130428

you can beef up your truck gears, frame, tires, everything you want, it will not LEGALLY increase your payload or towing capacity unless you get it re-certified as someone mentioned. Which would be probably more trouble than it's worth.

Will the 3.73 make towing heavy loads more efficient / comfortable? Probably. But as ctimrun pointed out, just telling the judge "but, but Sir, I changed gears so I should be allowed to tow 2,000 lbs more than what my sticker says" won't cut it

5.0GN tow

I am not advocating going over limits. What I am saying is strictly related to non commercial trucks. What I am saying is being 50lbs over payload is most likely not going to be an issue. If you read my posts I always advise to try to stay within payload.

The scenario you mentioned is an extreme case. As the officer stated the 250 was grossly overloaded. I am retired LE as well and have investigated hundreds of crashes, both commercial and non commercial. I can think of a handful of major injury or fatal crashes where weight was a factor, and all were commercial vehicles. If most cars packed for vacation were weighed, most would be over payload, as would nearly every carpet van, plumbing truck, electricians truck etc. Many sedans and crossovers have payloads under 1k, if you put a family with two teen boys a 200lbs dad and 150 lb mom, plus luggage you are over weight. By your standards a large number of everyday families are just waiting to have insurance cancelled and go to jail. I guess what I am saying is, if you get in a crash and you are grossly overloaded you will have an issue with insurance. If you are close probably not. Civil litigation is a whole different ball game, anyone can sue for anything. State laws vary as well on what officers can cite for.

Now back to the original question which was about GCWR not payload. The change in GCWR could possibly be accomplished by changing axle ratio since Ford just specs it by ratio and not by individual truck. The payload would not change just GCWR.

5.0GN tow

Just checked my state NON COMM regs again, wanted to make sure no changes since I retired. In my state there is no license weight max for NON COMM, only the antiquated designation of 1/2-3/4 or 1 ton type. There is also no designated weight max combination weight for NON COMM.

This only covers legal meaning can be cited for load purposes. Now if the officer feels the load is unsafe he can cite for unsafe MV, but must be able to articulate why he stopped you as unsafe prior to knowing the weights and ratings of the unit or his probable cause for the stop is out the window.

Now civil litagation in the event of a crash is a wide open to how good the attorney for both sides prepares the case. Anyone who has ever been before a jury knows how cases can swing on how evidence is presented.

Again not advocating running with overload, it's never a good idea to over load a truck, just highlighting how state laws vary all over the country.

jkenprice1

You din't start anything. This is a much discussed topic. One reason for the passion is how many times this has been hashed over.

Your right, and wrong about changing gears. Yet changing from 3.55 to 3.73 makes the trucks identical, but no that doesn't change the tow rating legally.

Wannafbody

Seems to me that if the F250 driver wasn't the cause of the accident, then citing him for being overweight while technically legal probably was a weenie move, unless his being overweight led to a chain of events which wouldn't have occurred if he was under legal weight. And unless everything was weighed by scale, then it's a double weenie move.

ctimrun

The drunk started the accident and like you said caused the beginning of a chain of events in which the investigation team determined the F250 being overloaded continued the chain of events which led to two people losing their lives.

Anytime there is a fatality a lot of money is spent on a very thorough investigation which includes reconstructing the accident. The wreckage was recovered and put onto a scale as part of the investigation. I should have said in this example the fifth wheel being towed would have overloaded an F350 dually with a GVWR of 14K pounds (edit: actually I think at that time the GVWR on the dually trucks was lower, maybe around 12.5K). The F250 pulling it only had a GVWR of 9600 pounds and was overweight on just about every weight parameter possible.

In my opinion this was not a "weenie move" and I'm willing to wager if you had lost two family members in this accident you wouldn't think it was either.

Wannafbody

I've only ever heard of one instance of someone being fined for being overweight in PA and that was when a vehicle owner called the police to complain about a state inspection that found safety issues which he contended was a rip off.

If someone is 5000# overloaded, that is a bit different than someone being over by a couple hundred pounds.

ctimrun

Yes I agree for sure, as someone else pointed out there are probably a lot of passenger cars which are overloaded with just families and their stuff in them.

California has been cracking down on overweight towing (probably for about the last 8-10 years) which some may argue has more to do with collecting the fine money opposed to protecting the public. California is a mess but that is another topic for a different forum. There is actually way more money for the state in enforcing commercial trucking compared to an rv owner.

5.0GN tow

When you said he was overloaded, that was a serious understatement. Sounds like he was beyond grossly overloaded. That I can see as a problem and as an officer on traffic patrol would probably have stopped and at least checked it out.

One thing I noticed here after rereading the thread is he only mentioned tow ratings increase. Now I know pinweight or payload will be the limiting factor and to my knowledge gear set does not change that. On the other hand changing gears does increase the ford set tow rating which is not a DOT set number. It is based on what the truck can pull without overheating the driveline and engine. Since the GCWR is not payload limited according to ford, maybe changing gears you can have a higher tow rating. It does nothing to increase payload which is more a limiting factor. Not sure of this but it's a moot point since even though ford says you can tow 11000 you run out of payload before that. They play the rules by saying only if you don't exceed GVWR or GAWR etc. Just typical car companies playing word games.

ctimrun

This is a huge problem in California. People buy a "Super Duty" truck to pull their super duper toy hauler to the deserts and mountains not knowing their F250 and sometimes even their F350 is inadequate. Too bad more people don't do the proper research before buying. It's also too bad the dealers (auto and RV) aren't more concerned with people's well being rather than just scoring a sale.