This and always has been a hot topic. A towing forums I also belong to has had and continures to have simmular threads.

GCWR is Gross Combination Weight Ratio. Combination meening the tow vehicle and Towed vehicle. There weights combined. That is how it was described to me. I argued well there is a differance between rolling mass and dragging mass, even if both are the same weight. Rolling mass will pull easier.

There are alot of versions, Whats right?

 

That makes sense and I read that before. Almost seems like a loophole in the law. IMO the GCWR set by the manufacturer should be god, but in the eyes of the law it doesn't always work that way. Seems all many DOTs are concerned with is the GVWR and GAWR when IMO the GCWR is just as important.

Getting going with a big load is only one concern I have. How good the vehicle handles the weight and braking is what concerns me the most. What if you have a trailer brake failure?

 

this is something else that confuses a lot of people too. take an f-250 with a diesel and the same f-250 with a 5.4. ford will give the 5.4 a gcwr of 15k and the diesel somewhere around 20k. but both of them will have the exact same problems in the event of a trailer brake failure. and both of them will handle the weight exactly the same under normal towing conditions. so why the difference in fords recommended gcwr? the 5.4 simply cant handle the weight that the diesel can without causing a lot of stress on the engine.

 

I agree. There are many contributing factors that need to be taken into consideration.

 

i dont remember exactly what the test parameters were, but i read a while back how they come up with the factory recommended gcwr. it had nothing to do with safety or legal issues either. its a way to keep people from tearing up their trucks and ford having to fix them on warranty. but how they came up with the rating was to take the truck, hook a trailer up to it, and go up an incline while maintaining a certain speed. whatever weight it could maintain that speed at was what they recommended the gcwr be.

 

texastech, my opinion on it is that if you gear it for what the book says, WITHOUT going to bigger shafts, than you logically can handle the higher GCWR that's in the book for your truck.

I think in terms of the Ford WARRANTY (and possibly your liability insurance), you would be out of luck if you happen to be over the GCWR. Whether or not re-gearing effects your warranty, I wouldn't even hazard a guess. I would fight it if they said "the truck came with 3.73's so you were over the GCWR" and you in fact did regear it.

ALSO - GCWR stands for Gross Combined Weight RATING - not "ratio".

Legality changes from state-to-state, what you are using the trailer for (business or RV) and what your own driver's license is good for.

In terms of GVWR, it's been a while, but here in NY, you could commercially register it for whatever you wanted. I used to drive a box truck and got pulled over a few times and weighed. They NEVER EVER went by the sticker on the door, ONLY the registration. But that's New York. And I don't know what they would do if my passenger-plate F250 was over the GVWR, or if they would even bother to pull me over and check.

 

i asked my dealer and insurance broker about that because the lightest trailer i tow puts me over my recommended gcwr on my 5.4. insurance company said that all that mattered to them was if it was legal within state laws. the dealer said that it would still be covered by warranty too. they said its only recommended because most people will assume its a legal number and not try to tow more than that. but that could vary by your insurance company or dealer, so its best to ask before hand.

 

I'm debating in my mind the concept that you cannot legally carry a load that puts you over GVWR.

If this is the case, then I and practically everyone else in the country carrying a slide in camper is doing so illegally. And every sales lot that sells these units is selling them to people who can't legally carry them. Ford even sells a "camper package", which includes front and rear sway bars and an extra rear spring, just for the purpose of carrying these things.

In my case, my GVWR is 8800 pounds. The truck weighs around 7500, leaving me around 1300 pounds of capacity. My camper weighs about 3000 pounds, and it is not an exceptionally large or heavy camper. It's 9' 6", so there is a foot and a 1/2 overhang. It has no slides, no generator and fairly small tanks compared to many I see being hauled around.

Last time I weighed I had 5000 on the front and 5750 on the rear, with the camper loaded, full propane and water, holding tanks empty, all my tools, dishes, etc. All the stuff you'd carry in a camper. Even at this weight, I'm barely engaging the extra spring leaf and the truck certainly does not feel overloaded.

So I'm somewhat curious about this. I tried looking at the ODOT and Oregon DMV web sites to see if I could find more information, but both those sites appear to be down at the moment.

 

Here's how I see it. If I'm over GCWR and some punk pulls out in front of me and I make him a permanent fixture on my bumper, a good lawyer is going to eat me alive and my insurance company may or may not be there for me. It won't matter what I've done to the truck to make it handle more weight. The lawsuit will be costly regardless of whether the insurance company is helping me out. Or, I can spend a few extra bucks and buy a truck that can handle the weight. It's also true that I'm probably getting sued anyway but why hand the lawyer a "gimme". I can hear him in his opening statement"

"Ford Motor Company recommends never exceeding 22,500 pounds and this dunderhead weighed 24,000 pounds. His lawyer is going to tell you all about the "upgrades" he did to his truck but he won't tell you about the testing he did to ensure his truck could handle more weight. He won't tell you because he didn't bother to do the tests....and little Johnny is dead because of his negligence." The little old ladies in the jury will need a whole box of Kleenex.

 

you would be correct here. ford really f-ed up on the super duty when it comes to gvwr. my obs f250 has the same gvwr as my super duty, but the super duty weighs at least 1k lbs more. but the bottom line is, if youre gvwr is 8800 lbs and you weigh more than that, youre illegal. and if you get in a wreck, insurance will not pay for it, even if the wreck wasnt your fault. as long as you dont get in a wreck you are fine. non commercial vehicles arent required to stop at weigh stations and unless you are severely over loaded and a danger to others on the road, no cop is going to pull you over. but thats not something id be willing to chance on a regular basis.

theres a reason why ford started putting a sliding scale gvwr on the super duty around 2005 or so. ill use our trucks as examples. in 2000 all f250's had a gvwr of 8800lbs. whether it was a reg cab with a 5.4 or a crew cab with a diesel. a lot of guys with the crew cab diesel 250's were over their limit with nothing more than their passengers in the truck. take your truck for example. it weighs 7500 lbs by itself. say you have 3 people in the front seat and 3 people in the back and all of you weigh 200 lbs each. you are going to be at 8700 lbs with nothing more than passengers.

why does your truck not feel overloaded even when it is? because up until about 2005 or so, the super duty f250 was identical to the f350. kind of a cost saving measure. make the same truck on the same assembly line, using the same parts, but slap an 8800 lb sticker on one and a 9900 lb sticker on the other.

 

this is why ford puts the recommended gcwr on the truck...... they know it will scare the majority of people into staying below that weight. which in turn means less stress on the truck, less stuff breaking, less warranty work for them. fords number means nothing to anyone but them when it comes to legal issues. thats why its called a "recommended" gcwr.......

 

Which is why I said something about the registration being looked at first. If you have "passenger plates" there IS no GVWR on the registration. And in NY, with a camper on the back, you can get passenger plates.

Conversely, the empty weight is shown on the registration. And if you have a camper with passenger plates, you should have the truck weighed, and pay the correct registration fee for that weight.

 

My fault. I should have included definitions.

GVWR Gross Vehicle Weight Rating. This is the maximum weight that is allowed to be on the truck's tires. It does not include a trailer, but does include any tongue weight or pin weight from a trailer.

GCWR Gross Combined Weight Rating. This is the maximum weight of a truck and trailer.

GVWR is located on the data sticker. Changing gearing does not change GVWR.

GCWR is found in the owner's manual. If there are multiple GCWR for different gearing, then changing the gearing to one that is shown in the table WILL change the GCWR.

In a specific truck model, say E350 for discussion purposes, there are multiple GCWRs listed in the owner's manual. My '02 E350 V10 was available with a 3.73 or 4.10 axle. The 3.73 is rated at 16,000 GCWR and the 4.10 is rated at 20,000 GCWR. I know from insider's knowledge that the ONLY difference is the axle ratio. Cooling, engine, trans, brakes, suspension, tires, do not change. The limiting factor for the GCWR was vehicle performance and cooling, and the change from 3.73 to 4.10 makes both better, so the GCWR is higher.

Does that make it any clearer?

 

You said that GCWR doesn't become an issue until you exceed 26,000 lbs. Did you mean to say GVWR? 26.001+ GVWR is CDL territory and I understand that. If you really meant GCWR, Ford already does that with the F-450 pickup - GCWR 33,000 lbs. Also, citing your example about towing the double trailers, if you hook that 8,000 lb. trailer to the back of the gooseneck, isn't it going to effectively lower the hitch weight on the gooseneck and therefore lower the weight you're contributing to your truck's GVWR? If you hook that trailer to the back of the gooseneck, the hitch weight of that trailer will be behind the axles of the gooseneck. Theoretically, that would cause the hitch weight of the gooseneck to lessen.

 

I have passenger plates. And, oddly enough, in Oregon, no weight of any sort is listed on the registration for vehicles with passenger plates.

Trying to read the Oregon DMV web page can be a bit confusing. If a vehicle weighs more than 10,000 pounds, then it must be registered by weight. It even imply's that if the vehicle with a load weighs more than 10,000 pounds, or if the vehicle is towing a heavy trailer (over 8000 pounds) it must be registered by weight, but then it exempts seemingly everything I can think of, including "campers, fixed loads, light trailers, manufactured structures, special use trailers, towed motor vehicles and travel trailers."

I believe I'm legal with the camper. Although I am thinking of selling it and getting a small travel trailer, just because the camper is not as convenient as I had originally thought it would be, and it's a bitch to load by myself.

In March, and again in late May or June, I'm going to be towing my brothers 16' gooseneck stock trailer, loaded with my Dad and step-Mothers stuff, from Oregon to Colorado. I know it's going to weigh more than 8000 pounds. So is it a heavy trailer? Or is it a "special use" trailer. Danged if I know.