In my experience, the ratings you find in the brochure and online are optimistic. They don't take into account the model and all the options. For my truck the web site says my Lariat's cargo capacity is 4400 lbs. Reality? My sticker says 3130 lbs.

 

You need to go by the yellow sticker in your door jamb. That will be the payload for your truck with your options.

Better is to empty everything out of the truck, fill it up with fuel and drive if across the scale with only yourself in the driver's seat. Take that number from your GVWR and that is your full legal payload. If you do that you will find it to be quite close to your yellow sticker, though.

Judging by the pic you posted, I think you are going to find that you are overloaded. Generally speaking, these trucks don't look overloaded until they actually are.

Using the WDH to shift weight in the bed to the front axle is a bad idea IMO. If you want to shift that weight around, move the load. The WDH is there to keep the weight from shifting away from the front axle more than it is anything else IMO.

also, when crunching numbers, don't forget to include the weight if the hitch in your hitch weight calculations. These hitches aren't light and can often put you into the next weight bracket for bars. It did on mine when in had to pick which bars to get. My camper relatively empty was about 750 TW. But the hitch was about 120lbs, so I had to get the 1000 lbs bars instead of the 800 lbs bars. Which sucked because I found an 800 lbs hitch locally for half the price and i couldn't use it.

All of this, BTW, from a guy who has never scales his own rig

This is a good thread. Looking forward to seeing the numbers.

 

I see people all the time on the road pulling trailers that look like they are way past what the truck is rated to pull. I've seen, with my own two eyes, a Dakota pulling a 5th wheel, so people are capable of doing ridiculous and stupid things with their truck.

I've also seen, in person, with my own two eyes, a guy driving a car with 5-lug rims using only two lug nuts.

 

You can't fix stupid.

 

Sorry to tell you, the brochure means absolutely nothing, unless your truck is exactly like the one that they use for the maximum payload capacity. They normally use a truck that will show the most payload possible which is a 2 wheel drive, completely stripped down version of the truck. The more stuff that the truck has on it...4x4, bigger motor, Crew Cab, Lariat package vs. XL work truck, etc, the payload goes down and down and down. The sticker on the driver's side door post (white/yellow sticker) is the gospel according to Saint Towing Gods. This sticker tell you exactly the payload capacity of the truck that you own.....not some brochure generated truck that was made to show maximum payload capacity.

An example......The 2011 F250 truck I previously owned had a 2148 lbs payload capacity.....Why? Because it was a CrewCab, 4x4, Diesel, XLT instead of a Reg Cab, 2WD, gas motor XL.....which has a payload in the 3200 lbs range. So look at the white/yellow door sticker and let us know what you've got for payload on YOUR truck....as it was built from Ford. I think you might be very surprised.

 

Thank you for the info xrated! I looked at the door jamb a lunch today...it reads as follows: The combined weight of occupants and cargo should never exceed 862 kg or 1901 lbs.
So I was off by 99 lbs. Not as bad as I was fearing. I also double checked my tire weight ratings. They are 3190 each. I upgraded them last year. So my tires are good it's just the axles, axle bearings, and leaf springs that are taking a beating.

 

Next step is to get it on the scale to see how much weight you are dealing with

 

You are quite welcome. Folks asking about loads and "will my truck tow this" type questions is kind of near and dear to me. As I stated, I just went through a major let-down with my F250, thinking it would do the job for my 13K Toy Hauler. I ended up having to trade the truck and get something bigger. Granted, I bought "overkill" for the job at hand, but I also bought enough truck for the future if I want/need to go with a much bigger trailer, possibly a 5ver. So I'm OK with that. Good luck getting it sorted out and like others have suggested......get it to the scales and then you can deal with real numbers and facts.

 

So a little scale teaser.....
I was able to sneak out of work on time for a change so I took the truck,unloaded except for a full gas tank, over to the CAT scales. I wanted see the place before I took the trailer in just to get the lay of the land. So the truck weights are actually pretty close to what Ford says they should be:

Steer axle-3180 lb
Drive axle-2560 lb
Total- 5740 lb

I'm planning on loading up on Friday evening after work and hitting the scale again first thing Saturday morning. I'll update as soon as I do. Thanks for all the great information thus far.

 

Hey I have done that Was it me? Coming up I25 in New Mexico driving the Subaru about midnight felt a bad wobble. Pulled over 3 of 5 studs snapped off. Called looking for a tow and was told 3 hour wait wait and $500. Tightened up the remaining 2 as much as I dared. Put the hazards on and rolled 30-40mph for about an hour or so to the closest town with an autoparts store to spend the night. Bought studs and nuts in the morning and swapped in the parking lot. Even down south concrete and tools are cold working outside on January 4th lol

 

Haha nope.

I was somewhere in the south I think. I was in my RV at the time but I really don't remember where. I pulled into a gas station and there was a car at one of the other islands filling up. It was an early 80's chevy with 5 lug rims. He had steel wheel on it, no hubcaps, and both wheels on the side facing me were held on with 2 lugs. The other studs weren't broken, there just were no lug nuts on them.

I did not walk around to the other side to look.

 

Morning all,
Just got back from the scales. I loaded the truck as close as possible to desert trip standards. I refilled the water tank on the trailer. The propane is estimated at 90% full. Here's what I got:
WD Hitch No WD Hitch
Front- 3020lbs Front- 2780lbs
Rear- 4340lbs Rear- 4660lbs
Trailer-6640lbs Trailer- 6540lbs
Total-14000lbs Total- 1380lbs (not sure why this changed 20lbs)

Loaded truck by itself- Front- 3120
Rear- 3380
Total- 6500
So my load in the bed was less than I thought. Only 760 lbs. But the tongue weight of the trailer is a lot higher. Calculated at 1280lbs. My current hitch is only rated for 1klbs. That's the first thing I'll be upgrading. The rear axle is rated at 4050. So with the current hitch I'm over by 290 lbs. My plan is to get a hitch with heavier bars to hopefully transfer more of this load off of the hitch. I'll also be putting some cargo in the back seat of the truck instead of the bed in an effort to get some more weight to the front axle. What are your thoughts guys?

 

I get 940 lbs tongue weight based off your numbers with the WDH unhooked.
It does look like there is room for improvement with the hitch set up though. Ideally, the front weight would stay the same or increase with the hitch hooked up.

It looks like you are under your 7700GVW by a little as well. So not overloaded as suspected.

 

I know you don't want to hear this... but you need a bigger truck or a smaller trailer.

 

So I took the rear axle weight with the trailer on and no WD hitch of 4660 lbs and I subtracted the rear axle weight with no trailer of 3380 and that's how I arrived at 1280. Is there another formula?