What did this rookie do wrong? Scale question....

How do you know his 5th is not in the right place? I'm asking, I have never slide the 5th! Thanks.

 

He's already right at max allowable on steer 12,060, but he's 1,700 lbs from maxing out on his drives. We don't know what he's driving or what his fuel level is but we know that he can't take on any more fuel, or he'll be over on his steer. The only place you can make correction for steer weight is at the 5th wheel setting. Ideally, when you have a full load of fuel, and 34,000 on the drives, you be right at 12,000 on the steers, no more no less. Once you find that spot, weld the 5th wheel in place and forget about it. Then all you need to consider adjusting is the trailer assuming the load is distributed mostly evenly and not all the way back and your gross is OK, you should be able to scale out. Whether or not you'll be CA legal is another matter but I don't worry about that so long as I'm within 3 holes the CA setting.

 

only had to move my 5th once and I was still 180 over on drives and my tandems were slid forward all the way so I just burned it off since I had 6/8 of a tank with that heavy load.

If the guy had plenty of fuel I would of just left it alone, you will burn that 60 off pretty quick

He could move the 5th a couple holes and probably be good there on out though

 

You can be 12300 on steers

 

#### here we go again with the steer axle weight argument

 

Or more or less, depends on the tire rating of the steers. Most are rated at 6175, which will allow 12,350 on the steers.

 

??? Since when do you set your brakes on a CAT scale..... ???

 

What did he do wrong?

1) He re-weighed
2) He didn't slide his 5th wheel back (assuming it is a slider & that it isn't known to be in correct position for most loads)
3) He only slid the tandems forward 1 hole (should have been at least 3 for balance but the farther forward the tandems, the less air drag/better mpg -- assuming he could slide them more)
4) He took 30 minutes to do steps 1-3

 

I don't see there is an argument. Never mind individual states, and interstates vs US Hwy routes, etc, 12,000 is the "standard" in the context of most weight discussions. Any overage allowance is purely a matter of the mood of the scale-master at the time, amount of snow/ice on the vehicle, etc and thus can't be discussed as "matter of fact". Of course you also have APU allowances to factor in too, but that doesn't affect the "standard max allowance" weight of 12,000.

But I'm still unsure what point the OP was trying to make

 

could of been one of those older trailers with the stubborn tandems we all love and enjoy moving