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Originally Posted by antiqfreq
Is anyone here towing a fiver with their 7.3L?
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Sure. Dozens of folks.
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Ours is a 4x4, crew cab, short bed. We have the pullrite superglide hitch and we are having no problems at all towing our 31 foot fiver. (it weighs in at 9500 lbs loaded up).
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You're probably overloaded by several hundred pounds over the GVWR of your F-250. But you'll be fine as long as you don't exceed about 10,000 pounds GVW (gross vehicle weight on the 4 pickup tires).
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We have the Ride Rite air bags (put them on, didn't know if we would need them or not, but we did it to make sure it was a level set up.)
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You'll need them if you plan to tow at night without the headlights trying to light up the stars (and blinding oncoming drivers).
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I am quite SURE we are over our payload amount, but I tell ya, I see many, many more fivers going down the road lots bigger than us and have for many years.
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Two wrongs don't make a right. Overloaded is overloaded, no matter how much you try to rationalize it. Just because others do it is no reason for you to join the crowd.
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The hubby says not to worry, we are fine. We don't have a huge pin weight and we are way under our tow capacity. Don't worry - be happy!
What does the concensus here think? (I am the worrier in the family....)
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I think you're flying blind unless you have a certified automated truck (CAT) scale ticket to show your wet and loaded weights in the middle of a towing trip.
I suspect you're grossing about 8,000 pounds before you tie onto the 5er. The typical medium-sized 5er that grosses 9,500 pounds will have 17 percent hitch weight, or about 1,615 pounds. That's 9,615 pounds GVW, or 815 pounds overloaded over the GVWR of your F-250.
But most experts also say that if you have LT265/75R16E tires then your truck is identical, except for the spacer blocks in the rear suspension, to the 2003 F-350 SRW, which has 9,900 pounds GVWR. So as long as you have less than 9,900 pounds GVW, you should be fine as far as GVW is concerned. And if your trailer grosses less than 10,000 pounds wet and loaded, then you shouldn't even come close to the 20,000 pounds GCWR of your tow vehicle. So I'll agree, you're probably fine.
But only the CAT scale knows for sure, so fill up with diesel then get that CAT scale ticket during your next towing trip. There will be a CAT scale (or comparable certified automated truck scale) at almost every name-brand truckstop on the interstate.
