>The SAE J2807 tow grade test is done on a real highway in Arizona, not some made up crazy scenario.
So? That doesn't make it representative of typical conditions.
>If you can only tow a certain load in ideal circumstances (no hills, no sudden braking, no wind, etc) then you actually cannot safely tow that load.
So someone in Kansas or Florida should be limited by grades that aren't even with a day's drive of them? Do you seriously believe this?
This line of reasoning is even more comical in light of how the current SAE test almost always results in engine power being the bottleneck.
There's a pretty massive amount of safe behavior you can do outside the confines of the magic rating number and even more options of unsafe things you can do within the number. At the end of the day some amount of good judgement and discretion is required because there is no shortage of variables that are static in the SAE test
Your position is only a stone's through from the pitch of the slimy RV salesman who says you can tow something anytime anywhere because it's less than the magic number. I think you (and the hypothetical RV salesman) need to take your appeal to authority and desire to substitute a nuance-free number with critical though and shove them somewhere unpleasant.
> So someone in Kansas or Florida should be limited by grades that aren't even with a day's drive of them? Do you seriously believe this?
I never said that. I think the current tow rating system does represent the safety margins needed in real world towing. If a truck can't tow X pounds up an actual hill on an actual US highway, then it shouldn't advertise being able to tow X pounds.
But, if you live in Kansas and you are sure that your brakes can handle a higher load, that's fine. As you said, it's up to you the driver to know what's safe and not. I also think you have it coming if you lose control of an overloaded truck and your insurance company refuses to cover damages, etc.
I view it similar to overclocking a server. Servers are clocked somewhat conservatively to ensure reliability. You are free to overclock a machine you own, but you run the risk of instability and you cannot complain to the manufacturer if you have downtime resulting from running your machine outside of spec.
So? That doesn't make it representative of typical conditions.
>If you can only tow a certain load in ideal circumstances (no hills, no sudden braking, no wind, etc) then you actually cannot safely tow that load.
So someone in Kansas or Florida should be limited by grades that aren't even with a day's drive of them? Do you seriously believe this?
This line of reasoning is even more comical in light of how the current SAE test almost always results in engine power being the bottleneck.
There's a pretty massive amount of safe behavior you can do outside the confines of the magic rating number and even more options of unsafe things you can do within the number. At the end of the day some amount of good judgement and discretion is required because there is no shortage of variables that are static in the SAE test
Your position is only a stone's through from the pitch of the slimy RV salesman who says you can tow something anytime anywhere because it's less than the magic number. I think you (and the hypothetical RV salesman) need to take your appeal to authority and desire to substitute a nuance-free number with critical though and shove them somewhere unpleasant.