[Maks]

At the risk of contributing to the never ending discussions on tow vehicle capacities, I thought I'd pass on something interesting.

Had a conversation with a retired co-owner of a car dealership awhile back. The topic of RVing and tow vehicles came up. He told me that there is such a specification called "Braked Towing Capacity" as well as "Unbraked Towing Capacity" for every vehicle rated to tow something. It is a subset of the GCVWR (Gross Combined Vehicle Weight Rating).

"Braked Towing Capacity" is the towing capacity of the tow vehicle if it is towing a trailer that has fully functioning brakes. (Not 100% sure how they define "fully functioning".)

"Unbraked Towing Capacity" is the towing capacity of the tow vehicle if it towing a trailer that does not have brakes or the brakes on it have failed.

Has anyone else ever heard of these ratings? The retired dealer owner said that these braked/unbraked ratings are not usually made public knowledge. If a fellow had an accident while towing, would the authorities or insurance companies use these ratings?

Or..........Was the fellow blowing smoke up my @#$?