When the guy in the Cummins Dually in the lane next to you is looking at you like you are crazy you're probably overloaded,lol...

I'd say let common sense be your guide....

 

lmfao!

 

Why is it called "common" sense, when in all reality, it is anything but?

 

That's right but it's what the jury hears in court that actually matters. The real scary thing is what the engineers say and the marketting dept hears. Engineers are typically conservative whereas marketting just wants to say the right thing to guarantee sales.

If you are diligent about understanding the weight limits of the components of your tow vehicle and have it plus load all weighed up to determine which side of pushing things you are really on, ie too hard or within rated limits, then you should be fine legally....if you actually are within the equipments rated limits use common sense and drive carefully obeying the traffic laws.

If you tow big often get a bigger truck, you'll thank yourself in the end. If you just need to do it once or twice in a pinch you can probably get away with edgier behavior.

 

Yep. They're almost certainly a bit lower than the marketing people wanted, a bit higher than the lawyers wanted, and in the range of what the engineers calculated.

My best guess is that those numbers are calculated for reasonable real-world conditions and the driving habits of the fictional prudent man who slows down when it's wet or moderately windy, parks when it's really windy, and so on.

The equation is less about the drivetrain and more about the physics of standard ball hitches. What you have in a ball hitch system is two levers that are joined at the hitch ball, with the truck being one lever and the trailer being the other. When the trailer is significantly longer than and is also heavier than the truck it's just a matter of time before conditions are right for it to win the argument and take control of the vehicle's direction. And this can happen even while you're doing everything right according to the door dataplate and trailering conventions.

I've towed lots of different trailers, gone over-spec more than a few times, and I've lost my taste for it completely. It's freakin' scary when a trailer that's already dead and so doesn't much care what happens next gets control over your steering. Even after I got my tow vehicle cranked up to the point at which my trailer never again took control, my heart lept into my throat every darn time I felt that rear suspension flexing sideways. It just wasn't worth it. Nowhere near worth it.

If you want to go long and heavy and are stuck with a ball hitch, do yourself a favor and spend the money on a Pullrite hitch. It's the next-best thing to a fifth-wheel.

 

cool. thanks for the feedback