My truck has Firestone "Ride Right" air bags and every thing on my sig is all up to date. What do you guys think the max weight my truck can tow?
One thing to point out, I have never had any issues with EGT's (never passes 1,400*F under 3,000 FT), ECT's, EOT's and Trans temps towing my 5th wheel with a dry weight of 10,000lbs using innovative street tune.

1. Weight on the truck.
2. Weight being pulled by the truck.


Thanks guys.

 

The only major peice of information you left out is SRW or DRW. The other thing is do you want to know how much you CAN tow, how much you SHOULD tow or how much you can LEGALLY tow?

These trucks are beasts and how much you can tow depends on tire ratings, and if what you are towing is running trailer brakes, and wether you are running 5th wheel or regular tow.

How much you should tow is really a personal expeirance and comfort issue.

How much you can legally tow can be answered once we find out SRW or DRW and sometimes varies based on location and will probably be answered by someone better with math than I am...

 

In many places, though not all, your towing use is governed by the commercial weight laws per axle - you probably won't exceed them. In some places you need to get the truck licensed for GVW including either tongue weight or pin weight, or including the trailer weight. In other places the manufacturers GVWR and GCWR are written into law by reference, so you can't legally exceed the weight limits written on the door jamb of the truck. There is also an opportunity for roadside stops if you look too heavy, and unsafe driving citations. Yes, I know of all of these happening. But that's just the legal side and probably not what you are asking.

What you can actually tow is going to be down to a combination of what the truck can lift, pull forward and stop. Probably tires are going to be the limitation on lift/carry, transmission on tow, and trailer brakes on stop. Plus hitch design, but you can get monster hitches for these things. I know of guys towing 25K fifth wheel trailers with F350 dually's with manual transmissions and 4.55 rear ends.

Brian

 

Its all on your door jam already. The Bags help with the hight and stability but are not there to add additional load. Max load was set when you drove it off the lot.

 

I've seen that answer before or "it's in the owners manual" I've looked both places with no luck. There's a chart online that shows some numbers for bumper pull and fifth wheel towing. Am I missing somthing? Here's the door stickers on my "06 (truck in my sig) how can I tell what I can tow looking at this info?



Also there's a tire sticker. My truck has Wranglers on it with much higer load ratings than this.

 

This might help.
https://www.fleet.ford.com/showroom/...ng/default.asp
You would have to weigh your truck as well as weigh each axle with whatever load, cargo, fuel, people, coolers. It is a little more difficult than just, How much can I...
Not the answer everyone wants to hear.

 

On your tire sticker it shows you can have 2322 lbs as long as neither your front (5600 lbs) or rear (6100 lbs) is exceeded. The axle weights are shown on the main sticker.

 

it is a SRW with 3.73 gears.

 

I was looking at this stuff a couple of months ago and finially just shrugged my shoulders and walked away (lol). Much of it doesn't make sense to me. For starters:

The GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating I asume) is 10,000lbs, but if you add the front and rear axle ratings together they total 11,700lbs?

I took the truck to the scales(fueled and loaded). 5,100lbs front / 3,025lbs rear / 8,125lbs total.

The Tire sticker, with it's 2,322 cargo/occupant limit seem to be useless nonsense. My sidewall info says each tire is rated at 3,750lbs. Thats 7,500lbs per axle, considerably more than the Front/Rear Axles are rated for. These are not the origonal tires and given these numbers I think I'm safe to ignore them for the moment. On a related note, my aftermarket wheels are rated at 3,500lbs each which also exceedes the axle ratings.

So at this point, after looking in the owners manual and finding nothing, I have established I can add 500lbs to the front of the truck and 3,075lbs to the rear but not to exceed 1,825lbs total (10,000max - 8,175 current).

what???! I have to be looking at somthing sideways here?
I havent even got to the part about tow ratings I'm just talking about what the truck can carry. Is there anymore insight i can get from these numbers before going online?

 

The limit of 10K is to save you from paying additional OTR tax, I beleive. Something along those lines.
Dont forget your brakes. Part of the load figures is what you can safely stop.

 

Stumbled on to this from another forum

Posted by:

SmokeyWren


[
Engineering. Or a whole bunch of applied mathematics and physics.

When designing a vehicle, you start with the design specs, then design the components of the vehicle to meet the minimum design specs. So for an F-250 PSD, they determined that the GVWR would be 8,800 pounds and the GCWR would be 20,000 pounds. Then they designed the frame, suspension, drivetrain, tires and wheels, brakes, and other components to meet that requirement.

So they don't begin with a completed vehicle and then try to figure out the weight capacity of that vehicle. They start with the target weight capacity, and design the vehicle to meet that spec.

If you exceed the GVWR of your vehicle, you're overloading one or more major components of the vehicle. So the vehicle will wear out faster, or it might even break.

If you exceed the GCWR of your vehicle, the primary downside is you won't have adequate performance when towing that load up a grade. But you'll also overload components such as the transmission, u-joints, differential, engine cooling system, and engine oil cooling system, which can cause them to fail.

GVWR is how much weight the vehicle can carry.

GCWR is how much weight (including the weight of the vehicle) the vehicle can pull up a certain grade at a certain speed for a certain time without overheating any of the components such as engine, transmission, differential, and u-joints. And without bending or breaking anything such as the frame or suspension.

So the two are not related if the trailer does not add any weight to the tow vehicle. For example, if you tow a 4-wheel wagon with almost no hitch weight (such as a cotton trailer), then the only connection between GVWR and GCWR is that the weight of the tow vehicle must be subtracted from the GCWR to determine the maximum weight the trailer can be without overloading the tow vehicle.

But most trailers are not wagons, so they have hitch weight. So the trailer weight will also add weight to the tow vehicle's axles, and thus affect the GVW of the tow vehicle. So when computing the max trailer weight you can tow, you must know how nuch your tow vehicle weighs as well as the percentage of trailer weight that will be on the hitch. Often, the hitch weight means you cannot reach the GCWR of the tow vehicle without exceeding the GVWR of a tow vehicle.

That's why F-250 PSDs can rarely get close to the GCWR without exceeding the GVWR of the tow vehicle. Or get close to the "tow rating" of the F-250 without exceeding the GVWR of the tow vehicle. Because tow rating is simply subtracting the weight of the empty tow vehicle with no options and no payload from the GCWR, without considering the GVWR of the tow vehicle - and without considering hitch weight.

But you must consider the GVWR and all other weight ratings of your tow vehicle.

As a practical matter, the limiter on an F-250 is the GVWR. On most F-350s SRWs, the GVWR is the weight limiter when deciding on the max weight of a trailer you can tow without exceeding any of Ford's weight limits. But F-350 DRWs have plenty of GVWR, so the limiter is the GCWR.

When loaded for the road, fill up with fuel then weigh your rig on a CAT scale or a J scale at a truck stop. If the weight of your two axles on the tow vehicle exceed the GVWR of your tow vehicle, then you're overloaded. If the weight of all the axles on your rig exceed the GCWR of your tow vehicle, you're overloaded.

If you want to determine how much trailer you can tow without being overloaded, then load up the tow vehicle with passengers, tools, hitch, coolers, whatever you'll take with you on a trip. Then go to a truck stop with a CAT scale or a J scale, fill up with fuel, then weigh your wet and loaded tow vehicle

Subtract the weight of your wet and loaded tow vehicle from the GVWR, and the answer is the maximum hitch weight you can have without being overloaded.

For tag trailers, divide the available hitch weight by 0.12 to get the approximate max trailer weight you can have.

For gooseneck trailers, divide the available hitch weight by 0.2 to get the approximate max trailer weight you can have.

For fifth-wheel RV trailers, it depends on the type of 5er. Small, low-profile 5ers have about 15 percent hitch weight, so divide by 0.15. Normal mid-size medium-profile 5ers have about 17 percent hitch weight, so divide by 0.17. Large, high-profile and luxury 5ers have 20 to 25 percent hitch weight, so divide by a minimum of 0.20.

 

Aslo, my tag says for my 04 9700#

So, my truck weighs 7950 with me and a full tank.

9700 - 7950 = 1750

1750 is my allowable payload.

So, with the above post. I can only pull a 12,000# 5th wheel with my F350. If I use the 15% weight on the hitch. Or there abouts. ( I fudged a little)

Rusty, your payload is 1875#, with that and using the gentleman's figures above, you can pull a 12500# 5th wheel.

 

ya...What he said
Good post

 

So the 1,825lb is correct? doesn't seem like much.
I guess to be fair though, The truck has a tool box with a good bit of stuff in in it, a 5th wheel hitch and slider mount, a full tank of fuel, my wife and myself (that's a deuce and a quarter by myself right there lol!) and a couple of coolers, bycycles, etc. So that is lowering that figure also.

OK, so I can put 1,825lbs on the **** end of the truck and be "legal". We've considered the truck, the axle, and the tire and even wheel ratings and we've figured this out using the sticker on the truck and a trip over the scales.

Off to the towing guide!

 

Feel lucky Rusty, you have a one year newer truck, and it is a F250, and can carry more payload than my 04 F350!!!!! I haven't put in a 5th wheel hitch yet!

Happy trails!