Do tanker drivers need to scale out?

When hauling fuel...T/A's and some other truck stops make you weigh before you drop the product and then again afterwards. This is one of their methods to ensure they weren't cheated...on top of Veeder Root tapes and stick readings.

My Heil 5 compartment tanker and 2018 Volvo VNL300 day cab weighs 79,965lbs with 8800 gallons of gasoline...plus me and full tractor fuel and DEF. The factory setting of my 5th wheel had me 12,050 on the steers when loaded full. I had the 5th wheel moved back just one slot and it took 500 lbs off the steers.

 

When I hauled milk, I was always weighed at the terminal before I was unloaded and after to get a net load weight.

If I was filled by a farm pick up straight truck, I would not weigh until I got to a terminal, as the tank would just barely be over half full.

I think the tank would only weigh 48,000 lbs when full. I hauled a load of cream once, filled to the top. Don't recall where I got weighed on that load.

Never worried about being scaled at a coop.

 

My fifth wheel is fixed. Pin in the middle of the drive tires. I rarely weigh. I weighed like 5 times, never had an axle weight issue. The shippers weigh me out. I'm 77,300 right now.

 

I'm new to tankers. My trailer is loaded while siting on a platform scale. I have a weight ticket with every load I haul. The platform scale where I get my loads is certified every month. I've never had to go to a CAT scale for tanker.

 

I specifically excluded bulk tanker.

Going into Blue Circle at Canton Railroad at the port of baltimore, they have a big platform. Usually want 77450 gross for that short mack and 40 foot bulk trailer. They will dump cement perfectly to 77450. Now, we do not stop there, we will take it to 80000 which puts us over axle for length and so on. But the company paid good money for the 3000 pounds more.

B&B in little Rock, a small concrete ready mix company, they and I had a stormy relationship beause of the old Paystar 9800 tractor. It's so stupid that I spent even one day nursing that queen down the freeway. And another watching the redfield powerplant dump fly ash until it's almost to the hatch. Weigh it and learn that my gross is now 140000 The plant is in west little rock where I have to drag that weight up 530 to 630 west. Just getting out of Redfield with that weight is a adventure with that poor old truck.

No enforcement either. When I started saying enough is enough and pump down to 110,000 or less in Redfield just out of stuboornness and desire to be somewhat closer to legal and not hurt that old truck anymore... the bosses in that employer started giving me a hard time. Im am not 21 years old to be kicked around and abused like that.

I ended up going back to OTR. The things that little outfit in Little Rock taught me a little bit about how little to no value I had for them as a bulk driver. My 80's training held up perfect it's the equiptment problems that was a real problem. Easily solved with a proper airride tractor purchase. But no. They pour a third plant on the cheap rather than trade in the junker 9800. Shows where their priorities lie.

Im so over it. They can stick it where the sun don't shine. I sound bitter but I am not. I was a very good bulk tanker with them. Too good for them. It's silly in a way. A diamond among swine. It would be better to have a young 21 year old just out of school and not very well paid at all to learn this thing and move on when he has had enough of the same old tired truck. Maybe I care too much. The employer is made up of exactly three individuals. What they tell each other matters. The rest of us, drivers, shop men and others to them are just human materials to be used and occasionally thrown away and replaced as necessary because you do not give these three bosses any opinion of how to do things better for good of the company. They are not that kind of employer. It was such a waste of my professional skills and time to be with them.

 

I got a $10 says if the company knows there is no DOT scale / check point between the fuel farm or terminal, that dude is a few hundred over 80K.

 

With tankers hauling fuel, the fuel has a certain density eg so many pounds per gallon. so the shipper should already know what quantities to put into each compartment. At the moment we load Diesel it has a density of 839 kg per 1000 liters so all the shipper does is subtract gross weight from the tare weight to work out what quantities can be loaded. Just for scientific purposes water has a density of 1000 kg per 1000 litres. so naturally fuel is lighter than water and that is why it floats on water.