How Much Does a Ford F150 Weigh? [Correct Answer]

A vehicle’s weight impacts its overall carrying capacity, acceleration, and how well it handles in off-road conditions, so knowing a vehicles weight can help determine what it is best used for. As an example, how much does a Ford F-150 truck weigh?

The curb weight of F-150 ranges between 4,000 and 5,800 pounds depending upon cab size, engine size, and bed size. 

Vehicle weight is broken up into multiple numbers based on how the distribution of weight in the truck.

• Curb weight refers to the overall weight of an empty vehicle.
• Payload refers to how much cargo weigh the vehicle can carry.
• Gross Vehicle Weight Rating is the highest amount of weight the vehicle can safely carry.
• Towing capacity is how much weight the vehicle can safely tow.

Each of these factors represents part of how much a Ford F-150 weighs.

This article will take a more in depth look at each of these factors and how they apply to the Ford F-150.

How Much Does a F-150 Weigh?

There are different ways to measure how much a vehicle weighs and how much weight it can carry or tow all of which are important to measuring a vehicle’s overall weight.

Curb Weight

A vehicle’s curb weight represents how much it weighs without any additional cargo, passengers, or modifications, as if it had just rolled off the assembly line. This represents the lightest weight the vehicle can be without removing parts, but this number can change depending on the specific model of truck you buy and other modification.

Weight Range. Depending on the model of Ford F-150 you buy and any type of cab extensions you buy with it, a Ford truck can have a curb weight from 4,000 to 5,600 lbs. The weight of an individual Ford vehicle depends on a wide range of factors, the most important of which are listed below.

Weight Factors. The biggest factors that determine the curb weight of a vehicle are engine size, cab size, and truck bed capacity. Different models of vehicle have different dimensions, in addition to different truck and cab modifications, that can change their weight, although engine sizes are fixed to each model.

Payload

A vehicle’s payload capacity refers to how much weight the vehicle can carry in its cab and truck bed, excluding passengers and anything being towed. This means that a vehicle’s payload is not, necessarily, a solid upper limit on how much a vehicle can carry since you can go over the limit if you are driving alone and not towing anything.

F-150 Payload. The average payload capacity of a Ford F-150 ranges from 1,000 lbs to 3,270 lbs based on the power of the vehicle’s engine. While reducing the weight of the vehicle can somewhat increase payload capacity, this is mostly determined by the strength of the engine and the durability of the vehicle’s frame.

Other Weights. Since payload capacity refers to the amount of cargo a vehicle is recommended to carry without factoring in passengers or trailers, you should be aware that any passengers or trailers you carry will impact your performance. Adding passengers and trailers will decrease your engine performance and put additional strain on your vehicle the closer you get to the payload limit.

Gross Vehicle Weight Rating

The Gross Vehicle Weight Rating, or GVWR, refers to the total amount of weight a vehicle can carry, including the passengers and overall payload. Going over this weight limit will often lead to severe performance issues and can even cause damage to the vehicle depending on how far you go over the GVWR.

F-150 GVWR. The average range of GVWR for Ford F-150 trucks runs from 6,100 lbs to 7,050 lbs depending on the specific model and any modifications you buy with the vehicle. For example, reducing the overall weight of the F-150 will increase the overall GVWR of the vehicle since it decreases the strain on the vehicle’s frame.

Precautions. While a vehicle can be safely loaded up to its GVWR weight, this doesn’t mean that there are no consequences for putting a heavy payload into a vehicle. The more weight you pile into a vehicle, the more difficult it becomes to accelerate or brake and the more it will struggle to overcome rough terrain.

Towing Capacity

A vehicle’s towing capacity refers to how much weight a vehicle can tow, independent of its payload capacity and GVWR. While towing capacity is measured independently of other weight ratings, they can still impact each other and adding more weight to a vehicle can affect performance and even damage your truck.

F-150 Towing. The Ford F-150, depending on the model, can tow between 6,000 lbs and 13,200 lbs of weight, depending largely on the strength of the engine. This value includes the weight of the trailer and all the cargo on it, so you need to factor the weight of your trailer into your towing capacity.

Towing and Payload. While a vehicle’s towing and payload capacities are separate numbers this doesn’t mean they don’t have an effect on each other. The more weight you put onto a vehicle the harder the engine will have to work in order to compensate for the extra weight, possibly leading to engine damage.

Conclusion

Each of these individual numbers represents the total weight and weight capacity of a Ford F-150 truck, but there are ways to improve the weight capacity of your truck.

Ways to Increase Payload Capacity

If you need to get more storage or weight capacity out of your truck, there are a few ways to modify your truck to increase its overall payload size. Some of these methods can be combined, but some are standalone changes and most will only offer a small increase to payload capacity, since there is no way to increase the overall durability of a truck’s frame.

Upgrade or reinforce the rear suspension. The best way to increase the overall weight capacity of a truck is to increase the strength of the rear suspension, since this is what keeps the truck bed up. By strengthening the springs, they can hold up more weight without buckling, so investing in stronger springs or shock absorbers can increase payload capacity.

Extend the truck bed for more space. A longer truck bed offers more physical space for cargo but doesn’t necessarily increase its weight capacity since the bed only increases in size not strength. While this doesn’t increase the weight payload it can increase the space payload by letting you carry more cargo in the same truck bed.

Add racks or containers to the truck. Just like with an extended truck bed, adding special racks and containers to your truck won’t increase the weight capacity but will let you store more cargo more efficiently. This is especially true with racks, since they can help secure cargo that is too large for your truck bed.

Ways to Make Towing More Efficient

There is no way to drastically increase the towing capacity of a vehicle, since this is based on the strength of the frame and the power of the engine. There are, however, many ways to make towing more efficient so pulling a trailer doesn’t slow your vehicle down or make maneuvering more difficult.

Improved Hitches. There are a variety of hitch and towing kits on the market that can offer an easier hitch, a stronger connection, and even powered features to drive powered trailers. Powered towing kits are especially efficient since powered trailers have their own small engine and brakes to help with speeding up and slowing down, taking some strain off your engine.

Engine Mods. Another way to increase the overall efficiency of your truck, including towing capacity, is to modify your engine with features like an air intake or supercharger. By making your engine more powerful and efficient, they become better at towing heavy payloads without being slowed down by the weight of its trailer.

Towing Mirrors. While a new set of mirrors won’t increase the towing power or speed of your vehicle, they will make safely maneuvering your car much easier when you have a trailer attached. Towing mirrors have special facets that let them see blind spots around the sides of the trailer, as well as some of the space behind anything you are towing.

Wrap Up

It is important to understand the weight and capacity of a vehicle to understand how it will perform in different roles. The Ford F-150 has four major weight metrics, curb weight, payload, GVWR, and towing capacity, that all change between models. If you have any questions about the weight or capacity of trucks, comment with them below.