Bigfoot affair
Sweet Grass
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mkirsch wrote:JimK-NY wrote:mkirsch wrote:
Now all of a sudden everybody's a weight police. "Oh he was 10lbs over GVWR! That's why his frame broke!"
Did you notice the post from someone with the same truck? CCC is 4738#. The owner of the broken truck had a camper with a base weight of 5000#. Water and propane bring that to 5500#. Accessories are not included. We can see solar, awnings and a roof rack. I can't see if there is an A/C unit or a generator neither are in the base weight. At a minimum the weight will be 6000#. That does not include the bikes or rack, tools, kitchen gear, food, bedding, air compressor and personal items very likely totally well over 1000#. Best guess is this unit was in the range of 7000-7500# or roughly 2500-3000# over the CCC. In addition there is clearly an issue with center of gravity.
Sadly beginners and often experienced truck camper users often fail to realize how heavy their rigs are.
"Conventional wisdom" on this forum is, NONE OF THAT MATTERS! Axle's rated for 11K! Nobody's ever broken a frame!
Telling someone they needed a 4500-5500 class truck to carry a camper like that got you ostracized as a worry wart, weight police, fun-hating SQUARE.
This thread just oozes with HYPOCRISY.
DING DING DING, we have a winner! This is so true.
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Grit dog
Black Diamond, WA
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No, mkirsch is just being a little dramatic or critical of some previous uninformed comments. Of which rvnet has no lack of.
The big takeaway from this whole thing is ratings are (sometimes) there for a real physical limitation reason. You know, something based on engineering principle and design. Other ratings are given similarly but with large factors of safety not explicitly mentioned. And yet others are in place for only regulatory reasons.
That’s why the old adage of “stick to the ratings” if you can’t understand or discern from the above is always the “safe” bet.
But sometimes “safe” or in many cases overly safe costs alot of unnecessary money. And if one can understand or get some good advice that is cheaper than spending cubic dollars to be “overly safe.”
In the case of this truck. This is the largest capacity rating on a given design (light duty pickup chassis). It seems obvious to me but should stand to reason to anyone with some knowledge that if the same thing is rated less here and more there, that the more rating has a lower factor of safety.
And this guy found out what that limit is for his frame!
On the upside like mkirsch has been ranting about , this failure totally supports the arguments that your not going to break that frame, springs or axle on your 2500 Ram (or whatever 3/4 ton) by exceeding the paltry regulatory based rating by a large margin.
Mkirsch is doing a disservice by trying to lump ALL comments into the same bucket.
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FishOnOne
The Great State of Texas
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Grit dog wrote:No, mkirsch is just being a little dramatic or critical of some previous uninformed comments. Of which rvnet has no lack of.
The big takeaway from this whole thing is ratings are (sometimes) there for a real physical limitation reason. You know, something based on engineering principle and design. Other ratings are given similarly but with large factors of safety not explicitly mentioned. And yet others are in place for only regulatory reasons.
That’s why the old adage of “stick to the ratings” if you can’t understand or discern from the above is always the “safe” bet.
But sometimes “safe” or in many cases overly safe costs alot of unnecessary money. And if one can understand or get some good advice that is cheaper than spending cubic dollars to be “overly safe.”
In the case of this truck. This is the largest capacity rating on a given design (light duty pickup chassis). It seems obvious to me but should stand to reason to anyone with some knowledge that if the same thing is rated less here and more there, that the more rating has a lower factor of safety.
And this guy found out what that limit is for his frame!
On the upside like mkirsch has been ranting about , this failure totally supports the arguments that your not going to break that frame, springs or axle on your 2500 Ram (or whatever 3/4 ton) by exceeding the paltry regulatory based rating by a large margin.
Mkirsch is doing a disservice by trying to lump ALL comments into the same bucket.
Could be a manufacturing defect. We've already seen a recall from Ram that required rewelding the brackets on the front end of the frame and who knows if the steel used to make this frame met strength requirements.
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Bigfoot affair
Sweet Grass
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IDK, I would suspect the frame to be the last thing to fail when over loaded. Tires/wheels first, then axle followed by springs etc. Had my 03 GMC 2500 overloaded with my Bigfoot camper and boat for many years with no failures.
More RAM frame failures Broken frames
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JRscooby
Indepmo
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Bigfoot affair wrote:IDK, I would suspect the frame to be the last thing to fail when over loaded. Tires/wheels first, then axle followed by springs etc. Had my 03 GMC 2500 overloaded with my Bigfoot camper and boat for many years with no failures.
More RAM frame failures Broken frames
Several times (3 Fords, 1 Dodge, and 2 GM) overloaded class 3 trucks, the failure that stops use has been rear lug studs. Few times, the wheels where damaged, but can't swear it was not because studs where braking, putting extra stress around holes still holding.
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bucky
Raleigh metro
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I'm thinking this guy just read this and other threads on the interweb.
TC for sale
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Grit dog
Black Diamond, WA
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bucky wrote:I'm thinking this guy just read this and other threads on the interweb.
TC for sale
Lol, that’s funny! Would have been funnier if it was sitting on a Dodge!
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Grit dog
Black Diamond, WA
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FishOnOne wrote:Grit dog wrote:No, mkirsch is just being a little dramatic or critical of some previous uninformed comments. Of which rvnet has no lack of.
The big takeaway from this whole thing is ratings are (sometimes) there for a real physical limitation reason. You know, something based on engineering principle and design. Other ratings are given similarly but with large factors of safety not explicitly mentioned. And yet others are in place for only regulatory reasons.
That’s why the old adage of “stick to the ratings” if you can’t understand or discern from the above is always the “safe” bet.
But sometimes “safe” or in many cases overly safe costs alot of unnecessary money. And if one can understand or get some good advice that is cheaper than spending cubic dollars to be “overly safe.”
In the case of this truck. This is the largest capacity rating on a given design (light duty pickup chassis). It seems obvious to me but should stand to reason to anyone with some knowledge that if the same thing is rated less here and more there, that the more rating has a lower factor of safety.
And this guy found out what that limit is for his frame!
On the upside like mkirsch has been ranting about , this failure totally supports the arguments that your not going to break that frame, springs or axle on your 2500 Ram (or whatever 3/4 ton) by exceeding the paltry regulatory based rating by a large margin.
Mkirsch is doing a disservice by trying to lump ALL comments into the same bucket.
Could be a manufacturing defect. We've already seen a recall from Ram that required rewelding the brackets on the front end of the frame and who knows if the steel used to make this frame met strength requirements.
Sure could be. All mfgs have defects and the subject of this thread could have also been a defect that ate into the factor of safety enough that being whatever 30% overloaded and running the Baja at the same time caused a failure. Even that dude had 25k good miles on the setup before failure.
I’ve had factory defects in all of the big 3 trucks.
Between work and personal rigs since the early 90s I’ve had probably 2 dozen Fords, around 10 GMs and 7 Dodge/Rams. I’ve also had zero frame failures on any truck and in an industry with fleets of 1000s of light duty trucks that are subject to stupid human tricks regularly (myself included) this isn’t really a “thing” from any mfg.
08 Ford 150 total lemon, wasn’t used to tow heavy at all. The list was long including a physically grenaded trans and almost burned down on the side of the road.
05 F150 ate injectors for breakfast.
2001 Dodge 1500 2 defective 3rd members that rendered the truck undriveabale both times within 1000mi of new.
2016 Silverado 1500. Beat it like a rented mule towing sometimes. 14klb trailers over Mtn passes. Trans was defective from day 1. Chevy dealer didn’t see it that way. Yet it lasted 60k miles and trans replaced under warranty.
For someone with a broader experience across the board with all 3 brands and more miles than most as well, all 3 mfg are relatively trouble free.
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And the best was the 02 Duramax.
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mellow
Salisbury, MD
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bucky wrote:I'm thinking this guy just read this and other threads on the interweb.
TC for sale
Big difference between an 1130 and that huge eagle cap, that setup is fine all day long on a dually. Doubt that guy is selling due to reading about this issue.
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towpro
Compass PA
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Just search internet on ram 3500 broken frames.
![[image]](https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.dieseltruckresource.com-vbulletin/1300x731/img_2162_30cf8d8961567d54e421079902700c39457ba688.png)
![[image]](https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.dieseltruckresource.com-vbulletin/1300x731/20170929_124749_e577bbbc1ec7ea3ac064059b2807d06b1ea738fb.jpg)
![[image]](https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.dieseltruckresource.com-vbulletin/780x975/img_20190923_202653_e93cc3b80249035dff37692ac02ed1dcc3f42c82.jpg)
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