Broken Frame on a RAM 3500

FishOnOne wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
No, mkirsch is just being a little dramatic or critical of some previous uninformed comments. Of which rvnet has no lack of.
The big takeaway from this whole thing is ratings are (sometimes) there for a real physical limitation reason. You know, something based on engineering principle and design. Other ratings are given similarly but with large factors of safety not explicitly mentioned. And yet others are in place for only regulatory reasons.
That’s why the old adage of “stick to the ratings” if you can’t understand or discern from the above is always the “safe” bet.
But sometimes “safe” or in many cases overly safe costs alot of unnecessary money. And if one can understand or get some good advice that is cheaper than spending cubic dollars to be “overly safe.”

In the case of this truck. This is the largest capacity rating on a given design (light duty pickup chassis). It seems obvious to me but should stand to reason to anyone with some knowledge that if the same thing is rated less here and more there, that the more rating has a lower factor of safety.
And this guy found out what that limit is for his frame!

On the upside like mkirsch has been ranting about , this failure totally supports the arguments that your not going to break that frame, springs or axle on your 2500 Ram (or whatever 3/4 ton) by exceeding the paltry regulatory based rating by a large margin.
Mkirsch is doing a disservice by trying to lump ALL comments into the same bucket.

Could be a manufacturing defect. We've already seen a recall from Ram that required rewelding the brackets on the front end of the frame and who knows if the steel used to make this frame met strength requirements.

Sure could be. All mfgs have defects and the subject of this thread could have also been a defect that ate into the factor of safety enough that being whatever 30% overloaded and running the Baja at the same time caused a failure. Even that dude had 25k good miles on the setup before failure.
I’ve had factory defects in all of the big 3 trucks.
Between work and personal rigs since the early 90s I’ve had probably 2 dozen Fords, around 10 GMs and 7 Dodge/Rams. I’ve also had zero frame failures on any truck and in an industry with fleets of 1000s of light duty trucks that are subject to stupid human tricks regularly (myself included) this isn’t really a “thing” from any mfg.
08 Ford 150 total lemon, wasn’t used to tow heavy at all. The list was long including a physically grenaded trans and almost burned down on the side of the road.
05 F150 ate injectors for breakfast.
2001 Dodge 1500 2 defective 3rd members that rendered the truck undriveabale both times within 1000mi of new.
2016 Silverado 1500. Beat it like a rented mule towing sometimes. 14klb trailers over Mtn passes. Trans was defective from day 1. Chevy dealer didn’t see it that way. Yet it lasted 60k miles and trans replaced under warranty.
For someone with a broader experience across the board with all 3 brands and more miles than most as well, all 3 mfg are relatively trouble free.
The biggest nickel and dimer was actually my 07 Dodge 5.9 diesel.
And the best was the 02 Duramax.