Battle of the heavy weights

4x4ord wrote:

The Mad Norsky wrote:

Hannibal wrote:
I don't care about who's fastest up the grade either. Obviously! However, what the test did show is that all three ran balls out towing 20k lbs up the grade with no failures or hiccups. That is the criteria I'm interested in. All three proved very capable.

BUT, (a big one :B ) here's my point. I personally would hope that I never end up with any of those trucks used in the commercial.

They've been abused, albeit possibly short term, but abused nevertheless.

Its always been mentioned on here, when giving advice for folks doing some towing over, say I-70 west of Denver, to NOT try and be fastest up the hill because one does NOT want their EGT's to go too high, or over 1200 degrees I believe.

Can one imagine what the EGT's were on those three vehicles???? Turbo boosting to the max and running flat out as hard as they could go?????

They had to be getting very, I mean VERY very warm.
EGT = exhaust gas temperature.

My truck would feel pampered if towing a 20 k trailer up a nice smooth grade was the toughest thing it ever saw. Using a tuck for its designed purpose is far from abuse in my books. With all the sensors and computers on these trucks now I would imagine it is next to impossible to abuse them. I was heading down the highway at 60 mph with my Ford when I realized I was going to need a hitch in my receiver. I was confident enough in the truck's software that I threw the gear shift into reverse to get the back up camera to come on....yep the hitch is installed and yep the truck is idiot proof.

Nevertheless, with ALL the computers, sensors, etc....it's a human being that is behind the wheel....You really don't think that one could not abuse a truck, even with all the sensors, safety measures etc??? What if I take a corner too fast and hit a tree?? None of those sensors compensated for one speeding, racing to the top of a mountain, yeah a temp gage may go up, yeah a light might come on, BUT, if one chooses to ignore some of these, something could malfunction, at the very least, go into "limp mode"... etc...These trucks AREN'T idiot proof, no matter what you think, especially if an idiot is driving it:)..Common sense, though a very rare commodity today helps a lot when hooking up and towing a 20,000# trailer that may be 40' or longer, especially when towing with family and around others....I've seen a few wrecks, I've seen trucks broken down while towing, and a lot of these were newer trucks..what happened to all the "safety gadget's", sensors, computer and on with those trucks?

Again, even with all the sensors, computer safety features, back up sensors, back up cameras and all...one can still have a wreck and one can STILL abuse their truck..oh, I also guess we've NEVER seen ANY of these computers, "malfunction"....yeah, well it only takes a little research to find that some of these may not be as reliable as one might think....or HOPE.....I will err to the side of common sense and safety and not go out of my way to endanger my family or others around me and not abuse my truck...heck, I'll pamper mine, I need it to last..don't have time to drop it off at the dealer to have it looked at or worked on because pushed it to it's limits, thinking that the trucks 'safety features" won't allow me to abuse it.......yeah, right.......