Increasing towing capacity

RLS7201 wrote:

FloridaRosebud wrote:

RLS7201 wrote:

Executive wrote:
The beautiful thing about weight and length posts is if they run long enough, sooner or later someone will post what you want to hear and you can go for it! After all you can always tell the court, you got it approved from RV.net. :B

Dennis, are you an Engineer or Lawyer or both?
It would be very informative if you can show us some laws against beefing up a frame and receiver.
Then from an Engineers standpoint, tell us why we can't perform these mods.

Richard
Mechanic. Cars
Operating Engineer. Commercial Bakery
Chief Engineer. Ink production.
RV repair. Owner, Operator.
Still tinker around with what ever is broke.

OK, let me jump in here as an Engineer (PE) who works for a forensic company and am a manager of other Engineers. Most of my work is legal in nature, IOW lawsuits. If you, as an owner, modify a design, and in this case "beefing up" the frame and receiver would be a modification of the design, you had better have it signed and sealed by a PE or approved by the jurisdiction that covers motor homes. If you don't and there is an injury or death as a result of what you modified you can bet there will be a lawsuit. I deal with this type of stuff every day. Bubba adds to a deck and it falls down, Bubba adds circuits to his house and it burns down, and Bubba is towing a load too heavy for the truck and it overturns. The insurance companies hire us to investigate and get to the root cause of the problem. If you are liable (if YOU are the root cause) the Attorneys jump in.

If someone is willing to take a chance then that's their choice, but one does it at their own risk. That's the real world now. You can certainly look me up to confirm what my company does: www.edtengineers.com.

Al Rose, P.E.

I have worked in the trades my whole life, without review of a PE, and I've see what Bubba does but not all of us are Bubbas. It sounds like you are saying that none of us without a PE have a clue what we are doing. I did say to take the coach to a qualified weld shop, in a earlier post. What you advocate would not allow any of us to make any kind of fix or modification to any thing without oversight. That would be an impairment on my rights.

Richard

Your rights do not allow you to do things that could hurt other people. It's called laws. I'm sorry, but you missed my point. I was not implying that anyone was a Bubba specifically, but I was just telling you what the LAW and codes requires, and if you break or ignore either that could result in serious consequences. Just taking your coach to a "qualified" weld shop doesn't mean that it's legal for them to make any modification you want. A modification to something like a truck or RV frame without testing to insure and certify it will carry/tow what someone SAYS it will is reckless and you would certainly be liable.

Again, myself and my guys deal with this type of stuff every day and we are required to know the laws and codes in each state, or at least know where to go and find/research them. I'm sorry if the facts get in the way of your opinion, but this is the world we live in.

Al