I agree! I have a 3/4 ton and I didn’t buy it use at its max rating.

 

Ok so I called Ford customer service and asked how to specifically determine max pin weight from the towing guide. The answer is the max pin weight is the 15% of the max tow rating.

 

Everyone is focusing too much on only ONE rating. They ALL need to be within limits. Whichever you hit first is your limit, period.


15% of your tow rating means nothing because tow ratings are different than payload, GVWR, GCWR and rGAWR.


All of these need to be within limits.

1. Pin weight + hitch weight + cargo + passengers must be < Payload.
2. With trailer hitched, your truck weight (loaded) + trailer weight(loaded) must be < GCWR.
3. With trailer hitched, your GVWR and GAWR must be within limits posted in the door jamb on the white sticker.

That's it! It's simple! You don't get to pick which one of these limits to follow, you must be within ALL of them.

 

OK, but the whole point of this thread is that an HDPP truck is not exceeding any of these values at max tow capacity and a 20% pin weight. The SCREW 4x4 HDPP F150 can get to a 11,400 lb trailer with a 20% pin weight and not exceed GVWR or RAWR. So the debate of this entire thread is whether or not the HDPP truck is limited to a 15% pin weight despite that putting it WELL away from its listed GVWR/RAWR.

My argument is that from a legal standpoint, the truck is still within limits with a 2200 lb(20%) pin weight and that J2807 has no standing in that. It may void your MFG's warranty but they would have to find that out first. It's no different than me running a tune on my truck and risking hurting my motor and receiving no warranty help from Ford. The tune is not illegal but the private agreement I made with Ford when I bought the truck was that there would be Warranty coverage if I left it stock.

 

No, it's not limited to 15%. The towing guide does state 15%, however, with a note:


Trailer king pin load weight should be 15% of total loaded trailer weight. Make sure vehicle payload (reduce by option weight) will accommodate trailer king pin load weight and weight of
passengers and cargo added to towing vehicle. Addition of trailer tongue load weight and weight of passengers and cargo cannot cause vehicle weights to exceed rear GAWR or GVWR. These
ratings can be found on the vehicle Safety Compliance Certification Label.


The bolded part is the important part. Some fivers can be 20-25% pin weight, but as long as that all fall under the limits, there's no reason why it can't be towed. But the tricky part with a 5th wheel is that there's no WDH system. If you're close to maxing out your rGAWR and GVWR, you might be taking weight off of the front wheels, especially during acceleration, which is bad for steering. But, having a 20-25% pin weight would mean a much lighter trailer in order to stay within the payload GVWR and rGAWR limits, so you're pulling much less weight.


For what it's worth, SAE J2807 makes no mention of any % of pin weight. The test is on how it accelerates, brakes and handles etc.

 

Your right it’s not limited to 15% for every trailer, it could be a higher percentage if the overall trailer weight is lower. So the example in the beginning of the thread had 1575 lbs of pin which is 15% of 10500. You can have a 7500lb trailer and 1575 lbs of pin weight and achieve a higher percentage. This is the way all the manufactures set max pin and hitch weight now but the HDPP seems to buck the norm with much higher GVWR and rawr which is the whole reason for the thread. Fords position seems to be you can’t take advantage of the excess GVWR and RAWR to increase towing capacity including max pin weight.

 

Where does Ford state this? If you mean what the salesman said, you can throw that out the window because there are very few who know what they're talking about.

If your max tow for your configuration, GVWR, GCWR, GAWR and Payload all allow it, there's no reason why you can't.

 

I called Ford and asked them how to determine the max allowed pin weight and that is the answer I was given. By all means give them a call and ask them yourself, it would be interesting to see if they give you a different answer.

 

I would never call and ask someone who works at a call center because I guarantee it's not an engineer answering the phone. I'll go by the numbers they publish in the guides, and primarily the sticker in my door jamb.

 

To be honest I’d really like just to find out what the answer truely is. For a consumer trying to make a purchase decision it extremely confusing. From a tow rating standpoint, if a HDPP truck could use the payload and RAWR advantage, then the tow rating would be considerably higher than max tow trucks. But it’s not.