MFG Ratings what are the limiting factors

kaydeejay wrote:
Hi Ben, and thanks for the support.
I fully appreciate that folks who have never lived in the certification/compliance/liability world cannot even begin to understand the complexities of this environment and the need to "get it right" 100% of the time. 99.99% is not good enough.
Add to this the fact that I could have ended up in jail if I did get stuff wrong, resulting in an inaccurate statement to the Feds. Perhaps some folks may then get a sense of why I tend to err on the cautious side of many discussions, including the subject of weights.
There is a huge difference between an individual's responsibilities and that of a Corporation producing millions of vehicles.
For a start, the average Joe Citizen doesn't have the depth of bank account that some lawyers find attractive!!
I could relate many frivolous lawsuits that were attempted simply because "someone" thought they could get big bucks out of it.

One example - a case for "Failure to warn" because we did not state in the Owner's manuals (another part of my job) that a bowling ball thrown off a freeway overpass could cause severe injury or death. Yup, really happened!

Or what about the hot drink sitting between the legs, spilling and burning the persons legs..........The company that supplied the drink was sued and lost......hmmmmm..... should have been the other way around, the person with the burned leg, owed the company for doing something incorrect or wrong, putting themselve in danger, and then trying to blame the person that supplied them the hot coffee.

Then on the labeling, me step day who was a fairly well know engineer at Boeing in the 60's and 70's for bearing designs, had tolerances of plus minus 2 in the 1000 or 10,000 of an inch parts. Lets assume that is % of a vehicles given wt. For a 5000 lb vehicle, a .001 plus minus is the 5 lbs Keith talks about, .0001 is .5 lbs off! I've found ALL of my rigs to be with in 20-40 lbs, or 1-2 typical scale units off plus or minus. I know of one scale where I am ALWAYS 200 lbs shy of every one of the other scales I go across. I've probably been across upwards of 20+/- other local scales at dumps, landscape supply places, quarry's and the 6-8 local DOT scales on the side of the freeway. ALL are usually with in 1-2 scale unit, ie 20 lbs a unit of each other.

I could be wrong on this too. COULD Dodge be willing to say that ANY MV of that style has the ability to carry say "1200 lbs" or "8 seats" at 150 lbs of person? No matter that options?

marty