Towing ratings, electrical figures and battery specifications are safety-relevant. A wrong number on this site could lead someone to overload a hitch or undersize a breaker. This page explains where our figures come from and what happens to a page before it is published.
Sources, in order of preference
- The manufacturer's own document for the exact configuration. A truck's towing guide for its model year, the owner's manual for a water heater model, the data sheet for a specific battery. This is the source we quote, and the page links to it where the figure appears.
- Standards, codes and regulators. SAE towing standards, the National Electrical Code, RVIA standards, NHTSA and state DMV pages for rules that vary by state.
- Reputable secondary sources such as major retailers' specification pages, only where the manufacturer's document is unavailable, and never for a safety figure.
Blogs, forums, review sites and AI-generated pages are not sources for any number on this site.
Figures that depend on your unit
Many ratings vary with the specific unit: towing capacity changes with engine, axle ratio, cab and bed length and option packages; a golf cart or RV battery layout changes with voltage; an appliance's specifications change by model number. Where that is the case, a page states the configuration its figure applies to and tells you where to find the figure for your own unit, usually the door-jamb sticker, the data plate or the manual for your model.
How pages are written
Pages are drafted with AI writing tools, working only from the source documents collected for that page. Before anything is drafted, the manufacturers' guides, manuals and specification sheets are read and the passages a page needs are recorded with their exact wording and the address of the document. The draft may state a figure only if it is in that record, and it states the model year, engine, package or model number the figure applies to.
The claim check
Before a page is published, every checkable statement on it is extracted into a list of claims. Each claim is then checked against the kinds of sources listed above by a separate AI reviewer that sees only the claim, not the article, and must return the passage that supports or contradicts it. Software then confirms that the passage really appears, word for word, on the source page. A claim counts as verified only when a source of the first or second kind states the same figure, condition and scope.
Anything the check flags is traced back to the source document by hand. A claim the document does not support is removed or rewritten as qualitative guidance, and a claim a source contradicts blocks publication until it is fixed. An editor reviews every page before it is published.
What we do not claim
We do not buy or test products. Pages that compare products compare their published specifications and say so. We do not claim personal experience with a specific vehicle, appliance or campsite unless a page explicitly says who had it.
When to call a technician
Some jobs are not do-it-yourself jobs: mains wiring, propane and gas systems, lithium battery conversions and anything structural. Where a page reaches such a step, it says so at that step. We would rather a reader stops reading and picks up the phone than continues on a page that made a dangerous job sound routine.
Corrections
Pages carry the date of their last update. If you find an error, email hello@rvplainly.com with the page and the source that shows the correct figure. Verified corrections are made to the page and the update date changes; we do not silently edit history on safety-relevant figures.