F150 - Over GVWR

[AndrewM]

Wife keeps wanting to buy a travel trailer and I keep telling her we have to get a small one. Like oil and water. So like so many other threads, here's my situation:

2011 F150 AWD
6.2L v8
3.73 axle
tow package with receiver, integrated brake controller, trans cooler (not max tow or HD payload)
22" wheels
Michelin Premier LTX tires 285/45R22 (2601 lb load rating)
GVWR: 7350 lbs
F&R GAWR: 3850 lbs
GCWR: 13500 lbs

Scaled weights with full tank of fuel, wife, and misc stuff in the bed. Pretty close to what it would weight ready to camp, minus the WD hitch.

Steer axle: 3780 lbs
Drive axle: 3100 lbs
Gross weight: 6880 lbs

That only leaves me 470 lbs available payload for tongue weight and hitch. Other than a tiny TT or popup, no way I'm going to stay under that. But I am 750 lbs under the RGAWR. If I aim to say under my axle ratings, my options open up some. Thoughts on exceeding my GVWR by ~300 lbs but not exceeding any other ratings?? It will just be the wife and I. Kids are grown. And this will be a temporary solution because she wants a MUCH bigger trailer. Dually territory big.

[TomG2]

Play pretend, like some on here suggest you do and simply change the 1,148 to 2,148. Nobody will ever know the difference. After all, no half ton should be rated that low.

[AndrewM]

Original yellow payload sticker says 1148#. I added a hard tonneau cover, spray-in bed liner, a sub box under the rear seat with two 10" subs, and two amps. When I weighed my truck I had a few odd and ends in the bed (nothing really heavy), full tank of fuel, myself, and my wife. I'm not exactly petite.

I could lose the sub box and save about 50 lbs I guess, but that seems rather pointless.

[Thunderbolt]

I know your truck has AWD, 4x4 and 4x2, but many vehicles with the AWD function have lower tow capacities. The weight of your truck puzzles me a little bit though. You must have quite a bit of added weight. My 03 Chevy 2500HD ext. cab short box with the 6.0 liter gas engine only weighs 6,300 lbs. The same truck without a topper and the Duramax range from 6,900 to about 7,200 lbs.

[AndrewM]

First, I don't think of myself as a random potential idiot, but I get your point. Second, I do have plenty of towing experience including TT and 5th wheels. I just don't currently own one. I owned a 19' Aerolite TT that I pulled with my 02 Dodge Dakota 4.7 for thousands of miles. No problems at all. But kids got bigger and busier and didn't leave much time for camping so we sold it. I've also towed my dad's 5th wheel with his F250. To me I didn't notice a huge difference in towing experience between the two setups. The TT was setup correctly with an Equal-i-zer hitch and handled well.

Also my current F150 is a work truck. I'm half owner of an engineering firm and we both purchased new vehicles through the company 5 years ago after a really good year. He wanted an Expedition and I wanted a truck. So since the company owns it, selling it won't be as straightforward as if I owned it directly. An upside is we have great insurance if I ever go careening down a mountainside and kill thousands of innocent puppies! I will check to make sure I would be covered pulling a TT for personal reasons though. I use it as my personal vehicle and get imputed income on my W2 for personal miles.

Since it is a work truck, I have used it as such for field work. I've packed the bed full of field gear (ice chests, generators, etc.), loaded the cab full of guys and gear, plus towed our 5x10 single-axle cargo trailer that we tend to load tongue heavy. Thinking back, I bet I was easily 300 lbs over GVWR in those scenarios without even noticing. No issues then at all.

I do have a family friend (father of my daughter's boyfriend who practically lives at my house!) that just bought a Grey Wolf 26DBH. It's heavier than what I'm looking at by about 1,000 lbs, but he tows it with his half ton Chevy. Maybe he'll let me hook it up to my truck and take it to the scales to see how it handles.

Thanks for all of your replies. Certainly has made me think about all my options.

[APT]

Grit dog wrote:

Then go do the same thing with your choice of suspension upgrade and haul it like a boss all while watching your truck NOT self destruct from being a little over the ultra conservative payload rating.

I do not recommend telling random potential idiots all over the Internet on public forums to exceed their vehicle ratings, especially someone that has never towed anything like a TT. Oh, add in their most valuable assets - loved ones too.

OP already said this would be a temporary measure. Wife wants a 5th wheel anyway. He has what was a $50k+ truck, still worth half that. Just get the right truck now and skip the TT all together.

[TomG2]

I am on my third F-150 in ten years. All handled 5,000 trailers fine. Not so well at 7,000. That's when I started buying F-250's and 2500HD's. My expectations and comfort level may be different than others.

For those who say "Half tons forever", you are correct. We used to put two one thousand pound steers in the back of Dad's 1949 3100 Chevrolet. It hauled them from pasture to pasture okay, but not on the Interstate at 70 mph. Maybe it was three? Sure it was.

[Grit_dog]

APT wrote:
Try this- Go get half a yard of whatever landscape materiel is cheapest dumped in your truck bed and drive around at 65mph for 60 minutes. If you feel comfortable doing that, then overloading by 500 pounds with TT will be tolerable. I agree with those saying you'll have no problem based on power. But I don't think you'll be happy with how your exact truck will feel from the driver's seat.

Then go do the same thing with your choice of suspension upgrade and haul it like a boss all while watching your truck NOT self destruct from being a little over the ultra conservative payload rating.

[APT]

Exactly! If only hauling the equivalent weight is uncomfortable, it will get worse when adding 30' box behind the truck.

[Community Alumni]

That may not be a good test. I once overloaded my truck with sand to the tune of 1020 lbs beyond GVWR. After getting a scale ticket I realized how stupid of a mistake that was. It was only a 15 mile trip back to the house, but surprisingly the truck handled it very well. I needed a little more brake input and steering was ever so slightly vague, but other than that the truck drove normally. No white knuckle moments. I can't imagine what would've happened if I took that experience and bought a 5th wheel lol. Being overweight with a trailer is a different ballpark. Not only are you hauling the weight, but trying to control a high wall box that's really long.

[APT]

Try this- Go get half a yard of whatever landscape materiel is cheapest dumped in your truck bed and drive around at 65mph for 60 minutes. If you feel comfortable doing that, then overloading by 500 pounds with TT will be tolerable. I agree with those saying you'll have no problem based on power. But I don't think you'll be happy with how your exact truck will feel from the driver's seat.

[TomG2]

To the OP: I understand that there are lots of people saying, "Go ahead, you will be fine". That is also what the trailer salesperson will promise. Do you have access to a trailer with the approximate weights? Try it out if you do.

[brulaz]

AndrewM wrote:

...
My truck does have AWD. In 2011, Ford had three 4-wheel drive transfer cases:

• Borg-Warner 4418 manual shift transfer case. (XL's?)
• Borg-Warner 4419 electronic shift transfer case.
• Borg-Warner one-speed torque-on-demand (TOD) transfer case. (Lariat Limited, HD)

So I have 4x2, AWD, 4x4 high.

In 2012, the TOD transfer case added 4L, so those trucks had 4x2, 4Auto, 4x4 high, 4x4 low.

That's a nice truck. Really can't imagine a problem with only 7K trailer, although stiffening the suspension, LT-E tries and a good WDH will all help.

A guy on another forum had a heavier trailer, but liked his half-ton so much he got a TrailerToad and swears by it.
http://www.trailertoad.com/

[TNrob]

When we bought our camper we knew would would upgrade both truck and camper eventually. We made sure to get a camper we could pull with old truck but really wanted to just get started so that we could learn enough to figure out what we wanted. Well, we wound up seeing exactly what we wanted but hadn't upgraded truck yet. We couldn't buy the new camper on an awesome deal because we didn't have enough truck yet. I bought the new new truck very quickly after that, and now can't buy a new camper for a while... but I still have the old one.

So, if you are new to campers, I might advise you to get what you think you can get by with for a while and that you can pull for a while. Then start camping, and truck shopping.

[Community Alumni]

It's one thing to really overload a truck on a rare occasion and another to do it with some frequency. I wouldn't bat an eye to being a little overweight, but 300 lbs over is really over for a light duty truck. The GVWR for your vehicle is based on the weakest link. No one here can tell you what that weak link is with any certainty. People can tell you that I've done this or you'll be ok because of that, but they won't be with you on the side of the road or sitting with you at the dealer when something breaks. They definitely won't open their wallets to help you fix it either. If it's really going to be temporary, you might be better off waiting and buying the more capable truck and the larger trailer when you can afford to do so. It might be one of the hardest things to, but it might be for the best in the long run.