You joke but the trailer rental places look at that. I was in Uhual once and a guy wanted to rent a car transporter to move a Honda and they told him his f350 wouldn’t pull it. They don’t allow wdh on their car transporters so they are looking at that 600/6000 number. I bet if he had a ranger they would of allowed him.

Where its a real problem is on boats. Most boat trailer manufacturers won’t allow a wdh and even if they did it’s a real PiA because you would have to unhook at ramp. Boats typically have very low tongue weight compared to other trailers yet the 5000 or 6000 pound number comes in meaning if you follow the letter of the law you need a wdh.

 

Regardless of how GM does it, it completely blows away the 500/5000 pound half ton "law" thing that some sites refer to, making them full of poopoo.


Step back a moment, and rethink it though. It is 10% based. Maye they set it 500 as the max weight carrying, and the 5000 is the 10% maximum trailer weight, But if a trailer has 7% then 500 pounds WC and forget the 5000.


Oh god, Tylenol, Table 1 please! I feel a migrane.

 

Would love to get the straight scoop from Ford Engineering on the 500/5000 thing. Seriously doubt that would be allowed though.

 

Looking at the sticker on my truck, ....



If it'll hold 1050 lbs with WDH then it'll also hold 1050 lbs without, nose of the truck will likely ride so high it'd be dangerous to drive which is what WDH do, they even the load all the way up the frame but you're still putting over a thousand lbs of weight on the hitch regardless.

That tells me physically the hitch can hold that much weight easily, and safely if you don't try driving with the front tires barely touching the ground. The tongue load rating is simply a safety factor not a weight bearing one.
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Its not the weight bearing capacity of the hitch that puts the 5000 number there. The wdh actually drastically increases the load on the hitch. Remember it’s putting thousands of pound feet of torque onto the hitch to correct the rotation created by the hitch to rear axle lever arm. The weight on the hitch transfers weight from the front axle to the rear because of rotational forces. This can lighten the front end to the point where you lose breaking and control. It can also cause you to overload your rear axle since so much more weight is being put on it.

 

That's pretty much what I just said.
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I recently had a fruitless email exchange on this topic with the Ford Body Builder Advisory Service. I asked the seminal question in every way I could think of and only got this:

"I am sorry. I cannot provide any information other than the recommendations in your Owners Guide and the links provided.

Thank You

Ford BBAS"

and this:

 

I honestly don't want to be breaking my truck, so nothing to lose there.



I am pretty sure that the 500/5000 number is an arbitrary one that most manufacturers decided upon when designing the trucks. All but GM use the same 500/5000 rating on the half tons. GM probably did the 700/7000 thing to try to one up the rest. More than likely the 500 number is what they determined as the most that can be leveraged while still maintaining front wheel stability. I know that 650 on the ball makes that front end really light, and I wouldn't want to be driving it that way, drove a Semi with a light front axle, it was a handful on gravel.

 

I don’t know about this. A Ford Expedition is a half ton isn’t it? The hitch on my Expedition states 600/6,000 weight carrying and 920/9,200 weight distributing. Why does an Expedition have 100 more pounds for weight carrying on the class IV receiver?

 

So an Expy has no more weight on the front axle and a boatload more on the rear, yet it can handle 100 more tongue weight behind the rear axle? I'm still in the arbitrary number from Ford camp.