2015 Ford F-150 Towing Mirrors Get the Job Done
During our recent first drive of the 2015 Ford F-150 in San Antonio, we had the chance to do plenty of highway driving, off-roading and towing. We towed 9,000-pound enclosed trailers (with weight-distributing hitches, of course) with both the 3.5-liter V-6 EcoBoost twin-turbo engine (when properly equipped, it can tow up to 12,200 pounds) and the 5.0-liter naturally aspirated V-8. Both engines do a great job pulling hard, but the V-8 felt slightly more confident and stronger off the line, offering more rumble out the tailpipe at midlevel and higher rpms.
But what really caught our eye while towing are the new towing mirrors the F-150 now offers. They have a much larger "elephant ear" with a five-sided upper mirror and a rectangular wide-angle mirror below. The optional mirrors are manual or automatic; the latter uses a fully automatic one-touch setup that allows both side-view mirrors to be extended and retracted, as well as folded into the doors, with just a push of a buttons. They are similar to the Super Duty mirrors. The electric mirrors are a $165 option on upper-trim packages and worth every penny.
The newly styled windowsill window, door and mirror controls are sloped toward the driver, which makes resting your arm more comfortable and accessing the electric buttons much easier. Although we don't have the fully electric buttons shown in these photos, the extend-and-fold buttons sit in the exact spot where the single window-lock button is. Manual and electric tow mirrors pull out almost 3 inches, while the mirrors fold into the door and window with ease. The F-150 setup is even easier than the Super Duty system because the latter requires you to sequence two settings before you can extend or fold.
The optional towing mirror is quite a bit larger than the single-lens standard rearview mirrors and has the capability of incorporating an LED spotlight as well as housing side-view 360-degree cameras when equipped. In comparison, the 2015 Rams still use a manually pivoting, split-mirror rectangular unit but all 2015 models will now offer one-touch folding capability. GM's 2015 heavy-duty pickups offer new, larger towing mirrors for the lineup; they can be manually extended and have an optional power fold capability.
Cars.com photos by Mark Williams
