I want to see one example of this. Just one. I'll wait. This rhetoric is exceptionally common and I've yet to see/hear/read anything other than conjecture. It's another example of verbiage that might be prudent for this person, but is largely grounded in "I heard someone else say it once, and it kinda makes sense so I'm going to repeat it" as best I can tell.
I found this quote a while back......It's very prudent in this conversation "Towing over legal DOT weights is illegal. Towing over manufacturer warranty, or recommended capacities is not. Always have to remember. Manufacturers do not write law. "
Here is your example.
I contacted a Judge friend of mine and posed the question; what would happen to a person if they were towing a trailer that exceeded the manufacturers tow rating, and there was an accident that resulted in a fatality? The response was immediate, the Judge told me that in Napa CA in 2005 this very situation happened and the DA charged the driver with murder and various other charges. While the jury did not find the defendant guilty of murder, the driver was convicted on other charges, and the Judge decreed that the driver, having spent a year in jail waiting for and going to trial, had served his sentence as time served in jail. That person spent a year in jail, had to pay for all of their legal expenses and fines, if they had a house they lost it because they lost their job, they also lost their apartment, and unless they had some famil or friends that handles their affairs they lost all of their stuff too, ergo, their life as they knew it ended.
Manufacturers may not write law, but they do design, test and rate their vehicles for what is safe, and have to conform to federal safety standards=law, exceeding those limits is beyond the design envelope and is therefore a felony, just like removing smog emissions equipment from a car is a felony. A GVWR, is the gross vehicle weight rating, not gross vehicle weight recommendations. Just as we have a sticker in our boats that limits the amount of cargo weight, and more stringent is the weight and number of passengers, exceed those limits and there Is a fatality and the captain is going to be facing some serious legal trouble.
Here is the load limit sticker on the B pilar of my truck, “should never exceed” is not a recommendation, it is a hard limit not a recommended limit.
This is the other sticker on the B pillar. The GVWR is 11,500#, that is the limit of what the vehicle can weigh with the aforementioned never exceed 3436# cargo / persons limit. Cargo in the spirit of this thread would include tongue weight as well. There is also the GCVWR or the weight of the truck and trailer which for my truck is 30,000#. 11,500 - 3436# is a curb weight of 8,064#, take 30,000 - 8,064# = max trailer weight of 21,936#, it is lower in the chart but that is how this math works out, however if the tongue weight of the trailer plus cargo and persons in the truck is at 3,436# the max trailer weight can only be 18,500#
Here‘s the tow rating for my truck for a fifth wheel, but is limited by an 18,000# hitch rating. Interestingly the conventional is the same rating, but is only limited to the Class V hitch.
