Question about weight ratings

I put Cooper Discoverers on my F250. I will buy them again but I feel they literally saved my life this summer on a what they called a road but was more like a gravel path in a mountain that was not much wider than my truck. They were great in the winter, no noise although the tread is quite aggressive. Got mine at Discount Tire.

Everybody with a driver's license thinks they are individually smarter than the team of Registered Professional Engineers who designed the vehicle!

"Gvw should never under any circumstances exceed gvwR..."
Do you believe this from personal experience, professional experience or input on the design of particular vehicles, law enforcement jamming you up on this in the past, lack of knowledge or experience causing you to blindly follow every reccomendation or regulation you see to make you feel safer, or simply to be argumentative?

Maybe some evidence of why your opinion is such would shed some light on this.......

Sound guy, you're right, partly, and thanks for picking up on my leaving the "R" out of GVW in my statement.
I could say the same, as gvw is whatever the vehicle weighs at a given point, whether it's overloaded, over its gvwr, or not.
GVW is a condition, gvwr is a rating or, and I'll use the term loosely, reccomendation.

Never the less, as you appear to be running for president of the rvnet weight police society, I'll maintain gvwR is a rating that is loosely based on a general vehicle capacity for a given class of vehicles.
Depending on the particular condtion a and vehicle, it may or may not represent anywhere near the real world or even engineered capacity of that particular vehicle.
Those that don't believe this are either not well read or experienced with vehicles' capacities and choose to follow the strictest number they can find for peace of mind or increased factor of safety, or are simply antagonistic.

I'll use an example of rated construction rigging. OSHA or some other agency mandated that ALL rigging be rated for 1/5 of its demonstrated yield strength or a 5:1 factor of safety. Presumably this was done to try to engineer out the dumb arse factor in construction where light bulbs get used as anvils by some!
So on the job, if I have a particular piece of rigging that is rated for 10klbs straight pull I legally cannot go over that. Per OSHA it Wisha standards here.
In real life I could hook up to 50k to that same piece without issue.
Understanding and prudence will go a long ways towards determining what is "safe" and what level of risk is acceptable.
Me, I'll live on the edge, hauling 4klbs in my 10klb gvwR truck bed because I know the frame and chassis is the same as a comparable 14klb gvwR truck and that the axle is rated upwards of 10klbs, combined with what I've done to increase load carrying capability and safety of the vehicle. Beats spending big bucks to get the same truck with a different sticker saying it's ok.

SoundGuy wrote:

tim1970 wrote:
I also have a hard time believing the GVWR comes out to a nice even number of exactly 10,000.

SoundGuy wrote:
Believe what you want but the reality is that GVWR isn't a number that "comes out" to anything ... it's a number assigned to each vehicle by the manufacturer as the maximum that vehicle should ever weigh under any circumstances.

Grit dog wrote:
Believe what you want but GVW is a rating assigned by the DOT or some govt organization based loosely on the general approved capability of a certain class of vehicle ...

The best answer I can give is talk to someone in person who is very well versed in truck capacities and has practical experince.

Well clearly that wouldn't be you :W ... GVW is the loaded weight of any given vehicle, whether a car, truck, trailer, etc, and will vary according to whatever may be loaded into the "vehicle" at any given time. GVWR is the weight rating assigned to that vehicle by the manufacturer ... GVW under no circumstances should ever exceed GVWR.

Good grief. :S

Good grief is right. While you may be generally correct, in this case you are not. The 10K is assigned as the maximum by our USA govt for that class of truck. The 10K was determined a long time ago and only recently trucks have caught up to (and passed) it. Back in 2010 when I bought my F250 a 9200 GVWR was standard. Improvements have raised trucks capabilities and they have now exceeded the 10K mark, but they must be marked as 10K because that is the maximum that they can be according to the govt. There is not one thing on that truck that limits it to 10K except an outdated govt rule. Maybe being from Canada you don't understand this, but that is the way it is. We don't know what the real capability actually is though since the govt forces a 10K maximum on the sticker and won't allow the real number to be printed.

For s slightly different perspective, think of weight ratings in comparison to the highway signs that show a curve coming up, and tell you the speed you should be at to safely make the curve (on dry roads).
It is not a firm speed limit, it is a recommendation.
weight ratings are just that; ratings, not a firm limit.
In fact, my old 1994 Dodge Ram CTD one ton dually was registered for a GVW of 14,000 lbs. Legally, that was the only important number. I chose it because I knew I could never exceed it. AFAIK, I never did, even when hauling hay.

tim1970 wrote:
I also have a hard time believing the GVWR comes out to a nice even number of exactly 10,000.

SoundGuy wrote:
Believe what you want but the reality is that GVWR isn't a number that "comes out" to anything ... it's a number assigned to each vehicle by the manufacturer as the maximum that vehicle should ever weigh under any circumstances.

Grit dog wrote:
Believe what you want but GVW is a rating assigned by the DOT or some govt organization based loosely on the general approved capability of a certain class of vehicle ...

The best answer I can give is talk to someone in person who is very well versed in truck capacities and has practical experince.

Well clearly that wouldn't be you :W ... GVW is the loaded weight of any given vehicle, whether a car, truck, trailer, etc, and will vary according to whatever may be loaded into the "vehicle" at any given time. GVWR is the weight rating assigned to that vehicle by the manufacturer ... GVW under no circumstances should ever exceed GVWR.

Good grief. :S

ppine wrote:
I will never understand why people would want to tow a trailer anywhere near its rated capacity.
Maybe if its flat. Maybe if there is no city driving or really windy roads. Maybe not.

well, it is pretty easy to be WAY under on GCVWR and OVER on GVWR for the tow vehicle. As an example I tow a 10,000lb trailer and am right at the 10,000lb GVWR for the truck but WAY under max GCVWR.

I will never understand why people would want to tow a trailer anywhere near its rated capacity.
Maybe if its flat. Maybe if there is no city driving or really windy roads. Maybe not.