How rigid is payload number

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"""Besides the safety aspect being way over our neighbours to the west in British Columbia set up portable scales from time to time to weigh peoples trailers. If you are over they give you a ticket and tell you to park it and not move it until either you lighten it up to standards or get another truck to take it away for you. Many have been seen on the side of the road. Would not make for a fun trip or vacation. """



Not saying it has never happened, BUT In 35 years I have "Never" seen an RV trailer being weighed by the CVS in British Columbia. They do have regular road weight checks for commercial transports and contractor trailers. They frequently have the weight check and inspection station about a 1/2 mile from my home and I can see every vehicle they stop from my back deck.

I drive over the gvwr without issues, I do try to stay under the axel load limits, which are usually higher by 1-15% of the gvwr. even did it with my family of 6 on board the crew cab I had. GCWR is a performance rating only, really no safety per say. look at the new SAE specs to verify.

As far as actual LEO regs go, most as someone pointed out, do not care about the manufacture rating, as that is usually not the law they have to follow. Been pulled over numerous times over a manufacture limit, no overweight tickets.

For the OP's case, I personally would not want to tow the trailer with the rig in question. This will be over any of my personal safety rules of thumb I follow. An 8 lug 25 or 35 series truck should be used. Same drive train would be ok, but I want a stronger chassis to handle the trailer.

Marty

NHTSA says no people, no driver including in the Tire and Loading sticker. Look for "Steps for Determining Correct Load Limit".

GVWR is a loaded weight in which the vehicle manufacturer provides to NHTSA that will pass various FMVSS standardized tests.

APT wrote:
Payload per the tire and loading sticker includes all fluids such as a full tank of fuel. No driver or other passengers, though.

Payload calculations from the manufacturer include a pre-set weight for a driver... I think its 150 lbs.

You are thinking of CURB weight, which is the weight of the truck with gas and oil, nothing else.

Larry, I think you are right and I misspoke. FMVSS standards (I googled them) are for crash safety and crash avoidance. It has NOTHING to do with GVWR or axle ratings.

I forget what standard applies to vehicles to determine ratings. For some reason I thought FMVSS determined that.

The only thing applicable to this argument in FMVSS is rule 110 about weight rating of tires and rims. Interestingly enough, vehicles rated over 10,000 lbs aren't bound to these standards. It states that for vehicles under 10,000 lbs that use "car tires" can only be rated for 90% of the combined tire rating. That helps lead towards Toyota rating my axles at 8250 lbs... which is roughly 90% of the combined weight rating of the stock OEM crappy car tires that come on a stock Tundra.

I'm not an engineer, I don't deal with FMVSS ratings on a daily basis.

I still don't think that you have any supporting documents for your argument. I don't really need to see any, because I think that it is a moot point in this case. I think the OP will find himself over his payload by a larger margin than he anticipated and will find the find unacceptable. While I really believe there is some wiggle room in those numbers, I don't encourage people to drive over their ratings AND I think that the OP's numbers will be too far over his ratings for comfort.

Payload per the tire and loading sticker includes all fluids such as a full tank of fuel. No driver or other passengers, though.

IMHO, TW will be more like 1000 pounds. No one tows a dry weight RV.

There is a wide range of opinion on exceeding GVWR. Lots of people do it. My opinions is that exceeding by a little is okay. But I think you will be more like 800-1000 pounds over GVWR with that proposed combo. People in the cab, a bed full of camping gear, and TW. People tend to underestimate weights.

TomG2 wrote:
The manufacturer says that I can haul 4 passengers in my vehicle, but I could probably cram in 8 if I really tried. Don't you think they know something about a vehicle's capacity, including its gvwr?

Manufactures obviously know nothing about vehicle capacities lol.

spoon059 wrote:

LarryJM wrote:
For me I'll treat the FMVSS certified safety limit as a hard one since insuring one is under it is not that hard.

Larry

FYI, the FMVSS rating for my axles in the Tundra is over 8300 lbs with stock P rated tires. I'm not sure what the rating is with my OEM E rated tires, but its likely even higher than 8300 lbs. That being said, Toyota REQUESTS that I keep my GVWR to under 7200 lbs. According to YOUR logic (FMVSS safety limits are the hard and fast rule), then I have an additional 1100 lbs of payload.

Payload ratings from manufacturers are required to be at or under FMVSS ratings, but they are numbers assigned by individual manufacturers with little to no oversight... so long as they are at or under FMVSS ratings. Toyota chose to be conservative and de-rate the Tundra by 1150 lbs or so. They did that to reduce wear and tear, reduce warranty issues and increase the duty cycle of the truck.

I understand the point of your argument, but your supporting documents don't correspond with your argument.

You don't understand how those GVWR #s that are on the certifictions work. While the manufacturers set the GVWR # they are required to hire and pay for a separate contract for independent testing to meet the FMVSS standards. They also have to provide the vehicles for testing. Those test results go directly to the COTR which is the government representative and the contract specficially PROHIBITS the contractor from even sharing the results w/o the COTRs written approval with the manufacturer. Thus there is complete oversight to ensure that whatever the GVWR assigned by the manufacturer meets the government set standards as set forth in FMVSS. There are no tests for the GAWRs as you mistakenly believe, but they are used in the FMVSS testing to determine the specific loading on each AXLE under various conditions to meet the GVWR number. Thus that certifcation label as far as braking is concerned is only applied against the GVWR so you 8200lb number has no meaning as to any safety related FMVSS certification as you seem to believe.
Larry

I like Icanon's suggestion, if your TV is overloaded with stuff see if you can move 300 lbs. of that stuff to the TT.

My TT weights just under 5000 lbs. dry, I weighed everything I loaded and added a bit over 1000 lbs. My TT is rated for a max cargo of 2200 lbs. so it still has some cargo capacity left. It pulls just fine with my E-Boost F-150.

You will see many posts where people routinely over load their ½ tons vehicles and if you farm or work construction you will know this to be true. They are willing to tolerate the increased wear and tear.

However, these people are usually not towing their family or going long distances on the interstate.

In reality you probably will not notice a 300# change while towing, even if you could leave some of the stuff home. You can get a 300 lb. weight change during you trips depending on how much gas is in your TV tank and how full your TT fresh, grey and black water tanks are.

However, you cannot escape the fact that with your present load distribution you are over the TV design limit and adding to the normal TV wear and tear. Only you can decide whether ride, handling, and overall performance of your TV and TT combination is acceptable to you; often that decision come after a trip of two.

Just opinion but I towed a TT with a half ton that was at max weight rating and found the the ride to be harsh and general not a pleasant experience on a long trip.