Share Pics of People Hauling or Towing Something Wrong

[ning]

Wow. Talk about conservative... You were at zero risk. When I was clearing my lot, I was working with a friend to block, haul and split the oak firewood (we only hauled the oak as valuable, junk trees just got burned in piles). I had my F250 with 8' bed and I had added ~18" sides to protect the rear window and add a bit more capacity. My friend and I had divided up the work so I would go to the land, block up oak into 16" length, then load the rounds in my truck and drive to his place and unload, where we had the splitter setup and he would split and stack.

I would fill the truck up but certainly not 100% to the rim. Never seemed to sag all that much. One day I decided to go to the scales out of curiosity. With a rated payload of somewhere around 1800-1900 lbs, I was hauling over 4000 lbs at a time. I cut back a bit after finding that out but frankly you could not tell that it was causing any issues at all. I made a couple dozen of those runs that summer.

The payload rating is for safe full use of the truck, which means that at the rating it will safely go at speed, turn, stop... presumably also will be safe going over reasonable bumps etc.

Now if you're going a ton over payload rating, but you're driving carefully, slowly, really slow on bumpy roads to reduce shock loads... you're probably actually staying within the spirit of the specifications.

When I look at the suspension of a truck like M1078 (LMTV; and its trailer units) and then see the payload & towing capacities, it's clear that those capacities were written with bad/off road travel in mind, which places considerably greater stresses on everything, so they whittle the numbers down to give it a chance at survival. Keep that on pavement and it's got to be worth at least twice its stated rating.

 

[WinterDeere]

Wow. Talk about conservative... You were at zero risk.

I probably didn't express myself properly. I wasn't ever worried that I was at risk.

The reason I try to never exceed GVWR is liability. If you are in an accident while overloaded, liability may shift onto you even if it would not otherwise be your fault, and there is always an investigation in any accident in which a death is involved.

I was hit by a car on my bicycle as a kid, totally my fault, and my parents were still hounded by lawyers trying to convince them to sue the poor guy who hit me. I've had multiple other friends involved in similar accidents, on both sides of the fault line, including one unfortunate friend who ran over and killed a young a kid who shot out in front of his truck from a blind driveway on a go-cart. If he'd been running overloaded at the time, I can't imagine how that would've gone for him.

So, yes... I know a few hundred pounds over is perfectly safe for less than highway-speed driving, but I really try to avoid ever running over GVWR.

 

[dstig1]

The reality is I had no idea I was so far overloaded. And I was not driving short slow backroads, either including a few freeway miles. Like I said, the truck never squatted at all so I had no visual clue that I was going too heavy with the load. The truck handled it without any issue and why I was so surprised to see how far I was over. Like I said - I lightened up once I found out how far overloaded I was, but I was over halfway done by the time I weighed it.

I'm not defending it, as it was weigh too much (pun intended) but it showed me that it was far more capable than the numbers on the sticker.

 

[WinterDeere]

The reality is I had no idea I was so far overloaded...

Hey, it happens, and I wasn't standing up on some soap box trying to tell anyone else what to do. I definitely ran some seriously overloaded trucks in my younger days. But as I accumulated more wealth and wisdom, and heard of more of the mishaps or unfortunate events of others, my perspective on this has definitely shifted toward paying more attention to gross weight limits.

 

[bcp]

Tractor-trailer driver charged after crash shuts down part of I-64

The bed of the tractor-trailer hit an overhead sign near near the I-295 interchange.

www.12onyourside.com

Bruce

 

[deezler]

I once hauled "two" yards of wet compost that was probably closer to 3 (rookie skid steer operator), in my dad's '95 F150 5.0L w/ 8' bed (probably under 7k GVWR). Sagged horribly but it was already dumped in the truck, what to do besides drive home carefully. The rear end swayed back and forth the whole 35mph drive home. And then I had to shovel it all out by hand. Never did that again, LOL.

 

[dstig1]

Yeah you see if I had gotten to a point where that was happening (deezler's) I would have unloaded some wood ...or not done that after only one pucker-butt trip. Thus my point that I had no idea how far over I was as the suspension only compressed a couple inches. And if you know modern SuperDuty's, that is nothing. You couldn't tell unless you measured bed height before and after loading. And no problems starting, going or stopping. Makes me think the capacities are very much UNDER-rated... on the SD's at least. Maybe the half tons are overrated and the SDs are under... I dunno. Doesn't change the potential liability issue that Winter noted if something happened (and anyone figured out it was over) but perhaps speaks to real-world ratings. I'm still not doing that ever again.

 

[Dftodd]

I tried to review a cheap Amazon critter camera ('security camera') that was near useless. But instead of opening the review screen, I was halted with 'Reviewing suspended due to unusual activity'.

In two weeks I had only two recordings, people walking nearby. A previous Arlo camera there had showed deer, foxes and occasionally a coyote, nearly every night and sometimes daytime.

A major activity right in front of this camera, a tractor towing a huge sprayer right past the camera, multiple times, before dawn with glaring headlights and the cloud of spray illuminated by work lights, never triggered the camera. Another camera (Wyze) caught that activity from 50 ft away in the corner of its image.

I went back and re-posted the forbidden review a month later. I see now that this second attempt finally went live.

Moral of the story - unfavorable Amazon reviews can get censored.

Yeah, I've had a couple reviews get censored by Amazon as well.

One product was complete and utter trash. They censored it twice.

At least they accepted the return. But said one of the 4 items was missing. I argued up and down on that one before they finally gave in and refunded me that last little bit.

 

[Topzide]

Certain Garmin GPS have the capacity to use a wireless backup camera. Wire the trigger wire to the reverse lights. It has adjustable grid lines with green, yellow, and red. Have it on the DW car, and she loves it! Helps when backing out in shopping centers. Just want to alert everyone to that option. Camera is a bit pricey, but great picture and durable.

 

[Code54]

I have one of the Garmins (tread) on my SxS and added the wireless camera. It does work really well!!