Since my wife and I are now empty-nesters, we decided to buy a fun car. We bought a 2022 Ford Bronco Badlands 2.7L with the Lux and Sasquatch Package. We take the tops off whenever the weather is right and enjoy how much fun it is to drive. So, then, we wanted to take it with us camping, but it is only rated to tow up to 3500 lbs towing and our 2018 27ft Airstream Signature Serenity is 6500 lbs dry weight. There was only one thing left to do…buy a 2016 Airstream 16ft Bambi with a dry weight of 2650 lbs and a max weight of 3500 lbs. Sure, we looked at lighter, less expensive campers, but they all fell short on quality, lack of a bathroom, and flimsy materials. The Bambi was going to push the envelope of what our new Bronco can handle, but we thought it was worth the try.
First, we needed a brake controller installed on the Bronco. We have the factory tow package, but there is no integrated brake controller. Ford makes one, but our local dealership never installed one. We bought it anyway and they did install it for me. We may have been able to do it ourselves, but it included having to drill into the center console for the controller knob and I didn’t feel comfortable with that. After installation, it looks factory and is very easy to use. Ford should have had blanks in the dash for things like this. I dialed mine to “2”, but your settings might be different.
Next step is a weight distribution/sway control hitch. This is a must! Because we are at the limit of the towing capacity, we must do what we can to distribute the weight from the rear of the Bronco toward the front. The weight distribution hitch is designed for this. I used the Blue Ox hitch. I have an E2 hitch for my Toyota Tundra to pull our 27ft Airstream. Both would work well in either vehicle.
We ran into a big snag with the size of the drop for the Blue Ox hitch on the Bronco Sasquatch height. The standard 6″ drop wasn’t low enough to tow the Airstream level. We tried it and ended up scraping the guards on the bottom of the camper on a dip in a parking lot. I didn’t want that to happen again…or worse. The solution was that we had to get a 9″ drop and cut off the bottom of the drop. The 9 inches were too far of a drop and I was fearful of the hitch bottoming out. We ended up with an 8″ drop and bolted the Blue Ox head, solving our issue. It isn’t 100% level, but it is close with no dragging issue on the hitch or the rear. All this work was performed at an RV Service company. It was about an hour of labor plus the cost of the new drop.
The Bronco does not have a traditional tow package like other vehicles. Typically, you get a transmission cooling system as well as a Tow Mode. The Bronco has neither of these. I believe the Raptor does, but we are driving a Badlands. The Bronco does have a transmission fluid temperature gauge. Normally, ours runs at about 185 degrees. I was told to monitor it while towing. This will tell you if the Bronco is in danger of transmission breakdown due to towing.
Next step was to test it. We took some small trips with this rig, but we thought the Bronco needed a beach trip for a real test of the latest setup. We live near Chattanooga,TN and planned our getaway during Valentines week with my lovely wife, our 3 dogs and 2 cats to Edisto State Park near Charleston, SC. It is about a 7 hour trip. We stopped a couple of times, once to visit our daughters in Atlanta and another to shop at a great store in Augusta, GA. We ended up making it a 10 hour trip. Our transmission temperature stayed between 185-189. It went up to 204 while climbing steep grades, but settled back down. Therefore, towing the Bambi didn’t affect the transmission fluid temperature very much, which was a relief. If the temperature stayed at a high level, switching to manual should bring the temp back down because the transmission would not be shifting as often. The Bronco had no issues with acceleration or control during the whole trip. On the return, a weather front came through and most of our trip had wind gusts up to 30mph, still no sway issues. On steep grades, the Bronco downshifted to maintain speed and to get over the hill, but so does my Tundra. I did take it slow and drove mostly at 65 mph on the interstate. We were in no hurry…just drive safely. Now, we can relax, enjoy the beach at Edisto and take daytrips in and around Charleston with the top off.
So, this trip was a success! We pushed the envelope a bit on the Bronco and it passed. I am not saying you will have the same experience, but it worked for us. We plan on taking this setup camping once every couple of months (mostly closer trips) which should not be detrimental to the Bronco’s life. Have fun and happy camping!
