Load Rating is now accompanied by
Load Index
Older terms still in use, but L-I can bring comparison differences a bit more clear as
use is defined.
Load Range E doesn’t correspond with a load index. Load range refers to a tires ability to withstand more air pressure while the index refers to how much weight a tire can safely support.
https://www.tirerack.com/upgrade-garage/what-is-load-index
Tires are an impressive engineering feat. Not simple.
As to what a pickup can do one has the factory rating (advice) which is a good starting point for the vehicle still acting close to what it does while Solo (with a bed load to 1/2 of payload; call that DD), and the legal limits imposed by axle, wheel and tire ratings.
The second half of that (past factory advice) is where prudence needs to come into play. It’s already an unstable vehicle made for a compromise. Get heavy, and it
won’t, steer, handle or
brake worth beans
by comparison.
What it can do is relative.
Road, Load, Traffic & Weather are what define
too fast for conditions. Most Americans seem to think
muh deezul pickemup grants an empty-head exemption.
Once the load is past “factory” it just turned into a longer trip with poyentially a lot more work for the operator. As most tend to drive pickups like cars
this is fuel for a forest fire when (not if) conditions aren’t accurately read.
Braking into a turn is how I know when following that the guy ahead of me has no clue of what his load has imposed (example).
Bad habits need to be quashed. Kick the 17-year old out of the drivers seat.
Tire life
Brake life
Fuel MPG
Are all tell-tales of smooth operation. Empty, or heavy.
Least input degree over shortest time duration is the marker of success.
I’d hate to have to count the number of times I’ve had a heavy pickup rig cut in front of me the last half-mile to an Interstate exit F’ng up my following (braking) distance
and his since he wasn’t smart enough to:
1). Know where is his exit; and,
2). Have gotten into the exit-accessible lane
two miles out and have slowed sufficiently; and,
3). Done so that it was easy to get off the Interstate at the lower legal limit (45-MPH or so)
corresponding to the exit advisory speed and gone still lower ; as,
4). If towing
the only time stability is achieved is under throttle so exiting one road to
enter another is with the right timing of proper speed
into and out of the dedicated exit lane.
— Use GPS to put on turn signal at 4/10s out.
The whole trip is a series of connected glides.
Timing is crucial to having a different one (the needed one) enacted at the right point.
Don’t make your mistake the problem for others. I’ve
zero intention of turning over a 78,000-lb rig because of you.
No swerve.
— The other diesel pickemup conceit is that the exhaust brake will haul things down unaided by service brake.
Not if the trailer is without automatic brake actuation while EB in play. Show us the trailer brake control which does (I sincerely hope this has been changed). This sets up a genuinely bad problem of instability. Big trucks and pickups with heavy loads lose it on the downslope.
Think of highway exits the same way. Ease along.
If you’re wife pisses the seat it’s because you failed to plan the trip such that children, pregnant women and old people had
more than enough opportunities to relieve themselves.
Don’t cut in front of big trucks or other heavy vehicles ever as a potty break ain’t an emergency.
Tires carry the burden, and translate the inputs.
What will your rig do? As with most other tasks, it’ll be up to you. Tire choice is second to developing the skills to best utilize their capabilities.
Better trip plan assumes it’s already a standard checklist. Having to start from scratch (the night before) is where Homer Depot Daddy fails utterly in understanding the magnitude of risk increase and starts acting appropriately
to do one at all.
.
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
