Trailering just changed for good with the new Ford Pro Trailer Hitch Assist feature. This new feature takes away some of the troubles of towing things.
Before you head out onto the road with a travel trailer or boat, you’ve got to get that trailer hooked up to your truck. For some, this is a two-person job, but most modern trucks try to tell you that it can be done alone. You might have a rearview hitch camera to help you put your truck in the right position to hook up a trailer, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to aim right.
Even experienced trailer haulers need help
You could have years of experience hooking up trailers to your truck and still take three or four attempts to put a truck and trailer together. In fact, some people will get so discouraged by the constant movement of three to six inches one way or the other that they will grab the trailer and try to move it roughly onto the hitch ball. This is usually met with disaster. If only there was a better way to hook these two items together and remove human error from the equation.
The human element disappears from Ford trucks
Ford used a cornucopia of words to describe an automated system that can hook up a truck and trailer. Some of these words include “computer vision,” “artificial intelligence,” and “neural network,” but all describe the same thing, the new Ford Pro Trailer Hitch Assist feature. This feature does what we don’t want to do; it brings the truck to the trailer and makes it much easier to hook up a truck and trailer together. All you’ve got to do is sit back and watch the magic happen on the screen.
How close do you need to be to the trailer?
Once the rear of the truck is within 20 feet of the trailer hitch, all you’ve got to do is push one button, and the truck does the rest. Sit back, enjoy a latte, feel the warmth of the heated seats, and watch the screen as your Ford truck moves the hitch ball to within one inch of the trailer coupler, making it easy to hook the two together once the job is done. This system ensures you don’t need to deal with the headaches of marrying these two items together.
Some people will never unhook a trailer
Are you one of those people that refuses to unhook a trailer because it means you’ve got to hook it back up again? Considering the number of dents and dings the trailers at your local U-Haul location have in them, towing a trailer isn’t something that everyone should try to do. Thankfully, with this new Ford Pro Trailer Hitch Assist feature, you’ll never have to feel like you must have the trailer attached at all times. You can drop the trailer where you want and come back for it later, giving you the freedom to move about without that extra length and weight.
What about the parking brake?
Have you ever taken your foot off the brake pedal and felt the lurch forward of your vehicle? This can be extremely frustrating when you look at your hitch camera and see that you’ve got your truck lined up perfectly with the trailer coupler. That lurch forward can cost you the alignment you worked so hard to accomplish. To secure your position, you’ve got to apply the parking brake once you’re in position. Thankfully, Ford thought of this, and this system applies the parking brake as soon as it sees that the truck and trailer are in perfect alignment.
Which trucks will have this feature?
Ford isn’t keeping this new feature limited to only certain models. Every Ford F-150, F-150 Lightning, and Super Duty truck in 2023 can have the benefits of the Ford Pro Trailer Hitch Assist feature. This means it is easy to give you the system you need to hook up and get ready to pull your trailer back where you came from.
Of course, in order to properly hook up the truck and the trailer, the trailer coupler needs to be positioned high enough that the hitch ball can fit under it. Ford can’t take away all the human elements to hooking up a trailer. As long as your coupler is high enough, this new feature can take care of the rest and get your truck in position to pull a trailer to wherever you need to go.
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