what to do with an over weight motorhome
Weighed my Jayco Granite Ridge 3100ss yesterday. Came in at 250 lbs over weight, but 500 lbs over on the rear axle. Spent the day going through everything. Outside rear storage is empty and the fro...
Forum Discussion
tatest wrote:
The weakest point for the rear end of most C's is tire load capacity, which is predicated on heat generated carrying a particular load at a particular speed and road temperature. Driving slower gives you more margin on load. Driving faster can make a tire "overloaded" even if it is not overloaded according to the numbers on the sidewall.
An alternative would be a wheel and tire upsize, to 17.5 wheels with LR F or G tires. However, those higher load ratings, in that wheel size, usually come with much lower speed ratings than those of the 16" tires used OEM by Ford.
^^^THIS
The axle won't fall apart because its a few pounds heavy. Even grossly overloaded, it would probably only accelerate wear, but it won't fail catastrophically. Springs probably won't break either, its mostly a ride-height and suspension travel issue.
Tire though.... they will fail catastrophically. I'm over 10k on my rear axle when towing heavy and every seat it full. I run 235 tires in the rear (265s front) which gives my 2780 pounds per tire.
365,000 miles so far, so good. I did break the differential carrier once, but that was because I hit a new water bar across a forest road, going about 50 MPH. Jumped the van high enough it would have been a top-hit youtube video, had there been a camera running:o Still made it home though. Didn't even find the problem for about 3-weeks, when my "worn bearing" noise didn't go away after replacing them all.
