Forgetting to check the maximum payload capacity of your truck and overloading it can be dangerous for both you and your vehicle. But spending time figuring out the maximum payload rating of your truck can be a real pain! Luckily, Ford developed a solution for the F-150: onboard scales.

Maximum Payload Rating

One of the most important things to consider when buying a truck is its maximum payload rating, or maximum payload capacity. This is how much a truck can safely carry. It differs for every truck and isn’t always dependent on the size of the truck.

To find the maximum payload, subtract your truck’s curb weight (the standard weight of the car with no passengers or cargo) from its gross vehicle weight rating (the maximum weight to operate safely).

Consequences of Overloading

Overloading your truck can have severe consequences for both you and the vehicle.

Overloading affects your ability to drive your truck. When overloaded, a truck can take longer to stop, so you may misjudge the distance needed to brake. The extra weight also affects steering and handling, which can cause you to lose control on the road.

Beyond safety concerns, overloading also contributes to maintenance needs. Trucks aren’t made to carry weight over their maximum payload rating. Exceeding this can cause components to break down. Extra weight also affects your truck’s tires and can cause them to deflate. Without adequate air, tires can blowout easier, and you’ll probably need to replace them sooner.

Overall, overloading a truck is a threat to both your safety and the safety of your wallet!

Ford F-150 Onboard Scales

Every all-new F-150 comes standard with new cleats mounted to the sides of the tailgate to act as tie-down locations for extra-long items in the bed.

Manually keeping track of the weight your truck is carrying is incredibly important.

But also super inefficient.

The new Ford F-150 onboard scales measure the payload for you. That means you’ll no longer need to know the weight of the load going into the truck. Instead, the truck will keep track of the added weight itself.

You can see the payload’s added weight on the infotainment system, a phone with the FordPass app, and even on the truck’s taillights! As you load the cargo, the taillights will fill with colour. Ideally, the taillights should stay below four bars, but they will start flashing once you exceed the payload capacity.

You can also adjust the onboard scales. For example, if you know you’ll have passengers, you can manually add their weight to the weight of the truck before loading the cargo. The scale can also be reset to zero at any point. Useful if you need to know the approximate weight of only the cargo added into the truck!

Tongue Weight and Smart Hitch

Along with the F-150’s onboard scales, Ford also introduced the Smart Hitch to help with safe towing. The Smart Hitch measures the tongue weight of a trailer to help distribute the weight correctly. This helps eliminate sway, making for a safer ride. Like the onboard scales, the Smart Hitch is connected to the FordPass app, infotainment system, and taillights.

Solving Overloading

Ford’s F-150 solves a problem truckers have faced for years: overloading the truck. The onboard scales ensure that calculating the weight of a payload is easy for all.

While Ford’s F-150 is currently the only truck with this technology, we expect to see other trucks develop this technology in the future, solving the problem of easily weighing a truck’s load for good.