drsteve wrote:
Interesting discussion. This all brings up the question of why, in a market where every manufacturer touts their trucks as being the most powerful and heavy duty, with robust towing and hauling capacities, would they underrate their trucks so greatly? Do GM, Ford, and FCA really care if we pay an extra hundred or two bucks to plate our trucks?
Because those manufacturers have legal departments and accounting departments. Legal wants to avoid bad press, accounting wants to avoid paying out for warranty repairs. The closer to breaking point that you get, the greater chance for breaking. If the engineers say that part X has a breaking point of 31,214 lbs, legal and accounting want to get the limit of part X as far below that 31,214 lbs as possible, while marketing and sales want to push for a number as close to 31,214 lbs as possible.
The end result is what we call a COMPROMISE. They give it a rating just high enough to be better than the competition to appease marketing and sales, but as low as possible to appease legal and accounting.
