MFG Ratings what are the limiting factors

[Dog_Trainer]

I know this post will not change the MFG rating no matter what is stated that is not the point. The point is that there are many after market products out there and in the end they do not change what the MFG sticks on the door. But why ?
So what is the true weak link in any rating. Which component or components provide the drawback.?
I suspect that it may be possible to add a component or components and that if the numbers were crunched taking the new component into consideration, that the rating may change.
Most tow Vehicles fall short in the carrying capacity rating. You can pull a great deal of weight but the cargo carrying capacity is met or exceeded long before the GCVW is close. I will list a couple of items that I can think of.
1. The tires that are put on many smaller P/u are P metric tires they make these cushy looking grocery getters ride more car like. So one limiting factor could be the tires and don't forget those 20" rims that they all have to have now. So with a stronger Rim and E rated tire what changes. Well nothing really because the Mfg rating does not change. Right.
2. Shocks
3. Springs
4. Axles
5. Trans cooler
6. engine in some cases
7. Cooling capacity
The whole suspension thing has so many after market components that you would think you could tow or carry about anything.
In the end it is about a truck that is engineered as a complete unit and the MFG does not list the limiting factors. In the case of the F150 with a max tow pkg., the rating of Carrying capacity goes up to around 2,000 lbl from about 1500 lbs with just the HD tow pkg. So what are the other factors of weight and tow ratings. One could become convinced that they can exceed the sticker ratings if the change components.

[BenK]

The big wild card in court cases...are the juries

Why my small companies left the people mover sector. Mainly ski lifts and that
light plane crash that killed the majority of the owners of ski resorts...Yan
came in and took over our spaces (we mainly worked with Skilift International)

Can you imagine that one jury held another ski lift company liable for injury
because their equipment did not meet 'current' safety standards...even though
it was built/installed over 20 years before those standards were in place...

[blt2ski]

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

[kaydeejay]

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!

[BenK]

Okay, I'm now a believer in the labels folks have been saying is the
actual weight....don't need anyone to actually weigh and post the ticket
along with the door sticker

Keith is one of my filters....like I generally (100%) end up NOT
liking folks who don't like pets...especially dogs has become one of
my main filters for new folks meeting for the first time

Am not speaking for Keith, but of what he did from my experiences

For those who don't understand this part of any large OEM...Keith
managed a HUGE DB (data base) output via these labels.

How important is that?....HUGE, as the Billions of bucks culminates
contractually in documentation the owner has from the OEM. From the
purchase agreement, door labels, manuals, etc, etc, etc

And how do I know this?...first career was in Industrial Controls,
Automation, Process Controls, Robotics...motor controls. And fourth
career in computing from Eng Program Management to a corporate suit.

Customers would always say the 'problem' is in the production side
of things, but in EVERY case...it is in the design/verification side
The old garbage in, garbage out.

How important is that little label? Well in the production lines I've
been involved with, both designing the process to having my product
made out there..."Line down" is only a push button away for folks like
Keith on any production line. That then notifies everyone up to the CEO

Meaning the liability for the whole corp is really based, in part, in
those labels...that 'DOT', 'UL', etc logo has huge implications behind
them and the big bucks it took to gain certifications from those
regulatory agencies

kaydeejay wrote:

jerem0621 wrote:
I have a question for you. On my phone 2014 Town and Country the tire loading and payload sticker is totally bogus. I scaled it and found a huge discrepancy between GVWR and the available payload. I lost the weight slip so I can't provide that yet. I need to get it re-weighed. But it was hundreds of pounds difference iirc. I have 1100 ish lbs of payload per the door sticker and when we weighed the van we had the entire family in the van and some of our gear so 900 lbs total....I expected to see 200 ish lbs of payload but it was more like 5 or 600 lbs under GVWR

Curious, I started checking out other 2014 Town and Countries, across all trim levels and options I found the payload sticker was exactly the same.

This fact has led me to call the sticker 'silly' and sent me back to the Stone Age where to determine actual payload I will weigh the vehicle and subtract from the GVWR.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

Hmmm, something wrong here!
When I was responsible for those stickers it was my understanding that the stated payload had to be accurate within 10# for a given vehicle.
We had a very complex computer process that did the calculations based on vehicle content.
It was the same process used to calculate payment to the vehicle shippers, which was based on weight. You'd better believe they would holler if it was wrong.
I can't speak for Chrysler - maybe you need to ask them!

[JIMNLIN]

I just ran into another head scratcher. When changing from P metrics to E rated tires it is really difficult to find any inflation tables. It took a few hours of research to get a number. I looked at several tire sites and posts all over the web. After much reading it seems that Michelin says to increase the pressure by 15 lbs to have the same carrying capacity as the p metric since I am only using the E rated tire to stiffen the sidewall for less gusy/sway I will run them at 50 lbs

It isn't just a Michelin thing but is a industry standard. P SL tires max load comes at 35 psi even if the max sidewall pressure goes even higher (44 psi). So the LT would need 50 psi to get the same load rating. CapriRacer and Tireman9 have both commented on this issue.

The next question was what is safe for the Rim pressure. It seems that Ford no longer puts the max pressure on the rim So again what is the weak point of the component. I do not expect that 50 PSI will do any harm but once I go above the PSI that is on the door I am in no mans land and I suspect I have violated any warranty that the rims come with.

Wheels just like tires have a max load and a max pressure rating. Ford may not publish a pressure rating on their advertising websites but I would bet Ford can supply you with that info.
The wheels Ford uses on their F150 trucks should have no problems with 50 psi. Thats a pretty low pressure.
I see Ford F150 wheel specs show a 2025-2100 lb load capacity on the 6 lug wheels and a 2400 lb on the 7 lug wheel.
Tireman9 (Roger Marble) tire blog has some good input on wheels http://www.rvtiresafety.com/search/label/Wheels.

I've seen damage and results of other commercial operators and have had my own experiences with using wheels with the wrong pressure ratings. A split bead seat flange was the result on steel wheels and cracked valley's on cast aluminum wheels.

[boocoodinkydow]

Recently I querried why my ecodiesel received such a low load limit & began a search as to how the figures were derived by different manufacturers. The load limit reasoning still escapes me but I ran into some interesting info on tow ratings. Toyota adapted sae ratings in 2013 models with chrysler following suit in 2014 & ford with the introduction of their 2015 models. This new system has been a game changer & has nothing to do with a failure threshold but simply performance statistics in certain areas, some seemingly less pertinent than others in real world environment.

"The maximum-claimed towing capacity of most pickup trucks is bull****. Those numbers are created by manufacturers and vetted by no one. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) wants to change that, with a standard test for measuring truck towing capacity called "J2807."

The standard was written 2008, revised in 2010, and adopted by Toyota in 2013. Every other automaker who sells trucks in the US was "totally going to start using it," but nobody wanted to be first because they all knew the SAE max would be lower than the numbers they could cook up under their own testing conditions.

Here are the main test methods trucks would be measured on as per J2807:

Cooling capability on a long highway upgrade modeled on the Davis Dam grade on Arizona SR 68;
Launch and acceleration performance on a level road and a 12 percent upgrade;
Combined handling performance – understeer and trailer sway;
Combined braking performance – stopping distance and parking brake-hold on grade; and
Structural performance for the vehicle and hitch or hitch receiver.
New calculations for trailer weight ratings: In addition to the performance standards, SAE J2807 also uses a specific set of assumptions to calculate maximum trailer weight ratings:

For light-duty full-size pickups (GVWR < 8,500 lbs.), SAE J2807 assumes that the tow vehicle includes any options with higher than 33 percent penetration;
It assumes there is both a driver and passenger in the vehicle, each weighing 150 pounds;
It assumes that tow vehicles also include up to 70 pounds of aftermarket hitch equipment (where applicable); and
For conventional trailer towing, SAE J2807 assumes that 10 percent of the trailer weight is on the tongue."

[Dog_Trainer]

I just ran into another head scratcher. When changing from P metrics to E rated tires it is really difficult to find any inflation tables. It took a few hours of research to get a number. I looked at several tire sites and posts all over the web. After much reading it seems that Michelin says to increase the pressure by 15 lbs to have the same carrying capacity as the p metric since I am only using the E rated tire to stiffen the sidewall for less gusy/sway I will run them at 50 lbs.
The next question was what is safe for the Rim pressure. It seems that Ford no longer puts the max pressure on the rim So again what is the weak point of the component. I do not expect that 50 PSI will do any harm but once I go above the PSI that is on the door I am in no mans land and I suspect I have violated any warranty that the rims come with.

[mich800]

kaydeejay wrote:

jerem0621 wrote:
I have a question for you. On my phone 2014 Town and Country the tire loading and payload sticker is totally bogus. I scaled it and found a huge discrepancy between GVWR and the available payload. I lost the weight slip so I can't provide that yet. I need to get it re-weighed. But it was hundreds of pounds difference iirc. I have 1100 ish lbs of payload per the door sticker and when we weighed the van we had the entire family in the van and some of our gear so 900 lbs total....I expected to see 200 ish lbs of payload but it was more like 5 or 600 lbs under GVWR

Curious, I started checking out other 2014 Town and Countries, across all trim levels and options I found the payload sticker was exactly the same.

This fact has led me to call the sticker 'silly' and sent me back to the Stone Age where to determine actual payload I will weigh the vehicle and subtract from the GVWR.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

Hmmm, something wrong here!
When I was responsible for those stickers it was my understanding that the stated payload had to be accurate within 10# for a given vehicle.
We had a very complex computer process that did the calculations based on vehicle content.
It was the same process used to calculate payment to the vehicle shippers, which was based on weight. You'd better believe they would holler if it was wrong.
I can't speak for Chrysler - maybe you need to ask them!

It comes down to this. Does he KNOW how much he had in the van. It was just an estimate. Add to the fact this will only work on a new vehicle. Vehicles much like our rv's tend to collect items after awhile that we may forget are in there. Jumper cables, tow strap and other things stored away.

[kaydeejay]

jerem0621 wrote:
I have a question for you. On my phone 2014 Town and Country the tire loading and payload sticker is totally bogus. I scaled it and found a huge discrepancy between GVWR and the available payload. I lost the weight slip so I can't provide that yet. I need to get it re-weighed. But it was hundreds of pounds difference iirc. I have 1100 ish lbs of payload per the door sticker and when we weighed the van we had the entire family in the van and some of our gear so 900 lbs total....I expected to see 200 ish lbs of payload but it was more like 5 or 600 lbs under GVWR

Curious, I started checking out other 2014 Town and Countries, across all trim levels and options I found the payload sticker was exactly the same.

This fact has led me to call the sticker 'silly' and sent me back to the Stone Age where to determine actual payload I will weigh the vehicle and subtract from the GVWR.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

Hmmm, something wrong here!
When I was responsible for those stickers it was my understanding that the stated payload had to be accurate within 10# for a given vehicle.
We had a very complex computer process that did the calculations based on vehicle content.
It was the same process used to calculate payment to the vehicle shippers, which was based on weight. You'd better believe they would holler if it was wrong.
I can't speak for Chrysler - maybe you need to ask them!

[PA12DRVR]

Jerem0621 wrote: "This fact has led me to call the sticker 'silly' and sent me back to the Stone Age where to determine actual payload I will weigh the vehicle and subtract from the GVWR."

That is spot on. I look to the sticker and/or Owners Manual for GVWR, GCVWR...not for payload, etc.

[jerem0621]

kaydeejay wrote:

john&bet wrote:
I think it better to ask the engineers at the OEM manufactures.

Manufacturers are required to certify vehicle safety and emission performance to comply with many Federal requirements before they can be offered for sale.
Compliance tests are performed on a loaded vehicle. Marketing sets a target vehicle capability. Engineers design the vehicle to meet those criteria when possible, which establishes the GVWR and other ratings.
This is the weight at which they are tested.
Will the truck fall apart if you exceed ratings by 5#? No, but they have to draw a line somewhere.
If the user loads the vehicle beyond those certified ratings, then it will likely let the Manufacturer off the hook for certain warranty and liability situations.
(BTW, many years ago I was responsible for those certification labels that go on the door of US sold vehicles for one of the "Big 3" so I know a little about what is behind the numbers).

I have a question for you. On my phone 2014 Town and Country the tire loading and payload sticker is totally bogus. I scaled it and found a huge discrepancy between GVWR and the available payload. I lost the weight slip so I can't provide that yet. I need to get it re-weighed. But it was hundreds of pounds difference iirc. I have 1100 ish lbs of payload per the door sticker and when we weighed the van we had the entire family in the van and some of our gear so 900 lbs total....I expected to see 200 ish lbs of payload but it was more like 5 or 600 lbs under GVWR

Curious, I started checking out other 2014 Town and Countries, across all trim levels and options I found the payload sticker was exactly the same.

This fact has led me to call the sticker 'silly' and sent me back to the Stone Age where to determine actual payload I will weigh the vehicle and subtract from the GVWR.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

[rhagfo]

Proxim2020, in your post you forgot taxation and GVW fees!
2500/250's and even some 3500/350's have GVWR of 10,000# or less. This is due to heavy licensing Fee's/Taxes for trucks over that weight rating.

[TurnThePage]

This is probably the most coherent conversation I've ever seen on this forum about this subject!

[Community Alumni]

There's no telling where the actual limit is. The process of setting the limits goes well beyond the strength of the components or the design of the system. The way I see if you have 4 levels of limitation. Engineering, Marketing, Lawyers, FMVSS.

Engineers know the actual limitations of each component in each unit onboard. They know what's the absolute failure point and know what would be good for long term longevity of the parts and components. These people are the best source to the absolute failure point of the system. But they're basically sworn the secrecy and I would imagine that the penalties for violating this would be pretty harsh.

Then there's Marketing. Sure that 2500 is built with the same components as that 3500, but why would they want you to purchase that 2500 when they can get an extra $1,000 out of you by moving you to the 3500. Since they can't be 1 upped by a competitor, they can magically raise the GVWR without changing any components the next model year. We don't really know if there's lots of reserve in the components or if they're actually pushing the limits.

Then there's the lawyers. They don't want to give anyone an excuse to bring a lawsuit up against the company. While they may have awesome legal teams that make it really tough to prevail against them, they may not favor so well in the court of public opinion. So we get softer limits and lots of warnings / small print. Having operators running near absolutes would be a nightmare for any legal team.

Then there's FMVSS. Whatever number the manufacturer selects, they have to make certain that it will adhere to the standards outlined in FMVSS. If I were a manufacturer I would select a number that I knew wouldn't have any problems with compliance. The last thing you want to do is sell a ton of vehicles that were actually out of compliance. That gets expensive really quickly.

We now have SAE J2807, but this is just a performance test. There's no one out there testing the breaking limit of these trucks. I was hopeful that J2807 would be this test, but it fell flat. It would be nice if these trucks were tested at their rated carrying capacities for extended periods. Set safety limits for things like stability and test those. All of the components would then be checked for wear which the SAE could easily set acceptable limits.

The manufacturer limits is what it is. It's limits that they are willing to except liability for. Once you decide to increase those limits, either by just carrying more weight or swapping components, then becomes your own problem. Sometimes being under the limits can be your "get out of jail free" card.