Towing with Ford Escape

the 3.0 liter will pull it, I feel it is a marginal package for long term or coast to coast pulling. In my opinion for short hauls and trips close to home you will do ok. I think if you are towing through mountains and steep terrain you will have to pace your self. After pulling ours for the third season I have found that on the interstate I pull at 60mph on flat or down hill. I stay in the right lane. uphill (of which we have plenty in southern Indiana) 50 or 55. don't like it, go around me. I think you will be ok as long as you are not in strong cross winds or extremely hilly country.

Welcome. dsmiths said it all. Many of us started with 6's and have moved to something with a larger engine. It all depends on where and how far you want to go to camp.   Goose

We returned from our 6000 mile trip to and from the Southwest in early June towing a 2800 pound (dry weight) travel trailer with our 2010 Santa Fe V6 274 hp AWD tow vehicle.  It did great in the strong crosswinds, and did much better than I expected going up and down 6% grades and a 7% one.  We did have to downshift on some of the grades, but never exceeded 3000 RPMs. We averaged 12.6 mpg, towing our trailer about 95% of the time. 

We traded that trailer (due to fiberglass delamination) in on a 2010 R-Pod 173, which is about 800 pounds (dry weight) than our old Dutchman Aerolite Zoom.  I expect the pod to tow even better, although everyone seems to be getting very low gas mileage with them.

In all my years of towing, I have always allowed my tow vehicle (or motor home) to pick up some speed going downhill or before approaching a hill, and letting the speed drop somewhat going up a grade.  Unless we are on flat terrain I don't use cruise control, and find that by "feathering" the gas I get better mileage than when using cruse. 

I have also noticed and when towing in 5th gear rather than 6th, the ECONOMY light will actually come on.  I have not towed our pod on a long trip yet. 

Bob

I really think it depends on where you live and where you are going to go camping.  I am perfectly fine towing our Pod around here in the Southeast with a 3500# tow capacity.  And yes, if I was going to take a trip out west and/or into larger mountains and I took my time doing it I am sure it would be just fine.  But if I lived in a more mountainous area or was planning on constantly going camping in mountains (not hills, mountains), then there is no way I would consider it with the TV I have and I would upgrade to something more powerful.

I think you'll do fine with it for as long as you want to tow that way.  Like others said LOTS of us started with v6's and have for our own reasons decided we wanted more oomph when towing.