tow package is a real gas pig and anemic for towing anything close to the listed capacity. The 5 speed and low gears is not real speed/fuel friendly . I would hunt down something with a 6 speed and v8.

 

[AHenry014]

Even if you upgrade the gears, cooler, and hitch, you will reach the tow capacity very quickly. You cant forget the weight of the trailer itself. The standard Uhaul car trailer weighs 2200, plus a 3000 lb car and youre there. You then have to look at a tow dolly, but any car that is being towed with wheels on the road has to be registered/insured. You would be best suited to a larger vehicle that is designed to tow larger items.

 

[dacaur2]

Have to agree with above, explorer is not the best tow vehicle. I wouldn't consider towing more than 3k with my explorer.... Heck, My V6 explorer isnt what I would call "slow" with just me in it, but its not fast either. However, with a full load of 7 people (hald of them kids) and a hitch mounted carrier with a couple hundred lbs on it, my v6 explorer feels absolutely anemic...

 

[tripplec]

Rent or borrow a Pickup or Equivalent with a hitch already installed which is suitable to the task. Ambient temp will also be a factor. Winter time keeps subsystem much cooler whereas a hot summer day could be catastrophic and needs to be considered.

As above you ride looks mint. I wouldn't risk it.

 

[MotorCityFats13]

I think for the most part people forget that tow ratings are set by the GVWR and chassis group no mater what you do that 5200 and 7100 cant be changed although you can make it feel safer in your mind it might not be.... to actually change the max tow you would need to make the truck lighter like ford did with the f-150 and aluminum or swap in some franken frame from a hight class...make it lighter and you can push the savings off on the cargo or trailer

you could remove all the seats, carpet and spare tire and keep the fuel at 1/4 tank and possibly tow another 500lbs

 

[sona]

I kind of accepted that I would need to grab a V8 powered vehicle to comfortably tow any decent capacity. But, out of curiosity, how hard is it to add a trans cooler?

It looks like all of the radiators had the inlets for the cooler lines. Is it really just a matter of whether or not you had the physical lines from the transmission to the radiator and the extra fluid to accompany it? That seems ridiculous that any truck would have that omitted if it were that easy to add it.


Also, what's the easiest way to ID an Explorer with the 3.73 at a junkyard say? The bigger hitch I think would be the most obvious indicator.


To give you guys more backround... I have owned the Explorer since 48k (currently 150k), am the second owner, and have meticulously maintained it. I'm back and forth on getting a Suburban or something like that. I wouldn't mind the extra space, but I would ideally swap to a vehicle of equal value. With the price bracket of vehicle i'm working with, anything with a V8 and is in somewhat decent shape has well over 200k on it usually. It's also very unlikely that there's and detailed service history on it.

The rear end swap and adding a cooler and hitch don't seem like very big barriers to me. I am mechanically inclined; not scared to give anything a shot one time.

Given that the cars I tow have a GVWR of around 3200 lbs, if I used a lighter trailer than the Uhaul ones (that I can't rent anyways), I feel like the 5,200 lb max that the modifications would give me seems reasonable.

Also worth mentioning that I don't really tow very frequently. It's a 1 or 2x a year thing max. I just don't like being limited when I have a gas guzzling SUV in my fleet. The explorer doesn't get driven much besides long road trips and parts or dog hauling... and the occasional tow. I have a couple of other vehicles that I daily drive.

Am I totally off base, or does it not seem reasonable to make a few modifications to vehicle that I know the history of rather than start over with a mystery truck with a ton of miles on it? I know I'll be limited even still, but it seems like it would be enough for what I need.

 

[Josh P]

Change the badges on the explorer to mountaineer and rent a tow dolly.

 

[digifoss]

I kind of accepted that I would need to grab a V8 powered vehicle to comfortably tow any decent capacity. But, out of curiosity, how hard is it to add a trans cooler?

Am I totally off base, or does it not seem reasonable to make a few modifications to vehicle that I know the history of rather than start over with a mystery truck with a ton of miles on it? I know I'll be limited even still, but it seems like it would be enough for what I need.

First off I want to comment that your images show you have a very nice Explorer. The wife and I just bought our first Explorer, a 2007 xlt, last week and we love it. It's also a V6 / 5speed auto with 4WD. Ours also has the small 1¼ inch Class I hitch. Since it sounds like you are only going to be towing a couple of times a year, you might consider getting a 2nd more heavy duty vehicle for that. It need not be new or costly. Because a lot of the heavy duty trucks and suburbans from the 90's are considered relics and gas hogs you can find some good deals on them. You won't be using it a lot so your annual fuel costs won't be much different than it is now, and you won't need to be modifying your nice Explorer or putting excess wear on it. We have a 95' diesel suburban 4x4 with a class III hitch that will tow just about anything. We had considered trading it in on a new or late model Explorer, or selling it outright and buying a newer Explorer, but realized that we couldn't get much for it by trading it in or selling either one so we decided to keep it. We wound up buying an older model Explorer, but for a lot less expense than we were going to spend on a new one. We'll use the Suburban for all of our towing / hauling and other dirty work and keep our new-to-us Explorer shiny and nice for the road. I am somewhat unconvinced that our Explorers ( at-least 06 - 10 models ) should be used for any kind of towing anyway, or for that matter off-roading either. Then I think that frequent towing with our V6-5speeds may drastically shorten the life of our 5R55 transmissions and cause many of the transmission problems that I read about here. It's just my opinion, but I plan to do good maintenance on my Explorer transmission, never tow with it, never use it as an off-road vehicle, and I am hoping it will give me in return many years and 2 or 3 hundred thousand trouble free miles. IMO Your Explorer is too nice to be modifying, get an old beater to do your heavy lifting.

 

[MotorCityFats13]

all automatic transmissions have a cooler but its built into the radiator to add an auxiliary cooler you just plumb it into the system before the radiator and make sure you still run it through the radiator before it returns to the transmission

 

[San Hill]

Hello,

I have had my 2006 Explorer EB 4.0 V6 since 2011 and have loved it. It currently has 148k on it.

I like to buy old Saab's and fix them up / tow them home when they break down, so I need a decent tow vehicle.

The real issue I have is that I can't rent tow dolly's from Uhaul. As I'm sure many of you out there with Explorer's have noticed, Uhaul won't rent to Explorer owners due to lawsuits associated with trailer rental accidents.

My solution would be to buy my own car hauler trailer (If I'm buying a hauler, I wouldn't just buy a dolly) However, the towing capacity of my Explorer is only around 3,500 lbs I believe. It has the smaller receiver (1.25 inches I think). Can anyone confirm that this is my towing capacity? Is there a way I can effectively increase the towing ability of my Explorer, or should I consider buying a bigger vehicle with a V8? Upgrading the hitch seems like an obvious upgrade, but the current one seems to be pretty well integrated into the frame of the vehicle and like it would be impossible to remove or change.

I have meticulously maintained my Explorer and drive it across the country all of the time. I would love to hold on to it, but the restriction on towing has been an annoyance since day 1 of ownership.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Pics for fun

View attachment 422493

View attachment 422494

I've had a 2006 Ford Explorer (not EB) for a few years now and I love the space I get with the back passenger seats folded down into cargo mode. I hate turning in this vehicle though. It's almost like you could use one of these for movies where those cars go up on their side on just 2 wheels. I haven't tried that just yet.
I've been keeping my eyes open for a nice used Eddie Bauer. That 2011 looks like the perfect buy for me.

 

[cjvervaet]

I have a 2007 Mercury Mountaineer with the 4.0 V6 and 1 1/4" hitch receiver. It has a new 5R55S transmission (about 10000 miles on the trans) and I know it has an independent transmission cooler.

I've heard two versions, max is 3500 lbs or max is 5200 lbs for the towing capacity of the vehicle.

It's been very hard to get a straight answer. I have a travel trailer with a curb weight of about 3000 lbs, add another 500 with the cargo. I've also heard that "tow mode" for this model is to turn off the overdrive while towing.

I've been tempted to get a 2" receiver but what I would really like to know is what the towing capacity of the vehicle actually is.

 

[Mbrooks420]

I have a 2007 Mercury Mountaineer with the 4.0 V6 and 1 1/4" hitch receiver. It has a new 5R55S transmission (about 10000 miles on the trans) and I know it has an independent transmission cooler.

I've heard two versions, max is 3500 lbs or max is 5200 lbs for the towing capacity of the vehicle.

It's been very hard to get a straight answer. I have a travel trailer with a curb weight of about 3000 lbs, add another 500 with the cargo. I've also heard that "tow mode" for this model is to turn off the overdrive while towing.

I've been tempted to get a 2" receiver but what I would really like to know is what the towing capacity of the vehicle actually is.

Your capacity should be 3500 pounds. I assume you have the 3.55’s.