cat scale vs weigh station scale....

Depending on which is closer after I pickup I use Cat Scales or Service Center scales. Mostly it's Cat scales and I have never had a problem. May be a Arizona DOT thing or something. Glad the let you adjust and didn't lay it on you.

 

Happened to me once in Virginia. I was a rookie at the time and had the trailer tandems slid all the way up, which put 35600 on the tandems. Guy at the weigh station called me out on it and gave me a half hour to adjust them. I moved the tandems back 6 pegs, re weighed, and was good to go. Shortly after, I learned to slide the tandems adjacent to the back end of the cargo, which my trainer neglected to tell me. Haven't had a run in with DOT since.

 

I agree; at least they gave you a chance to correct it instead of slapping you with a ticket right there and then. Same thing happened to me in Virginia on I-95 southbound a few years ago; I was about 1,000 over on my drives and was told to pull around, readjust it and reweigh. I thought that was nice of them to give me a chance to rectify an easily-correctable issue and thanked them for it.

BTW, I also learned from that incident that they apparently give you something like a 400 or 500 pound allowance for having an APU. Is that something done nationwide, or is that a state-by-state thing?

 

from my experiences
the biggest thing is over gross
i have been as heavy as 12600 on steers never had a problem
axles and tires are 13000 rated anyway
never had a scale house disagree with a Cat scale
that i know of because i havn't been pulled around back

 

I knew some stated give you 1000 for the APU just didn't know which ones. I guess now I know VA is one

 

Had to pull around and adjust at the tandems at the NB Roanoke scale. Too much on the drives. Got it on the first shot.

Was a problem child load to begin with. Loaded in Laredo and wasn't secured. Kept moving forward.

ProTrans in Memphis helped us redistribute the load and secure it and it STILL MOVED!!

 

I haul tanker and I've been as much as 13,600lbs on the steers...Never had anyone call me on it. I've an APU so that could be a factor. I've had this situation on my previous truck, an '06 Pete 387, and it's pretty much the same with my '15 Cascadia. I have thought it should be a problem, but after 18 yrs of driving tanker, never had an issue. Makes you wonder. But they seem to be more concerned about the weight on the drives.
I can slide the 5th wheel, but in order to take weight off the drives, and put more on the trailer. It's going to put more weight on the steers. This is assuming I'm under 80,000lbs. I'm a stickler for correct gross weight
As I'm hauling chemicals/hazmat/tanker, my 5th is higher than usual, as high as 51" But no matter what I do, I'm always showing "heavy" on the steers, but fine on drives and trailer.
I can only surmise that the scale guy isn't too bothered about the weight on the steers. I experience this in all of the states I'm going through.
And even if he called me on it, there is nothing I can do about it. But like anything else...YMMV

 

From what I've been told, the APU allowance is for gross weight only. One officer told me that it wouldn't help you on axle weights, because if you are over on an axle, either you are loaded wrong, or didnt slide the axles and 5th wheel correctly.