Private use or are you getting paid?
There are two kinds of trouble you can get into: civil and criminal.
Criminal charges are what you can get a citation or arrested for. Almost every State has laws that apply to tire and axle ratings. Most also cover the coupler, ball, etc. Most States don’t specifically list GVWR, outside of driver’s license requirements. However, some jurisdictions may see the GVWR as falling under other laws, such as reckless driving. If you’re subject to commercial DOT regulations, there are many more rules.
Civil penalties are all the things you can be sued for (generally, after a collision). The only way to limit your liability, in this regard, is to follow EVERY legal requirement AND manufacturer recommendation.
The manufacturer GCWR is not going to be part of a non-collision roadside inspection. None I have ever seen, or heard of, anyway.
From an inspection standpoint, you are legally limited by the most limiting factor. For example:
Your truck has a GVWR of 10k, a front axle rating of 5,200, and a rear axle rating of 6,100. Let us say you have a gooseneck ball rated at 25k. For this example, let’s say your tires are rated higher than your axles.
Say you buy a gooseneck that weighed 5k, empty. You put a 9k load on it. Thats’s 14k of total weight. Due to load placement, you are able to put 20% on the truck. That would be 2,800 pounds of weight, on the truck. How the truck is set up will determine how that weight is distributed, over the axles (Remember, for this example, the axles are our limiting factor, not the tires).
I don’t know what your truck weighs, empty, or how it’s axled, so I’ll make it up. I’m going to say it’s 6,500 pounds, total, with 3,500 pounds over the front axle, 3,000, on the rear. You have to check your stuff. This would leave 1,700 pounds of front axle capacity and 3,100 pounds of rear capacity. Even if all of the tongue weight, from the trailer (2,800 pounds, in this example), goes on the rear axle (it won’t), you’re still within specs.
Now, you may have noticed the axle ratings are more than the GVWR. It is best practice (and may be enforced, depending on jurisdiction) to stay under the GVWR’s. in the case of our example, our axle ratings are good. However, the 10k GVWR minus the 6,500 pound truck, alone, only leaves 3,500 pounds, total GVWR. So, we are still good, at 20% of our 14k load.
Many factors go into tongue weight. Load placement is the one you can control or at least, have the most control of. Buying the right trailer will make load placement less critical. Where the axles are, in relation to the deck, and how far apart they are matters. The same issues on your truck (tires, axles, safety chains, coupler, etc) also apply to the trailer. If the axles are too far back, this means more tongue weight and more weight in the front trailer axle.
Here are some pictures, ignore the specifics, just look at axle placement.
This trailer has the axles more forward, meaning less load moved to the truck. This would be the type that is best, for a lighter duty truck, like what you have.
This trailer has the axles far back, in relation to the load carrying part of the deck. More weight on the truck. Easier to turn corners.
This is a spread axle (with hydraulic dove, ignore for this discussion) with the axles near the center of the trailer. Easier to get more of the load evenly spread between the trailer axles, even less weight on the truck. Tougher on trailer tires, when turning tight corners.
Spread axles, but set further back. If the truck can’t hold the tongue weight well, it’s easier to overload the front trailer axle.
A lot of F-250/2500 series trucks are traveling overweight. Especially, with Diesel engines. People think they can pull anything because their “tow rating” is higher than the weight they are pulling, but they almost never factor in the payload capacity of the truck.
