MikeRP wrote:
I’ve been thinking, scary right? Well here goes, I believe the tow ratings when the truck is delivered is the rating at that point in time. You see lawyers are good at arguing both sides of the issue, right? How come the lawyers haven’t presented the other side argument?
So a prudent man makes changes that improves the capability: air bags, greater load carrying tires and maybe even high performance braking. So the truck has different capabilities. There is safety in being level - we all know that at level loading on both the front and the rear axles is ideal. Now make sure that ideal weight is below the axle rating.
Then you might get new tires, you don’t have to go to Ricksons to move from 3640lbs per tire on a stock Ram to 4080 lbs per tire for a tire that’s wider and less than an inch taller.
Braking can be improved on both the trailer and the truck. So when done the mods make the truck have greater capabilities. And any good lawyer can explain that easily.
Now none of us want to have an accident. We talked about emergency accident avoidance. I think that we have to get back to speed, slow down, assured clear distance, might require more slowing down, patience, not driving tired, tpms, inspection of our rigs and the like. Even rainX improves safety in hard storms.
So I go back to, the sticker on the truck is the rating at delivery. Nothing says we can’t enhance the trucks capability especially when it’s very well known that the GVWR on the truck certainly does not = the trucks capability.
Popcorn! I’m getting it ready. Lol. Remember this is a discussion not a war.
Well if it this easy to “upgrade” the capacity of a SRW, why don’t the manufacturers offer SRW with GVWR of 14,000#?
Keep in mind that in 2013 Ram up GVWR of the DRW 3500 from 12,300# to 14,000#, AND upped the GVWR of the 3500 SRW from 11,500# to 12,300#.
So in one model year said what required four rear tires to carry, now can be carried by two tires! Now question is, is a limitation of tires or frame, Ram made significant hanged to the 3500 frame in 2013, can’t do that with bags, wheels and tires.
