Over the Limit

[T and C]

Hi folks,

My Good Sam magazine for October-December 2012 arrived today. On page 34 and 35 there are two articles. At the top there is a photo of a tow vehicle, an F-150, off the road in the ditch. Behind it there is a travel trailer lying on its side.

The first article is about hitch failure, and deals mainly with care for Weight Distributing Hitches.

The other article is entitled, "Over the Limit". It is about overloading. I am going to quote the first paragraph and a little of the second:

"Overloading is the prime suspect in many hitch, tire, axle and suspension failures. The Recreational Vehicle Safety & Educational Foundation estimates that 58% of RV's and tow vehicles exceed a manufacturer's stated weight rating. Of those 60% are tow vehicles, 59% are motor homes, 55% are 5th wheels and 51% are travel trailers. Ten percent of overweight RV's exceed a tire rating without exceeding gross axle weight rating. RVSEF bases these figures on vehicles they actually weigh at seminars and rallies around the country.

Their advice? Load your rig like you would for a trip and have it weighed at a commercial scale."

We have had a lot of discussion on this forum about Marathon tires blowing out. It stands to reason that a lot of TM blowouts would be Marathons since that is what TM puts on new ones. I have suspected for a while that the real culprit is not the manufacturer, but rather overloaded 14" tires and/or over aged tires. This article seems to support that idea.

When I carried an overhead camper on my 96 F-150, I always made sure that the combined weight bearing rating of my two rear tires added up to more than the gross rear axle weight rating, and that all 4 tires together totalled up to more weight bearing capacity than the GVWR. That meant that I had to buy pricier tires, but I never had any tire trouble in years of use...and that is worth something.

On the other hand, back in the 1960's I split a rim while carrying an overhead camper on an F-100. The weight? I never gave it a thought. Obviously not a good idea to just guess and go.

Older and wiser Tom

Originally Posted by T and C

...
When I carried an overhead camper on my 96 F-150, I always made sure that the combined weight bearing rating of my two rear tires added up to more than the gross rear axle weight rating, and that all 4 tires together totalled up to more weight bearing capacity than the GVWR. That meant that I had to buy pricier tires, but I never had any tire trouble in years of use...and that is worth something.

On the other hand, back in the 1960's I split a rim while carrying an overhead camper on an F-100. The weight? I never gave it a thought. Obviously not a good idea to just guess and go.

Older and wiser Tom

Good post Tom.

When I was younger and stupider ... well, maybe not stupider but un-educated, I tended to believe what people told me.

And so the guy I bought my first pick-up from said all I needed to do was a add a leaf to the rear springs so the camper wouldn't cause it to sag so. Two years later, a bearing blew and one of the rear axle+wheels started sliding out of the rear axle housing. Luckily I was travelling slowly and was flagged down before total disaster. Now I realize that the rear axle's GAWR was almost certainly exceeded. Probably the tire's weight rating and the truck's GVWR as well!

So when I bought our Elkmont, I took it to the scales as soon as I could. Only to discover that the tongue weight was 17% of the trailer's GVW! And since my truck's payload was only 1100# (another surprise), I was again over the truck's GVWR. After a year of fooling around with the WDH and moving stuff in the trailer, and re-weighing, I gave up and bought my current truck with ~2050# payload.

Yes, weigh often. CAT scales are cheap and reliable and all over the place. cat-scale-locator
And know your TV's and trailer's GAWR, GVWR and tire weight ratings.

And watch out for the snake oil salesman.

That was a good article, I read it last night, it also said that the numbers you quote were collected by weighing rigs at RV get togethers. Which I found interesting.

There was also a good article on winterizing your TT in the same magazine. Something we have all done I'm sure, but the reminders were good for me.

[T and C]

Brulaz,

You said,

And so the guy I bought my first pick-up from said all I needed to do was a add a leaf to the rear springs so the camper wouldn't cause it to sag so.

That is exactly what I did. When I brought it home my headlights were pointed at the stars. So I ordered some very strong leaf springs from the Sears catalogue and got them installed. Sure leveled things up...then the rim split. The tube bulged into the split and sliced a hole in itself. Instant flat, almost the same as a blow out.

lucky Tom

In today's market manufacturers of most everything including TM and TVs choose components that just meet the target market for the end product. The result is that upgrading the capacity of one component does not upgrade the overall capacity of the end product. For example you can't increase the capacity of a 100 lb chain by adding one 300 lb link. Unfortunately people feel that by fixing the obvious symptom everything will be OK. Again I am not trying to discourage anyone, but trying to assure there are no nasty surprises.

If you plan for the worst then you will be pleasantly surprised when it does not happen.

Remember that any time you are tempted to overload one component.

[Mr. Adventure]

Originally Posted by T and C

"...The Recreational Vehicle Safety & Educational Foundation estimates that 58% of RV's and tow vehicles exceed a manufacturer's stated weight rating. Of those 60% are tow vehicles, 59% are motor homes, 55% are 5th wheels and 51% are travel trailers..."

These are really interesting statistics and it sounds like a great article, but I don't have a copy of the magazine. When I first had camping trailers in the 70's and 80's, it was widely suspected that RV weight numbers were bogus and not worth much. Then, the RVIA established standards for the labels that we all have now, there now are specific ratings for gross weight and carrying capacity, and reality was supposed to ensue.

So my first question is, "How many of those RV's were like that on the day they delivered from the dealer?" Are they total weight numbers or are we just talking about components (wheels, tires, axles, chassis manufacturer ratings, etc.)?

My second question is, "How much overweight are we talking about?" 10lbs? 10%? 50%?