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So my trailer tongue is limited by the hitch rating and any excess (1865-1210 = 655 lbs) for people and stuff in the truck.
If I want to purchase an RV I'd realistically be looking at max weight of 8,000 lbs at 15%. That's a far cry from Ford's 12,000 lbs they advertise for my configuration truck within their brochures.
Something else I found crazy was I decided to look at my old mans 2002 7.2 TD Excursion and it had the same 1,210 lb rating on the hitch! The Excursion being on a 250 frame seems like he would be limited to the same trailer weight as my 150?!
I almost feel like they should clarify this better because before this forum I didn't even know the small sticker under my hitch even existed!
Yes, your understanding is exactly correct, with two caveats.
Your payload has to be reduced by anything you add to the truck (tonneau cover, bed liner, floor mats, etc), and by the WDH you buy (75-125 pounds), and then by the people in the truck including the driver, and all their stuff, pets, etc. For many, that throws them below the 1,210 pound limit of the hitch.
Second, most trailers aren't 15% tongue weight, closer to 13%. You don't want to go below 10%, then the tongue is too light. Going from 15% to 13% raises your trailer capacity to 9,307, assuming you don't go over the 655 pounds in your calculation (which you probably will). Also to note that many boat trailers do in fact have much less tongue weight because their weight is behind the axle(s) of the trailer, which then means the trailer can be much, much heavier, which means that Fords number works...
You nailed one of the biggest problems with things today, and yesterday, and the decades before that. The majority of people are ignorant, don't try to get educated, and don't think about putting their families at risk, or other families at risk. Couple that with ignorant salespeople at both car dealerships and trailer dealerships, that don't care if they put people at risk.
My very elderly father in-law was taught that you could air up a smaller tire to make it the same size as a bigger tire. He used car tires until they blew out or went flat, once going 11 years before I realized it and made him get new tires. He ignored suggested repairs from his dealer when they did his oil change, which once resulted in a broken suspension/tie rod piece that made him lose control of his car - luckily he was doing 15 miles per hour and just ran over a curb, could have been doing 70.
I applaud you for the extensive research you've been doing, seems like it's been going on forever . But you do understand exactly what your limits are.
So my trailer tongue is limited by the hitch rating and any excess (1865-1210 = 655 lbs) for people and stuff in the truck.
Right. If you haul less than 655 pounds of people and stuff in the truck, then the hitch weight rating (with WDH) is your limiter as to how much travel trailer tongue weight you can have without being overloaded.
If you haul more than 655 pounds of people and stuff in the truck, then the GVWR of the truck is your limiter as to how much travel trailer tongue weight you can have without being overloaded.
If I want to purchase an RV I'd realistically be looking at max weight of 8,000 lbs at 15%. That's a far cry from Ford's 12,000 lbs they advertise for my configuration truck within their brochures.
Right. Tow rating (and GCWR which is the basis for tow rating) ignores GVWR and payload limits. Tow rating assumes there is no weight in the vehicle except a skinny driver, and you don't have enough hitch weight to exceed the GVWR or payload rating of your tow vehicle, or the weight rating of your hitch. So it's a reasonably accurate indication of the max weight of a farmer's wagon-style grain trailer that has almost no tongue weight. But not for a tandem-axle travel-trailer that has about 13% tongue weight, or for a fifth wheel RV trailer that has about 18% hitch weight.
And notice that word "max". That means maximum. Tow rating is GCWR minus the weight of the wet and loaded tow vehicle. Which means that in order for you to be able to tow a trailer that weighs in at the tow rating weight without being overloaded, your tow vehicle including hitch and driver and a full tank of fuel cannot weigh more than GCWR minus tow rating, and your receiver hitch must have enough weight capacity to handle the tongue weight of that wet and loaded trailer. Misleading? Yes, if you don't read and understand all the fine print in the RV and Trailer Towing Guide.
But most people are too lazy to read the fine print in the towing guide, if they even check the towing guide. We see a tow rating of "up to" 11,400 pounds in an advertisement and conclude that we can tow a TT that grosses up to a bit over 11,000 pounds with no worries about overloading anything. But the fine print in the towing guide says "NEVER EXCEED THE GVWR OR REAR GAWR OF THE TOW VEHICLE. And GVWR will usually bite you in the buttocks long before you reach the GCWR or tow rating. Also in the towing guide is a table for hitch receiver weight capacity. So even if you didn't know about the sticker on the frame of your receiver, if you had read the fine print in the towing guide you would have seen the receiver hitch weight limits.
Last edited by smokeywren; 12-10-2016 at 02:05 PM.
Well done. You got it, and just from reading about other people's mistakes.
It's likely that the only way most F150s could tow at the GCWR of the truck without exceeding GVWR is to add an auxiliary axle like a Trailer Toad to take the tongue weight of the trailer off the truck.
You need to go by the numbers. Yes these trucks can tow a lot more than the ratings but at a cost. Not going into all of the safety issues like stress fractures on an overloaded receiver you also have extra wear and tear on the drive train and suspension. All increasing the risk of premature failure needlessly.
It's been my experience that the weak link is the transmission. The more weight, the hotter the fluid. The more heat in the transmission leads to earlier failure. The only difference in the medium duty tow package and the standard tow package is the auxiliary transmission cooler. The max towing package adds the bigger rear end, engine oil cooler, etc.
So if your going to max out your numbers, you might want to upgrade components as a bit of cushion.
12-10-2016, 08:48 AM
Hitch vs Payload Ratings
. But you do understand exactly what your limits are.
