GossipIsBad

That made me laugh, thanks for sharing this funny story. I wonder what 20 lbs works out to of the GVWR....0.3% or something. Could just fill up to 7/8 of a tank of gas instead of right full, and drop them 20 lbs.
I feel it is safer to be 2% overweight and drive the speed limit, than be at legal weight and drive 20% over the speed limit. Which one is going to increase your closure rate on an obstacle more?
Take more distance to stop from?
Be worse when you have to swerve suddenly?
If you said the 20% over the speed limit you are correct.

8100hd

5.0GN tow

You are correct, however I feel it's a case by case basis call. I towed at GVWR and often slightly over GVWR with my 13 STX almost every weekend for over 3 years. I know what towing overloaded feels like, I have been towing for over 30 years, and had to do it a few times while working for a county agency. The 13 never felt pushed around by the max loads or even slightly over GVWR loads. It was a GN set up so I am sure this helped a lot.

Trailer set up and choice is at least as important as the truck. That is one thing people on here seem to overlook a lot. Not every trailer is a big box travel trailer, or overstuffed cargo box. The trailer needs to be matched to the truck to pull well and owners need to be smart enough to figure that out or find help locally to make good choices. Dealers both trailer and truck need to be trained to help the customer, not just sell trucks and trailers. Some are, when I bought our new GN last year, before I even could sign the sales order the salesman had to see the truck I intended to pull the trailer with or he would not do the deal. He had to drive me on a golf cart 10min across the Quarter Horse Congress grounds and check out the truck, look at payload sticker and verify GCWR of the truck, before he would sign off.

Same when I was looking at Super Duty trucks the year before. The dealer told me to drive both 16 and 17 SRW and DRW trucks, then go look at the heaviest largest trailers we might want to trade up to the following year and bring him the info on them like GVWR, length etc. We did so, and he immediately said SRW was out, go look at DRW trucks and if we wanted the really big LQ trailers to stay at XLT trim and below to save payload for pin weight. SD is no different than 150s in this respect.

I took his advice found an XL with some upgrades like cloth seats, power group for windows and doors, factory running boards, forged aluminum wheels. I then had tint, tri fold cover, upgraded stereo and two cameras added. It was perfect for what we needed a comfortable HD towing beast, with 5800lbs of payload. Coupled with a new trailer that puts 4400 to 4600 on the pin I still have room to load the family and some hay in the bed and be within my ratings. I have weighed my set up at CAT scales with 3horses on board and loaded up for a trip and if I filled the water tank, I can truly max out the truck and it's about as light as a 16 SD can get with maxed out GVWR of 14000lbs.

So even with a SD, you have to plan, it's not hard to do, you just have to take time, find good dealers and ask for help if you need it. I honestly didnt think when I started that with a SD option loads would not into play much but they do.

kbroderick

Rational thought helps a lot. I wouldn't want to be right at GVWR constantly, either, with any consumer-oriented vehicle; running at 100% of capacity all the time is going to take a toll on component life over time, and it also means you don't have any wiggle room if you happen across a large box of puppies you want to rescue or a family with a broken-down car that you want to help out and give a ride into town (or any of 100s of more mundane reasons you might find yourself wanting to add to the load above your "normal" load).

OK, so maybe a box of puppies isn't going to be heavy enough to matter, but that's exactly the point—we all know that the trucks won't burst into flames at 101% of GVWR, but even going from 83% of GVWR to 100% of GVWR is going to dramatically affect handling. You'll need to adjust your driving accordingly, especially around other people who may (will) decide to do stupid sh*t. This is even more true if you're going from 35% of GCWR to 70% or more of GCWR. I moved in early August, with most of my stuff loaded into a 16-foot cargo trailer; I was at 103% of GVWR (7260 pounds), 83% of GCWR (13920 pounds), had a WDH installed and set up at least close to correctly, and drove accordingly. I didn't have any trouble except for a bit of excitement at one very short yellow light and the expected drop in fuel mileage. I also drove a lot slower on hilly state highways (Black Hills near Badlands / Rushmore and upstate NY / Vermont / New Hampshire in particular) than I would with an empty truck. I have intention of moving that much weight on a regular basis, but on a one-off basis, even over 2600 miles, I think it was a reasonable decision.

Part of being able to make intelligent decisions about what you can and/or should do is understanding where, and to what extent, you may be pushing the envelope. Taking a 99-MPH-rated snow tire to 103 MPH for 30 seconds while passing traffic on the interstate probably isn't going to cause it to blow up, but driving an 80-MPH average for an hour with it 10 PSI low might.

And that's putting aside legal issues—I'd be a lot more concerned about being at 103% of GVWR if my truck was registered to my LLC, for example.

8100hd

BlackBoost

Luckily the mods are pretty good at closing threads that encourage unsafe behavior, but they're busy as well, so sometimes you just have to bring it to their attention

mass-hole

Seriously. Or like take off the running boards or the tailgate or something. Or put the spare in the trailer. Maybe go on a diet.

Mine is probably pretty close on GVWR each time I tow between the tongue weight, passengers and gear in the bed, but its not even close on GCWR(~12-13k out of 17.1k). It handles it totally fine, to the point that I am bored towing my trailer.

thrifty biil

People ignore payload for the same reason they ignore real trailer weight and rely on dreamland dry weight figures instead.

It makes their TV choice look realistic, and it makes their trailer purchase look do-able. They don't want to go any further and force a decision on buying a smaller trailer, or a better tow vehicle. People want to tow the biggest trailer they can with the wimpiest tow vehicle. I have a friend that just bought a new trailer, tow vehicle is grossly under-rated. I told him: "Good news! You'll be getting a new truck!"

In their case, not only is dry weight misleading, their trailer is full of options that are not included in dry weight: AC, spare tire, full oven, awning, etc. I had suggested they have the RV dealer run the trailer they wanted across a truck scale to get a real weight, but they preferred to remain in the dark, to rationalize that their TV was adequate rating wise. And of course, the RV dealer (Camping World) had no interest in providing REAL information.