Towing capacity vs max cargo weight rating

philh wrote:

Grit dog wrote:

philh wrote:
don't like the number on the door sticker, you just get to pick a new number? Interesting way of dealing with payload capacity.

And this is an overtly ignorant statement, obviously backed by your lack of knowledge about vehicle construction and specifications.

ROFLMAO,

<-- multi decade OEM Sr Engineer, currently working on powertrains.

See, I am picking a number because I do not understand the way my payload capacity number was picked in the first place. How did Ford arrive at 2184 lbs and not 2180 or 2190 or 2185? If they published ALL the factors that go into coming up with this number, I would not have to pick it, would I? If you can explain the process, please do. Thanks!

P.S. I am an engineer as well and I know that many times numbers are not arrived at solely based on components - there is a lot of legal implications to what things are published and why (for example, in some states 10,000 GVWR is some kind of a legal cutoff for things - how did the state arrive at this number? Why 10,000? Why not 10,500?).

Also, why publish a RAWR number if all I am supposed to look at is a payload capacity number? Is the latter for legal purposes only (to fit into the 10,000 GVWR calculation) or is it an actual calculation based on components, tolerances etc.? Or am I just blindly to assume things? If I am going to own a $60,000 piece of hardware, do I not have the right to know EXACTLY how a certain number was arrived at? Or do I just get to be laughed at by some jumped up engineer who thinks that we are all too dumb to understand things so (s)he will not bother to explain the process? I guess I am not too dumb to pay $60K for a vehicle but too dumb to understand the calculations? Thanks!