Truck silliness and F250 diesel weights

[lorend]

None of that is determinable by looking a stickers. The sticker on the trailer doesn't even state the empty pin weight so no way to determine truck weight without scales. My guess by the details provided is that they were conducting spot safety checks (check the chains and whatnot) and looking at the stickers to make sure the vehicles were registered properly. At least here you have to be plated to at least the GVWR of the truck and or trailer. (which is the reason Ford offers de-rating options) We had a big push around here a couple of years ago with plow trucks with salt spreaders. People were running B plates (under 8K) to avoid the (at the time) twice annual safety lane requirement and cheaper registration. A bunch of tickets were written but none had anything to do with the payload sticker. They were for running over their registered weight.

Every time I have looked into "overweight" tickets its always turned out to be for over registered weight. The state wants their money. Still have yet to hear of a single case of a overweight situation related to the payload sticker.

I have a CDL and personally know a driver that was cited for overweight in a 45' semi. The only thing he had in the trailer was a 7000lb forklift. He did not center it and was overweight on the axle rating.

[Overtaxed]

I have a CDL and personally know a driver that was cited for overweight in a 45' semi. The only thing he had in the trailer was a 7000lb forklift. He did not center it and was overweight on the axle rating.

How in the name of heck was overweight on a dual tandem with 7K on it? Shoot, isn't a single TIRE on a semi rated over 7K?

[Dirt4Dan]

Wow, I'm 8140 empty in a 3/4 ton and your 7500 empty in a DRW 1 ton? I see yours is a gasser, but, still, I would have expected us to come in around the same with you higher.

Honestly, if I'd known I was going down this route, I might have gone for the dually. We were looking at RVs to start, but then started into 5th wheels and thought, shoot, I already have the truck to do it... It was when I started really reading on it that I realized that all those posts about the 250 being a 350 with lower taxes (which is almost true) also comes with one other thing that I hadn't considered, that stupid yellow sticker telling me I can overload this beast of a truck by putting 5 overweight people into it and pulling a single axle landscape trailer.

It's really sway I'm most concerned about because I have no experience with it, all the trailers I've ever hauled are relatively low, much lower than a 5th wheel trailer, that's for sure. I think I understand the concept, gust of wind from the side, kicks the rear wheels out from under you and slide out. But is that actually what happens? Or is it just an uncomfortable feeling? Like the rear end is drifting a bit, but not actually walking sideways/causing a loss of control?

Government... Wow, the crap they come up with and then the crap the companies to come up with to get right around whatever they came up with. So silly/waste of time. The 250 shouldn't even exist, it should just be straight from 1/2 ton to 1 ton and then onto 1T+ dualies. As far as I can figure, the only reason a 250 exists is to put a derated yellow sticker in there for lower tax purposes.

I hope I'm understanding what you are asking about sway. If you are getting sway from the TV then add larger diameter sway bars (front and rear). They helped tremendously on my F350 SRW with a slide in camper. Check out Big Wig sway bars by Hellwig.
If you are getting trailer sway don't hit the TV brakes but lightly activate the trailer brake controller and this will straighten out the trailer.

[nomadlife]

I love threads like these. Another enjoyable read reinforcing the importance of doing homework and the responsibilities we all take on to enjoy our RV’s.

20k miles pulling our momentum and only seen sway one time. Long thrilling story short when there’s a high wind advisory out west, take it seriously!

[ThePowells]

And the lady at the tag office thought I was crazy for getting a 26K tag for my 3500....

[Overtaxed]

Thanks for the description of sway, that's what I thought it was, I've never had it "bad" in any towing I've done. Little worried about it on the 351M, I've pulled way over that much weight before, but with a lot less "sail" which would seem to be what causes sway. Thank you though for the description, and it makes sense why a DRW would be better at not winding up in a bad way from sway, more tires to break free if the sway gets really bad.

Did you guys take a look at the 2020 Ford guide?! 20K on a 250 goose/5er! Wow that's a big jump! And getting into the "any 5er you want" category, I really wonder how they are getting up to that rating from the 2019, that's just a massive increase in capacity.

[backtrack2015]

Unless they upped the GVWR of the trucks, it’s all academic anyway. You’d need a payload of 4K+ to tow a 20K fifth-wheel.

[J&J___]

Unless they upped the GVWR of the trucks, it’s all academic anyway. You’d need a payload of 4K+ to tow a 20K fifth-wheel.

It looks like Ford did up the GVWR for the F350 SRW to 12400 on the long box 4x4 Crew cab. That is up from 11,500 in 2019.

Look under Maximum Payload in this link.
https://media.ford.com/content/dam/f...Tech-Specs.pdf

[backtrack2015]

It looks like Ford did up the GVWR for the F350 SRW to 12400 on the long box 4x4 Crew cab. That is up from 11,500 in 2019.

Look under Maximum Payload in this link.
https://media.ford.com/content/dam/f...Tech-Specs.pdf

That's interesting. The crew-cab long-box gains payload. That's good news.

[Overtaxed]

Unless they upped the GVWR of the trucks, it’s all academic anyway. You’d need a payload of 4K+ to tow a 20K fifth-wheel.

My pin weight it around 3K on the 351M. But, your right, the GVWR is still over, even with the 2020's. I've done enough reading to know that number is, personally, not important to me. I'm not saying that's the right answer, just my personal opinion.

That's interesting. The crew-cab long-box gains payload. That's good news.

Good news, yes. But HOW? GVWR, OK, that's a marketing/paper distinction, I'm sure in my SC (my area) they will all come derated anyway to 9.9K because of taxes (it's 2X as much to register a >10K vehicle here). And I'm actually free to do so on my 2019 250 (register it higher), so that number doesn't matter much to me. But the rest of the numbers, the ~20K on a GN hitch, for example, that's a more "real" number, they are actually rating this truck deep into the "need a duallie" territory for pulling a 5er (payload aside, of course, because even with the bump in GVWR your still gonna be close). And it's around a 30% uplift in capacity from a 2019, that's a very significant increase in rating.

Let me be clear, I'm not selling my 2019 to get a 2020 for the increase in payload/towing capacity. If I sell this truck it will be for a 350/450 duallie, I'm well aware that's a significant increase in capacity, payload as well as towing/stopping. No question, if I'm not happy with the 351 on the 250, that's the way I'm going. My reason for illustrating this; in a lot of ways, it looks like these ratings are somewhat arbitrary. I read all the time about axles/tires as the limits (and those are the limits that I'm going to check on the 250), but as far as I can see, the 2020 has the same tires I have, same axle I have, in fact, even the same spring pack that I have (appears to be, I can't tell for sure, but appeared to be the same number of springs). All of which seems to indicate that the 2019's aren't mechanically different in the areas that matter to determining payload/towing capacity to a 2020 except for paper. I tow, on a GN, over the truck capacity from time to time (~16-18K on a dump trailer) and it feels unfazed by it, in fact, without the scale leaving the quarry and the tire squat on the trailer, I'm not sure I could blind tell the difference between a 6K load of mulch and a 18K load of crush and run. I like that a lot about the truck, even when "over" it feels well within capabilities, and, from what I'm seeing in the 2020, perhaps the reason it feels that way is because while I'm over my 2019 paper rating, I'm well within engineering specs for the components that impact towing capacity?