I'm looking at a 3 horse gooseneck aluminum trailer with 14'sw living quarters w/slide. The trailer is 29' on the floor, 10,500# empty. I figure with our two horses and tack, feed, etc.. loaded weight will be around 13,500 to 14,000 on the heavy side. Question is, my truck is a 2000 7.3 psd F-250 4x4 crew cab w/auto. trans. All stock. Is this going to be enough truck to pull and stop this trailer. And what should I do to the truck for it to handle this trailer better? Airbags? Extra springs? Programmer? Wider tires? We live in Texas, but make the occaisional trip to the mountains.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: f69tele,

Hi, your truck is rated to tow around 12,500#'s. To handle that kind of weight, I'd go to hydrualic disc brakes on the trailer,an exhaust brake on the truck and SuperSprings on the truck. Your loaded more than the truck is rated, is probably typical. I'd put synthetic oil in tranny and diffs. Superchips or Edge are the most popular programer and downloader. I think Superchips is the safer one. The 7.3L PS is able to handle some engine mods, where I keep learning that the 6.0L PS isn't.

While traveling cross country, what are the risks of being checked for being overweight on an F-250 and a big horse trailer? Also, what would the typical penalty be, if caught being 1,500 to 2,000# over GCW? This probably varies from state to state, but any ideas?
Thanks for your previous reply.

quote:

Originally posted by f69tele:
While traveling cross country, what are the risks of being checked for being overweight on an F-250 and a big horse trailer? Also, what would the typical penalty be, if caught being 1,500 to 2,000# over GCW? This probably varies from state to state, but any ideas?
Thanks for your previous reply.

To me, the risks of being caught by LEO are very slim. To determine if you're overloaded, they'll need a scale. The bigger risk is getting stuck on the side of road with a broken truck. The other risk is: being in an incident. I say incident since it's no accident you're overloaded. You choose to be.
Might even be considered Egregious Negligence. You might consider checking the penalties on that instead of being merely overloaded.