Family of six looking for tow vehicle

So I went and read the door jamb sticker on the van:
Front Gross Axle Weight Rating is 4300 lbs
Rear Gross Axle Weight Rating is 6084 lbs.
And this is my scale ticket:

I am well within limits on the GAWRs.

Yes I am over the limit on GCWR, but guess what - GCWR is not about safety, but about avoiding warranty claims for the manufacturer. It depends on the engine size, so you don't blame GM if your engine fails.


Folks, what I cannot understand is how towing 35 feet of trailer is safe, and adding 3 ft suddenly makes it unsafe.
The braking distance does not change with trailer length because the trailer has its own electric brakes rated for its size.

Nobody cares if you accelerate slower or about your diff ratio, or if your drivetrain overheats, except GM warranty department.

blt2ski wrote:

CKNSLS wrote:
If you have an at fault accident the other party's lawyer will care towing that much overweight.

Care to show an actual case from a court that this will happen? other than what I personally believe to be a totally false setup from some dune post in Ca IIRC!

In my state any how, ie washington, if the person in the van is under its max axel wt ratings, has the proper PAID for licenses etc, even if he kills someone, he will be legal from a wt standpoint. There are OTHER laws that will hurt the OP, but being overwt in his situation is NOT going to be an issue!

This shows the metality of some, where if you have a 3.73 axel engine combo, rated to 14000, then put a 4.10, you are good to 16K.......an axel ratio makes you 2000 lbs safer towing?!?!?! with everything else being the same?!?!?!?! yeah right!

Marty

How can somebody justify being overweight? Unbelievable!

CKNSLS wrote:
If you have an at fault accident the other party's lawyer will care towing that much overweight.

Care to show an actual case from a court that this will happen? other than what I personally believe to be a totally false setup from some dune post in Ca IIRC!

In my state any how, ie washington, if the person in the van is under its max axel wt ratings, has the proper PAID for licenses etc, even if he kills someone, he will be legal from a wt standpoint. There are OTHER laws that will hurt the OP, but being overwt in his situation is NOT going to be an issue!

This shows the metality of some, where if you have a 3.73 axel engine combo, rated to 14000, then put a 4.10, you are good to 16K.......an axel ratio makes you 2000 lbs safer towing?!?!?! with everything else being the same?!?!?!?! yeah right!

Marty

artem wrote:

We've been towing our 2004 Keystone Springdale 37BH with a 2006 GMC Savana 3500 6.0 liter 15 passenger van. Currently has 205k miles, but it never towed before I purchased it for less than $4K. The manufacturer's tow limit for the van is 10,000 lbs, and our trailer weighs 11K or 12K lbs. Our total weight on CAT scales is 18,200 lbs.
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However, when we were in Asheville NC area, extremely hilly terrain (9% grade), our combination could only maintain 35mph in the rightmost lane and also began to overheat (no electric fan here, the fan is viscous coupling on water pump), so I turned both interior heaters on full blast and it helped a lot. The uphill was for only may be 10 miles, so no big deal.

With the GM vans, its easy to run over the 16k GCWR. Just like with SUVs, you have to take the "tow rating" with a grain of salt. The overheating problem is exactly why the 16k limit exists.

...

Welcome!

Thanks for the pictures. Very, very nice rig and I find it well reasoned out to match these two. Opinions to the match might vary a bit on this forum, as some folks find the suggested load guidelines as very rigid, inviolate limits rather than the prefered parameters that they really are. You might have to learn to take the naysayers with a grain of salt.

Some may also question allowing the children to be unbelted in back of the van while underway, if that is what happens. But my feeling is that your children are much safer than mine were in the back of my truck camper back in the '70's. Riding in a truck camper is like riding in a minihome or motorhome with normally less rollover protection etc.

You have provided a great alternative to the worthy Expedition EL that the original poster offered up for evaluation. I don't know if they are still following the thread, I hope so.

Mentioning the overheating, and your solution, is a great example of what downside may happen near, or over the recommended tow limits. It is certainly not a catastrophy and displays one of a few instances, where difficult towing such as hills, are very tolerable overall. It is a very reasonable compromise in the real world.

It sounds like you have a very interesting full-time experience. Have a great holiday and come back with some more comments and adventures. Families like yours are the pleasant core of these forums, so welcome again.

Wes
...

If you have an at fault accident the other party's lawyer will care towing that much overweight.

We're a young family with two toddlers (2 and 1 y.o), so for us getting a van was a no-brainer. Pick-ups or 3/4 ton SUVs (Suburban/Excursion) offer nothing close to van's room. I removed the extra seats and added a conversion van power sofa. You can't beat the room inside, the kids can sleep on the power bed, go potty, have lunch, walk around, etc.
Vans are awesome towing vehicles. Based on pretty much identical frame and drivetrain as pick-ups, they tow very well.

We've been towing our 2004 Keystone Springdale 37BH with a 2006 GMC Savana 3500 6.0 liter 15 passenger van. Currently has 205k miles, but it never towed before I purchased it for less than $4K. The manufacturer's tow limit for the van is 10,000 lbs, and our trailer weighs 11K or 12K lbs. Our total weight on CAT scales is 18,200 lbs.
The trailer is 39' long, and our total length is 60'.
We have the biggest possible tow vehicle and one of the longest travel trailers. We fulltime, so having two separate bedrooms and a living/play room was very important. We're a bit over the weight limits but I could care less really.





I use a weight distributing hitch. I also have an anti-sway bar but in 2000 miles I never used it. The trailer always follows straight and never wiggles. Perhaps it is due to larger frontal area of the van, but I never had any swaying issues.

The van has been equipped with a 10k lbs hitch, trans cooler, towing mirrors and a brake controller. I can comfortably maintain up to 70mph on a highway. We averaged 7.8 mpg hwy when towing.

However, when we were in Asheville NC area, extremely hilly terrain (9% grade), our combination could only maintain 35mph in the rightmost lane and also began to overheat (no electric fan here, the fan is viscous coupling on water pump), so I turned both interior heaters on full blast and it helped a lot. The uphill was for only may be 10 miles, so no big deal.



Overall we're extremely happy.

BurbMan wrote:
WOW a 3/4 ton should have 3/4 * 2000 = 1500 lbs payload. Are those numbers right? I thought the GWVR on the 250 was 9200 lbs.

I believe later model years had higher GVW but in 2002 F250's had 8800lb GVW.

The interesting part was that my F250 had the "camper package" which means it had the overload spring identical to the same model year F350, which had a 9900lb GVW.

So, in my mind, my "real world" GVW was 9900lb & I never hesitated to load it as such.

mrgrim007 wrote:

Are they not on sale yet? I saw one last weekend driving around town. Looked nice.

They are not on sale yet, but there are definitely some pre-production models driving around, probably to allow aftermarket development. Otherwise all the normal commercial up-fit stuff would lag behind the official release, and that would slow sales. I would not be surprised at all if the larger commercial dealers get early-release demo-vans.

Transit is RWD. 4x4 converters are developing conversion packages already.

Lot's of info buried inhere:https://www.fleet.ford.com/truckbbas/non-html/2014/2014MY_Whats_New_Book_03-12-13_v27.pdf

They don't state HP or tow ratings yet though, but they seem to hint that engines will be the same configuration as the F150 (which would make sense since they share the plant). I suspect the EcoBoost will remain the "max-tow" engine and the diesel will be the most fuel-effecient offering.