Tow Rating Standoff to Continue: Report

Luke Vandezande
by Luke Vandezande

Ford, Chrysler and General Motors make big business out of light-duty pickup trucks, but they ignore agreed-upon test procedures to measure and standardize towing capacities.

The procedures were negotiated and decided in collaboration with SAE International and so far Toyota is the only maker to conform. The Detroit 3 reaffirmed last week that they intend to continue ignoring those standards. The reason?

Those ratings will downrate the respective trucks tow ratings, and nobody wants to risk losing sales by taking the plunge first. Or at least that’s how it seems. GM and Chrysler say so, but Automotive News reports that Ford says it understood the standard would apply to only to new or redesigned models starting in 2013.

[Source: Automotive News]

Luke Vandezande
Luke Vandezande

Luke is an energetic automotive journalist who spends his time covering industry news and crawling the internet for the latest breaking story. When he isn't in the office, Luke can be found obsessively browsing used car listings, drinking scotch at his favorite bar and dreaming of what to drive next, though the list grows a lot faster than his bank account. He's always on <A title="@lukevandezande on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/lukevandezande">Twitter</A> looking for a good car conversation. Find Luke on <A title="@lukevandezande on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/lukevandezande">Twitter</A> and <A title="Luke on Google+" href="http://plus.google.com/112531385961538774338?rel=author">Google+</A>.

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