Re-Test of the 2018 Ford F150 Diesel on the World’s Toughest Towing Test (Video)

2018 ford f150 diesel power stroke ike gauntlet towing test
2018 Ford F150 Diesel

It’s time to run the 2018 Ford F150 Diesel on the Ike Gauntlet™ – world’s toughest towing test – for the second time. Why re-test it? This pre-production truck had a problem on the downhill portion of the test the first time. It made it down the first several miles of the 7% downgrade just fine before it went into a “limp home” mode.  It shifted into 9th gear, disabled towing mode, and did not allow us to manually shift. Then, at the bottom of the grade, it would only move at 6-7 MPH.

Ford quickly looked at the truck, and determined that it was a pre-production calibration problem. This is what they told us, and they would not go into any more details.

Now, Ford says the truck has the latest production-level calibration that is and will be on all production F-150 Diesel trucks on sale now.

Is the problem fixed? How will the truck perform with the same CM Trailers 8,700 lbs trailer behind it?

The Ike Gauntlet™ is an 8-mile stretch of I-70 in Colorado. It’s a 7% grade from Dillon, CO and all the way up to the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial tunnels at 11,158 feet above sea level.

This test is also the first truck competing for the 2019 Gold Hitch – best towing half-ton truck – award.  This will be a very competitive half-ton truck segment this year as the all-new 2019 Ram 1500 and the all-new 2019 Chevy/GMC trucks are competing here as well.

Get all the details in the video below.