Even the most capable trucks have weight limits on their towing and hauling. When you’re working hard on a project, the last thing you want to be bothered with is keeping a meticulous tally of how much weight you’ve added, but you also don’t want to overload your vehicle. It’s not as if you can pop the entire contents of your truck bed onto a bathroom scale before you get on the road, so how are you supposed to know when to lighten the load? The 2021 Ford F-150 has provided the solution with Onboard Scales, the first-in-class available feature to measure payload weight.
It works like this: four sensors, one for each wheel, measure the suspension displacement as a way to approximate the weight of the cargo. The weight can then be viewed on the truck’s touchscreen or via the FordPass app on your smartphone. One of the great details of this feature is that the weight is also communicated by the tail lights, to save you the trouble of running back and forth from the bed to the cab to check the weight. On the side of the tail light nearest the tailgate there are four horizontal bars. These indicate the cargo weight in the same way that a battery meter indicates charge level. When the highest bar lights up, you’re nearing the maximum weight, and when it begins to flash, the maximum weight has been exceeded.
From the touchscreen inside the cab, the scale can be zeroed and you can see a version of the four-bar system from the tail light that includes the actual weight in pounds. If the truck is loaded past maximum weight, the display turns red and you will get a popup warning that the limit has been exceeded. However, unlike a seatbelt warning, you’ll only get this popup once per key cycle, so if you occasionally need to drive with the truck loaded over maximum weight, you won’t be bothered the entire time with incessant beeping or flashing. However, the display will stay red until the extra weight has been removed.
The same system also plays into the Smart Hitch feature, which helps to take the guesswork out of estimating tongue weight. The touchscreen or FordPass app can provide suggestions on weight distribution within the trailer in order to avoid overtaxing your truck in terms of tongue weight.
A pickup truck that can weigh itself certainly does sound like a thing of the future, but anyone who regularly uses their truck for heavy duty jobs will surely find Ford’s Onboard Scales far more useful than a flying car. If you’re interested in this feature and in the 2021 F-150, contact Haldeman Ford of East Windsor, NJ or view our available online inventory here.
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