That video was awesome. Just the retro about it was enjoyable. Thanks for sharing.

 

I wanted to add a few things about the axle rating, the gvwr, and the downgrade gvwr.

The GVAR can add up to more than the GVWR. That is because trucks can be used differently. A plow truck may have lots of weight on the front axles and a trailer towing truck can have more weight on the back axles. Both the axle rating and the gross weight rating should be followed to be legal. When the truck is built and the rating put on the door jam, the truck tires from the factory do influence the GVWR. Changing tires after the purchase does not change the GVWR. The entire package as built and outfitted, are taken into account. That would include the axles, tires, suspension, brakes etc. When purchasing a 3/4 ton truck, understand to be rated as a 3/4 ton truck, the feds rate a truck from 6,001 to 10,000 lbs a class 2 truck. Any heavier rating would make it a 1 ton or class 3 rating. It is true that a F250 and F350 are similiar trucks. Similar trucks but not the same. And the real difference is the GVWR. Now for the downgrade for the F350. It is true the downgrade is a promotional tool. If there is a demand for it, the manufacturers will do it as long as it is legal. They are not doing the towing, and lowering the legal GVWR on the door does not make it more unsafe to drive. The end user may choose to drive it over its legal number, and the end user might be even be correct when stating the truck is capable of towing the higher towing weight, but it is still illegal. The driver of the truck is responsible for being legal. It does not matter what changes have been made to the truck, the legal number does not change. Will a driver be caught? Unlikely. But just like when a driver goes faster than the posted number, he will not usually get caught. But in both cases, it is a risk.

I have stated that I am a recently retired truck driver. In fact I drove a dump truck and have seen other drivers get tickets for being over an axle rating but not over the gross weight number. Of course a commercial driver is much more likely to be stopped and checked.

I am not naive to think that people will tow over the legal number. Or will be near the number and make responsible changes to make their truck a stronger truck. But, the best solution is to purchase a truck that will tow a trailer of a certain weight legally.

 

@vancouverbrian I appreciate your insight as a commercial hauler. Its another world for sure, but can still apply to the rest of us as well. I did want to correct one issue I keep seeing brought up. The brakes on F250 and 350 trucks are the same size per Ford specs @ 14.29". They bump up a wee bit for the F450. It really looks like there is very little difference between 2/350 except an added leaf spring.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is correct, unless the 350 is a dually; then the 350 has the DANA M300 rear axle.

 

Isn’t there 3 axles?
A Sterling for the 250 non had towing, and a Dana for the 250 had towing pkg and the 350, and a larger Dana for the dually 350?


sterling 10.5
dana m274
dana m300

 

As an old oilfield trucker, on this matter, in my experience, once a load was over an axle rating, he was over the legal weight limit someplace with his load In order to alert the scalemaster/DOT officer. Said driver would be over on his bridge, or over on an axle grouping, or something.. Overloading past the legal limit will always draw a flag.

 

yes and the 10.5 sterling is the axle in the f350 Gas srw (unless it has some specific options). They spec 80psi in the rear tires.

Understandable. I doubt you will be over on your rear axle with a 13,000 trailer but I would consider airing up your rear tires to over 70 psi as a safety precaution.

I run mine at 68psi. My axles are not set back really far though. Like I said 15-16k isn't an issue in a pinch.

 

Yup, and some years back, the same 10.5” sterling was used in the 350 dually

 

Thanks for the discussion. I did state that a ticket can be given for being over the GAWR. Technically you need to be under both ratings, the GAWR and the GVWR, and a ticket may result from either. Of course you need to be put over a scale and for a non-commercial rig, that is unlikely unless your rig shows obvious signs of being overloaded or that they are investigating a serious collision. I wanted to address the discussion about the trucks being the same but the rating on the door jam being different. Lets take the case of the downrated F350 that would be exactly the same. Technically, you are able to tow/payload the same in each of these trucks. Where the issue really is that you are not legal in the downrated truck. It does not matter that the truck could physically take the tow, it only matters that the manufacturer with his engineers has put a lower rating. There are couple of ways to look at it. When you purchase the downrated truck and pay lower insurance, registration etc. It is almost like fraud to the government that you as a lay person will try to get around the system by paying less taxes/fees and still towing the higher amount. Also, if the numbers are to mean anything, the government cannot have people trying to justify a higher number than the door decal states. I guess if you get into trouble, you can always tell the judge that you know better and the laws do not apply to you because you are special!

It is really the best idea to purchase the right truck for the weight of the trailer or if you have an existing truck, to purchase a trailer that will fit legally onto the truck. As to the tires, you should check the door decal for the correct tire pressure before your trip. That is a normal part of a pre trip inspection and it also is a part of your legal tow numbers. If you change the tire size or rating, it does not change the tow rating of your truck. It might increase your safety margin if the tires are the weak link, but it will never change your legal number.

I would never advise others here to tow illegally. Once you start to disregard the manufacturer's rating, how can one be assured that they are safe on the road? The old saying, give someone an inch and they will take a mile. It is a risk that I dont want others to take, so I always keep within the numbers myself.

Safe travels.

 

I agree. When I started the thread it was more of information about “why” ratings are they way they are and how each component effects that rating.

appreciate your input!

 

OK. Here we go. Big truck, over an axle rating. If all things are configured correctly. We will go with a bobtail for simplicity sake. Lets take your gravel dump truck for example.
It left the factory with a 15,000 lb steer axle, and a set of 46,000 lb drive axles for a GVW of 61,000 lb. It goes to the upfitter, the hoist, dump box, and a 15000 lb pusher axle are added.
Said pusher is right behind the drives, making the tandems a LEGAL triple axle. Now, every jurisdiction I was ever in, max LEGAL weight on a set of triples was 42,000 lb, regardless of the “rating”. 42000 plus the 15000 on the steer axle is 57000. So with all this math, in order to get over the axle weight rating on any one of these axles, he was likely overweight someplace, flagging the load. Also, some jurisdictions do watch the rating of the steer axle pretty close, if someone is over on that draws a flag too. And then there is the axle spacing that comes into play, if the pusher or tag axle is spread from the tandems, it become a single axle And is weighed separately from the other axle groupings......a whole ‘nuther ball of wax. So, with all this, unless the person asking is asking about commercial use and weights, we should leave the commercial stuff on the table.

 

I'll only add that many, if not almost all, folks buy off the lot and the dealers order the trucks with the artificially deflated capacities. That's what I did. I didn't know anything about the numbers game.

 

Of course, in this once great nation, the biggest problem come in to play. When one turns on the television, watches an “hour long” program; half of that hour is lawyers begging to sue somebody. And it is illegal to shoot them.

 

Let me tell you my experience in being a truck driver of a dump truck. It is not very complicated. The Province (state where you are) set up outside of our yard. There is lots of truck traffic going by with some into our yard. Our driver was flagged down going into the yard. He was loaded on the job by a shovel and he has a total weigh scale in the truck. He left the job under the GVWR and no trailer was involved. When pulled over there was no sign of obvious overload but a mobile truck check with portable scales. When he went over the scales, they found he was over the axle rating on one axle but not over the gross weight. He was given a ticket. The loader operator loaded the truck and did not distribute the weight evenly over the axles and the driver is responsible for the load. I use this example to answer the questions about axle weight and its relationship to the gross weight. Most pick up trucks have more axle capacity total than the GVWR will allow. Increasing an axle does not increase the GVWR. But legally, both ratings are in play.

As to commercial vs non commercial. The driving laws are the same. There are some differences (especially when it comes to hours of service etc) but the real difference is the enforcement is different. Commercial operators are required to scale. They are watched more closely on the roads by the highway patrols. But in both cases, the driver is responsible.

And to those who shrug off these things because they dont like a discussion about the laws and driving, just remember, you are the driver and are expected to know the rules/laws/regulations that are applicable to your truck/trailer.

The best place to get the rules that are most applicable to you is your state/provincial Department of Transportation.

 

I see what you mean but pretty much everyone including hot shot trucks go off combined GVWR and axle/tires. Never heard of it enforced any other way.

So you can pick the derates depending on what you are doing. Basically most people rate and/or derate the truck and/or trailer to stay under 26,000. And most F250s can get pretty close to that weight in real life. To compound the issue being over 10,000 gvwr truck and you can fall into commercial motor vehicle regulations and most decent trailers would require a CDL or license change/endorsement.

A good example is the OPs 12,600 trailer would require a CDL or license change in some states if he were to pull it with a dually. Kinda pointless, just use a 250.

The day Ford says tongue weight is part of payload on the yellow sticker will be the day I never buy a Ford again.