How am I supposed to be able to drive a 43000 pound load?

@makterna
Scale your truck empty with a full tank of fuel.
That's your curb weight, or tare weight.
Subtract that from 80000 to get your max available load weight.
Example...
My truck tare weight is 27800
2019 Cascadia daycab with 5 hole heil tank trailer, all my crap and whatnot.
I can legally load 8700 gasoline or 7600 diesel and hit 80k or just under...depending on how I load my compartments.
I have to short my front compartment to keep axel weights legal though... 100 gallons of gas or 150 diesel... Otherwise I'm over on my drives.
Granted, I've been pulled into the scales weighing 80200, 34500 on my drives, and popo didn't say boo about it...
I asked a ga dot cop about it once.
He said they generally won't write a gas hauler unless they scale grossly overweight... What that means exactly, I don't know, and don't wanna find out.
I do know one of our drivers scaled 84500 with a load of biodiesel, and got popped for it.
Company paid the ticket that time.
Next load of that was 200 gallons less...

 

My exact thought…

 

I regularly put 46,500 pounds of potatoes in a 53 foot reefer trailer and take it all over the country... I dont think you kniw what your truck and trailer weigh fully fueled with no load. Mine weighs 33,300 pounds with a reefer.

 

The problem is that there is no "stock" commercial vehicles. Every one is completely custom per customers specifications from the factory.... There is no way you could account for all of the HUNDREDS of possible options and combinations in such a way to be able to reliably "Look Up" a curb weight.

 

Driver a carries tools fridge microwave dual 150 gal fuel tanks spare parts he weighs 2,000 lbs more that driver b who doesn’t even have a passenger seat and 80 gal tanks

 

The original factory weight doesn't include:

• Fuel (~700 lbs per 100 gallons)
• Chains, tools, add ons
• Driver
• Food
• Clothes
• 3" of road dirt
• etc...

The original scale weight is useful when purchasing a truck as a rough estimate but has absolutely NOTHING to do with what your legal load is. The original scale weight on the sticker is exactly that, the original scale weight at a single point in time that may be close to current weight but is invalid for purposes that don't explicitly care about the weight when a truck left the factory.

As the responsibility for being overweight almost exclusively falls solely on the driver, it is your responsibility to weigh your truck. And it is NOT just total weight as you will need to ensure you are legal for all axles and axle groups as well as the bridge formula limits (depending on state these may be higher).

The DOT officer won't care one bit what the original scale weight of the truck was when he writes you a ticket, just as he won't care about what the original tread depth was on your tires.

Weights change with time, if not by huge amounts but as driver it is our job to keep track of the current weights of the truck.

Grab one of these the next time you get pulled into a weigh station for an inspection and study it. It is our job to understand and follow it.

https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/brdg_frm_wghts/bridge_formula_all.pdf

 

My W900L 72” Aero with a 26’-32’ 5 axle steel b-train hooked to it weights 42,800 with a full load of fuel. You sure you haven’t confused some weights somewhere?

 

There is no “standard” weight. You could take 100 different trucks and spec them 100 different ways and they would all be different weights. Your truck has a stamped weight on it somewhere and it’s probably around 1000 pounds less than what your truck actually weighs.