Question about GVWR

It is a commercial vehicle. Engaged in commerce. IE a business. You do need a CDL because you are driving that commercial vehicle as a employee or owner operator.

Overloading a vehicle is another can of worms and opens your employer (And yourself) to enforcement. You should know what you can load onto a vehicle by empty weight and then never exceed the amount between legal load weight gross and that empty. If you overload a vehicle, then you are getting into enforcement actions against you including fines, inspections etc.

In fact if I had a little two axle dump (And did...) we run say 8 ton of stone to a customer. Billed customer by weight of material; miles run and houly consumed. Or roughly that structure of what customer pays.

Customer does not need to know we have a three axle dump that could cut the trips in half. So a 3 day job turns into a 5 day kaching with a rich customer who wants and demands a gravel road in a swampy woods on his or her land in the rain. We use the 10 ton for that. The big dump would just sink. All the customer needs to do is wait a month and sunshine and spring time. We will have it done at half the cost to him and her.

It does not matter if it is a little car or a road train. Its still a CDL if engaged in intrastate or Interstate commerce for trade.

There is a factory stamp plate on the inside of your door of that vehicle. It will state in no uncertain terms what you can put onto that vehicle. If it has a pintle hitch, there should be another plate near it with the tongue weight rating plus yet another stamped weight rating plate for the trailer you put on it. Add the two and divide by axles. Consult your motor carrier's atlas weight bridge formula.

Weigh everything tare empty at CAT scale for 11 dollars. Then you will know exactly how much you can load onto that vehicle and trailer without exceeding it's and lawful limits.

 

I see single axle dump trucks listed for sale, with no cdl required, under 26,000 gvwr, when i googled it on yahoo.

 

You are correct. a CMV with a weight rating under 26,001 does not require a CDL to operate. The load on the vehicle and not in a trailer has no bearing. However be advised you will need a current physical for CMVs 10,001 and over.

Edited to add you are taking a chance of an overweight problem with 34,000 on the truck.

 

While you do not need a CDL, there are a few legal problems running that.
Obviously you will get overweight fines, as the max weight would be the gvwr of 25,950.
You will also get a registration ticket as you are hauling greater than when the truck is registered form.
You would also need a medical card, and (I'm 98% certain) a drug test and random pool of testing as you are over the 10,001 lbs.

 

for that reason Im out.