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We bought the RB14 hoping we could tow it with my wife's V6 Mercury Mariner (aka Ford Escape). It towed fine in low wind conditions, but we can't count on low wind in this region. There's often a strong wind from the north in the morning and a strong wind from the south in the afternoon. For our maiden trip to Lake Murray Oklahoma, we had 20 to 25 mph headwinds going up and 15 to 20 mph headwinds coming back. The Mariner struggled to hold 50 mph with overdrive disabled and the automatic transmission downshifted. I settled for 45 mph for much of that trip.

The root problem is in the Ford towing guide's fine print. While the Escape / Mariner is rated for 3500 lbs, it is only supposed to pull trailers with 30 sq feet of frontal area or less. The RB14 has about 42 sq feet of frontal area. You can probably get away with using the V6 Escape / Mariner / Tribune to pull an RB14 provided you tow with moderation and the head wind is light. I would not want to use our Mariner to tow the RB14 to the Rockies or in the Rockies. It does appear that the head wind strength and the trailer's frontal area can be as important than the trailer's weight vs. tow vehicle capacity.

During the off season, I traded my car for a current-generation Nissan Frontier – an intermediate sized 265 HP truck which is rated to tow up to 6300 lbs with no limitation on frontal area. Notice that I'm not talking about the earlier Frontiers which are much smaller. I took the RB14 out for a test tow on a very windy day and had no problem at all. The current "Fronty" appears be more than adequate with the 265 HP V6. I can't wait to try it on a longer trip.

I have a 2001 Tribute and it has 200hp and 200 torque, pulls my 16rbt fine here in south florida.

One last clarification before leaving this topic:

When I said the Mariner was struggling to tow into 20+ mph head winds while holding 50, I only meant that it was laboring and beyond the towing guide restriction – not that it was maxed out. I know I could have gotten it into the mid 60s or better but chose not to risk overheating the transaxle.

I probably could have continued to rely on the Mariner for towing, at least with some extra tender with it when driving into those head winds. In fact, that was my plan… at least until I test drove the Nissan Frontier…  I was driving an older high mileage car that would probably have been traded in another year or so anyway, I really liked the Frontier, and it does provide lots of extra margin for towing.

I hope this additional explanation dispels any impression of "that new guy" bad mouthing your beloved Escape, Mariner, or Tribune. That was not my intent. They are great cars and we expect to enjoy ours for many years to come. I hope you will continue to enjoy yours also.

Frontal area does play a big part, all right.  The more frontal area, the more push from the wind.  And that has more effect on performance than the weight you're towing.  I can imagine the Frontier is much better for it; the HP is pretty close to that of my Highlander, which handles this size trailer pretty well. 

We sure do get some winds over this way, don't we!  Even the strong crosswinds on the Okla. plains will cut my gas mileage 2-3 mpg.