Announcement

**Cate&Rob** · 09-06-2023, 09:47 AM

Aggressive downshifting to maintain speed is part of all newer engine calibrations, both gas and diesel. I would say that this is "normal" based on my experience towing with a 2015 Ford Ecoboost gasoline engine.

Rob

**acoleman43** · 09-06-2023, 09:56 AM

Originally posted by rally View Post

My 2023 super duty ( gas) has the tow haul function. however when I am going down hill and tap on brakes it down shifts aggressively with high RPM's is this normal? had an older ford and it NEVER downshifted that aggressive.

It is normal with the diesel. I'm sure it's the same with the gas. With the diesel in tow/haul mode it automatically sets the exhaust brake to ON. When you are in tow/haul mode and your foot is off the gas (or on the brake) it will try to "maintain" the speed using engine braking (or exhaust brake if you have the diesel).

Sometimes this is really annoying. I have taken my truck out of tow/haul mode when I don't want it to be so aggressive.

**AlexPeterson** · 09-06-2023, 06:54 PM

Mine's a F150, and I don't use the tow/haul mode. I learned that it will apply the brakes going downhill, besides downshifting. I'd rather manually control the tranny. It typically won't shift to a higher gear than 8 anyway when I'm towing, and I can manually disable 9th and 10th (or any number of them). Upshifting on acceleration seems just fine with normal mode (the 3.5 EC engine has so much low end torque that rpm's rarely go above 2800-3000 on accelerations).

Oh - and the display turns a barf orange color when in tow mode, enough reason alone to not use it

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**BillM321** · 09-14-2023, 09:05 AM

I use Tow/Haul whenever I am towing my trailer. I don't know if this is the correct thing to do, but what I do when breaking to avoid my F150 from downshifting into 2nd gear and revving the engine so high is to switch into manual shift so that I can control the downshifting as I am applying breaks. I have to do this often in Colorado when going down steep grades. Often times a little voice in my head speaks to me and says "do you think you know better than the engineers at Ford?" But regardless ...I continue to still do it

Also I try to start breaking WELL in advance if I can tell I will be slowing down soon.

**JBill9694** · 09-14-2023, 09:46 AM

I have 6 forward gears. Tow/haul mode limits my upper gear to 4th, but there are many hills that I can pull in 5th resulting in better fuel mileage. For downhill, using the exhaust break and downshifting manually works well for me.

**Jlawles2** · 09-15-2023, 08:24 AM

What I have done is to turn Tow mode off on downhills to keep RPM lower by avoiding the downshifts.

The trans programming will get into a mode where it thinks it needs super RPM for everything after a hard downhill and by turning tow off then back on it resets.

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tow/haul mode

tow/haul mode

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