Overweight with 5th wheel toy hauler??? Long Post

[NIsaacs]

Example, of over weight F-450's

My brother has a small shop/hardware store in Montana and uses a "95" F-450 with a 19' aluminum rollback body as part of his business. He bought the truck new from a big wrecker body upfit company out of the midwest. The truck has a factory GVWR of 14,500 lbs and in empty work trim, weighs 12,500 lbs with the wheel lift option. Based on the factory GVWR this gives him a net payload of only 2,000 lbs!! What good is this, there are 1,000's of these trucks in use. I am sure that the wrecker company didn't expect him to only haul quads and motorcycles.



He has the truck licensed for 20,000 lbs by the Montana MVD, is registered with the Montana Highway Patrol (they regulate wrecker sevice in MT) and has been doing so for 10 years. If he feels the recovery vehicle is too heavy he uses the wheel lift, however he hauls regular full sized pickups all the time.



This is just one example of over weight trucking and am not saying it is right or wrong, it is just the way it is. I will also say that some GVW weight watchers would be more than happy to see him pull up if you were broke down on some remote Montana highway when it was 20-below zero



"NICK"

 

[DPelletier]

... , but I will be over my max weight pulling for the trailer as Dodge recommends (12,300 +-). I'm still trying to figure out the Gross combined weights.

Do yourself a favour and ignore the tow rating. It is irrelevant and is only useful as a sales tool. Go by the GCWR and subtract the truck weight to get your real tow rating. Of course, neither figure matters unless you're trying to stay within your GCWR.



Dave

 

[Nickaru]

If I took my GVWR which I will be right around 11,000 lbs including the weight of the fifth wheel and subtracted that from my 20,000 lb. GCWR, I have 9000 lbs for trailer loaded, not including the tongue weight. Not a big trailer for a 1 ton dually to tow.

I just returned from the sand dunes at Glamis this weekend and did some eyeballing on trailer and truck combos and BOY ARE PEOPLE OVERWEIGHTED! Lots of 36 to 40 foot toy haulers being towed with 3/4 ton short bed trucks. I know todays diesel engines can pull them with no trouble and the sales people at the RV lots tell me I wouldn't have a problem towing one of these bad boys (which I know) but I asked one "legally tow within limits?" and he replied "Technically NO"



Thanks for all the replies. It's been enlightening.

 

[Woodenhead]

I was talking to a guy at Truck Toys today here in Wa. He told me to haul over the mfg's rated GCWR and GVWR you can have the truck inspected and registered for a higher rating. Then you just have to display the DOT's new weight ratings on the truck. Not sure how much truth there is to this (he claims he's done it before) but I'm checking into it.



Mike

 

[GAmes]

I've rolled over many scales and in the states that require permits I've gone inside to pay some DOT wages. The permit officer (the same one watching the readouts as the trucks pass by) almost always will ask me "how much does the trailer weigh?" They don't look at the numbers unless the overweight alarm sounds. That's commercial. My impression is they could care less what Joe Retiree's RV weighs... ..... welcome to the state and spend money!!!