Ford Club Wagon. Good Tow Vehicle?

Learn me Please!

I think you'll have to be a bit more specific. A big van can certainly be an effective tow vehicle, but I wouldn't make a blanket statement saying they're all awesome.

What would you like to know Tom?

IIRC Mental has a cool one.

What would we like to know?

Well, how about:

1) What are you towing? 2) What kind of Ford Van are you looking at? What year/motor/etc?

Ford wagons (OK, cargo vans) were available with diesels for a number of years. More specifically, you could get the tried a true 7.3L diesel from 1999-2003 in a van. Should be able to tow anything an F250/350 of that era should. A racecar, a cargo trailer, etc.

Ford wagons also came with a straight six that would, maybe, tow a 6x12 trailer.

-Rob

In reply to rob_lewis:

^^ What he said...

Club Wagon usually means window van in Ford terminology. In my state, they are registered as "station wagons" and not as trucks, which means car tags, which means they cost a lot less to tag and inspect. YMMV.

Yes. Some are better than others. Depends on the engine.

Vans come in 1/2 ton, 3/4 ton & 1 ton versions just like trucks - just called E150, E250 & E350 instead of F150, and so on. They also have a variety of drivetrains, wheelbases, etc. like full-sized trucks do. There are even 1-ton dually vans out there.

An E150 with a V6 won't be anywhere near the tow vehicle that an E350 with a Powerstroke 7.3 would be. Diesel passenger vans are rare, most of the bigger vans have a V10 or a 460 V8. The smaller vans can come with V6's or small block V8's.

The very long wheelbase 12-passenger vans got a lot of bad publicity a while back because the press linked them to a number of crashes. This was attributed to a number of things, including a lot of weight behind the rear axle. It didn't help that they tended to be driven by church groups where someone with no experience driving a large vehicle was put behind the wheel. If you get one of those it is advisable not to load a lot of weight in the very back.

I'll be towing a few things. Pop-up camper, concession trailer, and miata on trailer. Not at the same time mind you.

The reason I put "learn me" was because I do not know what engine or towing options there are with this vehicle.

Thanks for the posts MCODave, toyman01,ddavidv, and 914driver.

Lots of options. 4.9 I6, 4.2 V6, 5.0, 4.6, 5.4, 351cid, 460cid v8s and 6.8 v10 gas engines. 6.9, 7.3 and 6.0 diesels. They were available with manual transmissions up until 1991. My van has the 5.4 Triton engine in it. It is a E150 chassis. If I had it to do again I would go with the E250 or 350 chassis for the heavier duty brakes. I get about 30K miles out of the front pads and rotors. Lots of towing though and my boat doesn't have brakes on it. I would also go with the V10 and the 5 speed automatic or the 7.3 diesel. The 5.4 will tow my enclosed trailer (7000lbs loaded), but only with the OD turned off. It is pretty gutless under about 3500 rpm. Climbing hills is not fun either. Usually if I'm headed out of the flat country I borrow my Dad's Dodge Diesel. I also stay off the interstate as much as possible. It will pull it at 70mph, but it gets around 8mpg doing it. At 55-60 it gets 11mpg. Towing the boat (3200lbs) and a flat trailer it does great. I pulled the Abomination to the mountains for Jensenman when he still owned it and averaged about 11-12mpg. Given your list of trailers the only thing I would worry about is the concession trailer because of the frontal area. The rest of them would be no problem.

Avoid the 6.0 diesel. The horror stories about them are legendary. Any of the other engines are pretty good.

I got a windsor van, it has towed up to a 7000 lb trailer (far more than it's rated for) and i would say other than the overwhelming lack of power and brakes (both of which were later enhanced a bit) nothing broke for many years of towing. Get one with a big engine. As if that wasn't already obvious. I also heard the older ones with the 351 had cam problems and weren't available with the auto with the overdrive. The 302 had them, but those trannies aren't exactly stout. (hence why they aren't in the 351s)

I know a guy here in San Marcos who's got a 99 7.3 diesel E350 and he regularly tows a 36ft Travel Trailer with it.

Yes i said THIRTY-SIX FOOT travel trailer. It weighs about 10k lbs. I just put some balljoints on that van a few weeks ago.

One thing about the diesel vans.. they dont have intercoolers like the trucks so they dont make the same power and the power ceiling is MUCH lower unless you add an intercooler.. and looking at that engine bay.. i think the easiest would be water-to-air.

My 94 E150 Chateau with 351 and tow package has done about 30K towing in the last 2 years including several trips to the Daytona 24, the challenge and two to the Mitty.

She has also picked up most of my 24 cars fleet around the US from TX, MI, NY, FL, OK, VA, TN and many many more

My wife loves it, as her personal car, I have to borrow it to use it for towing now.

If I replace her, it will be with a 7.3 powerstroke E350 Chateau

grunt grunt

We have a '98 E350 with a 14' box(with lift gate on the back) that we use for work. While we don't tow with it, I can tell you a few things from our experiences:

1.) Ours has a straight-axle under the front, but it actually drives better than I expected.

2.) I've had a couple different mechanics tell me "These eat front-end parts quickly" and "They go through tires like crazy".

3.) For some reason, the transmission just seems really, really stout.

4.) There's a little plastic flapper inside the HVAC system that breaks, it's a cheap part that requires you to totally disassemble the dash and everything behind it on the passenger's side, as well as everything attached to it on the engine-side of the firewall. Ours was set to full-heat and left there...at least we have windows & aren't cold in the winter!

5.) Despite ours being a 1-ton chassis, I've noticed that any payload above 500lbs and you can really feel it, which surprises me, as I've had that much in my old 1/2-ton Chevy pickup & didn't really notice it.

6.) We get a consistent 10mpg average, with the majority being highway at 70mph. I'm pretty impressed with that for a gas engine in a box truck.

The one i just did ball joints and tie rods on had just over 100k. Id say thats eating components since ive owned a LOT of cars from 150-250k miles that never had the balljoints replaced and didnt need to. I dont think my family's truck (dakota) needed tie rods until after 200k.. but that's a miracle truck, im not seriously comparing it to a ford.

I didn't know Asian escorts came over here in a Canoe.

jonusb wrote: Porn Canoe!.

Nice.

Had a '94 E-150 w/351 & towing package. Used it to tow about 6 k worth of box trailer & demo equipment for several years. About half of the 220K miles were towing. One trans rebuild, one set of ball joints, don't bother to turn the rotors they only shimmy again in 10 K

About 10 years ago I was a grease monkey for a white water rafting company. That summer we bought a bunch of used buses, vans, and trucks at auctions...mostly in PA (just outside of pittsburgh) We picked up a '95ish e-350 4x4 with the 7.3...it was awsome! Had low mileage (IIRC ~70k) and we got it for $1200...no one else wanted it due to the lack of a/c...

It really was a horse of a truck though, easily towed a tandem trailer with about 5k of rafts and equipment on it on old rutted haul roads to the gauley river! And on the highway got around 15mpg loaded...

Toyman01 wrote: Avoid the 6.0 diesel. The horror stories about them are legendary. Any of the other engines are pretty good.

The horror stories come from that motor being introduced before the fuel here was clean enough for them. There's a couple other issues, but nothing really any worse than any other motor on the road.

Any that are still on the road should be fine at this point, and they have a huge advantage over then 7.3 in that they have a variable-vane turbo.

I have an '04 E350 XLT with the V10. It is a window van with every option except a CD player. I have owned since the spring of 2005 when I bought it with 19K miles on it. It has 55K now.

Depending upon the year the "Club Wagon" moniker means different things. IIRC, in the early 2000's that meant a panel van with carpets and nice interior only in the driver's compartment. In other years that meant a full dress windor van.

Generally speaking, the Ford vans are pretty good compared to their competition. Build quality is so-so (my 55K old truck squeaks and rattles), and reliability has been good. If you are looking at a Mod motor truck be wary of the '99 - '01's as they have a well deserved tendency to spit spark plugs out of the head. There are documented heli-coil fixes for this. Also, in the 3/4 and 1 ton models the pre-'03 transmissions are not the best.

As I said, I have the V10. If you are planning on towing with one do not shy away from this engine. They have an undeserved rep for lousy MPG, but mine gets the same 10-12 that the V8's do while towing similar loads. The difference is that I'm doing that at 75 with the A/C on vs. the others struggling to make 65 and my truck (which is rated to pull 11.5K lbs.) doesn't even notice the 4500 lbs. of car and trailer I've got back there.

A key maintenance point for any FoMoCo with that silly Twin-I Beam (see also: "swing axle) front end is to keep it lubricated. The king pins require regular attention or they will age prematurely. Regular tire rotation is a a plus because of the silly camber curve inherent in the design. Beyond that, regular maintenance applies. I over-maintain mine (trans flush every two seasons, which is about 10K miles, oil changes every three months or 4K miles, etc.) and have no complaints about the truck.

I have only driven the late 80s, early 90s versions of the chevy and ford vans. I prefer the fords, having driven everything from the Straight 6 up to a diesel E350.

I agree that the Diesels are amazing in the van. Find a way to add an intercooler and you are golden for towing anything less than a semitrailer

I used to drive an E350 with a 460 as a newspaper delivery van. It would get loaded from floor to ceiling, front to back all the way to the windshield with tightly packed newspaper bundles. It sagged and waffled badly like that but it would climb hills and stop at the bottom if you gave it some advanced thought. It was a 220 mile round trip. I could barely make it back on one 27g tank. The thing did it every night for the 4 years I worked there and it never broke down. After the 1/2 way point when the thing was loaded with a normal, sane amount of weight it would drive like a family car. When it was empty it would break your teeth on bumps but you could lay rubber until you decided to lift off (if you were an immature 22yr old, that is... It would look like fireworks in the winter with the studs in :)

The horror stories come from that motor being introduced before the fuel here was clean enough for them. There's a couple other issues, but nothing really any worse than any other motor on the road.

I had to replace an oil pump on one that was only a few years old and didnt have a lot of miles. Took me quite a while since the fan shroud design is FordTarded.