Pickups Will Finally Adopt SAE Towing Standards
Towing standards: there really aren't any in the pickup industry. I know that might seem like a strange thing to say when manufacturers are constantly boasting that vehicle X can pull up to 24,000 lbs, but it's true - there's no standardized test that has been agreed upon by each truck builder to determine just how mighty each of their respective rigs is.
That doesn't mean that there's not a workable test out there. In fact, the Society of Automotive Engineers offers the J2807 standard for rating towing capacity, a standard that Toyota actually adopted all the way back in 2011. Everyone else, however, elected to stick with their in-house testing for fear of falling behind in terms of bragging rights should a competitor not play ball.
It would seem like the move to the J2807 standard is finally going to happen, however. I spoke with GM engineers at the launch of the 2015 GMC Sierra HD and 2015 Chevrolet Silverado HD trucks who confirmed with me that they believe next year will mark the official change over for General Motors, Ram, and Ford. This means that we'll finally get a level playing field that can be used to properly evaluate one heavy duty truck against the other. Light duty models are also expected to follow the SAE standard.
