Vehicle Weights And Ratings For Trucks. I am a bit confused.

The "ton" rating is completely useless. It is a vestigial nomenclature that started back before DOT weight ratings. Companies would advertise their trucks as being able to carry X tons.

The new ratings don't really make sense either. They now just correspond to DOT weight classes regardless of actual truck ability. Do you really think a brand new 1965 Chevy 1/2 ton was just as safe at 6800 GVW as a brand new 2017 Silverado 1500? Not remotely.

Load up a Ram, a Dodge, and a Ford 1/2 ton to 6800 GVW and take them all for a test drive. They will all behave differently; stopping differences, slalom handling, reliability... the actual amount of weight they can "safely" handle in the real world relies on a few million factors that can't be defined by DOT weight classes.

STM317 wrote: It gets even more difficult to decipher when you realize that a Ford F-450 and Ram 3500 are considered to be direct comparisons in the same class.

Actually the F450 is a class 4 truck and the Ram 3500 is class 3, even though their tow ratings are real close. From this Site

"The 2016 Ram 3500, which adheres to the Department of Transportation's Class 3 rules - the same class the F-350 is in - is rated to tow a maximum of 31,210 pounds. Despite being in a lower class than the F-450, the 3500 is only 1,290 pounds off of the Class 4 truck's maximum rating."

It is interesting to see how much the capabilities of the trucks have increased over the years. The max trailer tow rating for the 1979 GMC 3500 Dually I had was half what the Ram 3500 is now.

patgizz wrote:

dean1484 wrote: My truck is 6 lug

Then it's a regular 1500 denali with a 6.0. 1500hd are 8 lug. Strange beasts and pretty rare. Lay under it and count your rear axle cover bolts.

That's what I thought. I only know about the 1500HD recently because I have a friend who has one and learned about them. Rare indeed.

In reply to 81cpcamaro:

That's what Ram says. If you ask Ford though, they're direct competitors. If you were doing a comparo between HD trucks provided by the manufacturers you'd get a 3500 from GM and Ram, and an F-450 from Ford. If you read the press release in the article you linked, Ford uses terms like "class leading" several times instead of saying "it's in a Class of it's own" or something which would really get the marketing dept all lathered up. They do that because they don't want the F-450 seen as a class 4 (even though it pretty clearly is class 4).

curtis73 wrote: The "ton" rating is completely useless. It is a vestigial nomenclature that started back before DOT weight ratings. Companies would advertise their trucks as being able to carry X tons. The new ratings don't really make sense either. They now just correspond to DOT weight classes regardless of actual truck ability. Do you really think a brand new 1965 Chevy 1/2 ton was just as safe at 6800 GVW as a brand new 2017 Silverado 1500? Not remotely. Load up a Ram, a Dodge, and a Ford 1/2 ton to 6800 GVW and take them all for a test drive. They will all behave differently; stopping differences, slalom handling, reliability... the actual amount of weight they can "safely" handle in the real world relies on a few million factors that can't be defined by DOT weight classes.

The shop 1/2-ton Sierra weighs 5600lb according to the scrap yard's scales. Also according to said scales, we've had 2500lb of stuff in the bed. You felt it for sure but it didn't feel "unsafe". An empty 1-ton or heavy 1-ton feels more sketchy.

Now, FUN was when there was a tank of about 1100 liters of oil in the bed. You could really feel that slosh around Haven't done the math on what 1100 liters of oil weighs, and I don't care to.

Knurled wrote: Now, FUN was when there was a tank of about 1100 liters of oil in the bed. You could really feel that slosh around Haven't done the math on what 1100 liters of oil weighs, and I don't care to.

Roughly 3/4 of what an equivalent volume of water would weigh (1 kg/L), so about 1800 pounds.

Knurled wrote: Now, FUN was when there was a tank of about 1100 liters of oil in the bed. You could really feel that slosh around Haven't done the math on what 1100 liters of oil weighs, and I don't care to.

About 2000 lbs, give or take a little depending on oil density.

patgizz wrote:

dean1484 wrote: My truck is 6 lug

Then it's a regular 1500 denali with a 6.0. 1500hd are 8 lug. Strange beasts and pretty rare. Lay under it and count your rear axle cover bolts.

I should do that. I had the Bed partially off this weekend to do a fuel pump and the rear end in this thing is much bigger than I expected. Bigger than I remember any of my fords from the 2000's and much bigger than my Sierra from the 1980's

Ok so I looked under my truck and it is a 12 bolt. I did a little more homework and because it is the Quadrasteer it has a 12 bolt Dana 60.

rslifkin wrote:

Knurled wrote: Now, FUN was when there was a tank of about 1100 liters of oil in the bed. You could really feel that slosh around Haven't done the math on what 1100 liters of oil weighs, and I don't care to.

About 2000 lbs, give or take a little depending on oil density.

you wanna talk about sloshing, try driving around with ~4400 lbs of water (~72 cubic feet) in the bed lol of course the sloshing done intentionally to get most the water out instead of attempting to open the tailgate with that much water in it.

for reference its a 2000 F250, only dropped the rear about 2 inches which put it on the overload springs and not even close to the bump stops, pretty much just made the truck sit level

edizzle89 wrote: for reference its a 2000 F250, only dropped the rear about 2 inches which put it on the overload springs and not even close to the bump stops, pretty much just made the truck sit level

Payload rating on that should be somewhere in the 2500 - 3000 lbs range. The F350 SRW of that generation was 3500 - 4000 lbs, so that's a lot of weight but nothing like putting 4000 lbs of water in a 1/2 ton.

dean1484 wrote: Ok so I looked under my truck and it is a 12 bolt. I did a little more homework and because it is the Quadrasteer it has a 12 bolt Dana 60.

Oh well you never said it was a Quadrasteer.

That should definitely be a 6.0L with the 4L65E and 4.10 gearing.

Yes it is a 6.0 Now that I got the fuel pump replaced and re set the computer this thing really gets up and moves.

codrus wrote:

Knurled wrote: Now, FUN was when there was a tank of about 1100 liters of oil in the bed. You could really feel that slosh around Haven't done the math on what 1100 liters of oil weighs, and I don't care to.

Roughly 3/4 of what an equivalent volume of water would weigh (1 kg/L), so about 1800 pounds.

Slap... truck leans left ...slop... truck leans right ...slap... truck leans left ...

Good thing I didn't have far to go, eh? Just across the parking lot.

edizzle89 wrote: you wanna talk about sloshing, try driving around with ~4400 lbs of water (~72 cubic feet) in the bed lol of course the sloshing done intentionally to get most the water out instead of attempting to open the tailgate with that much water in it.

That... could potentially be fatal. Two tons of water comin' at you and hard ground below you when the tailgate popped.

IF you could get it to pop!

ShadowSix wrote: Sure, within a particular make, model, and year those terms have meaning. They are an exercise in branding. Across different brands and decades those terms do not have meaning. They are marketing terms, not legal or engineering terms.

Fair enough - I misunderstood what you were getting at. For a second I thought you were saying a 1/2 ton and 3/4 ton were equally capable at being trucks.