Sliding a trailer tandems the best way to do it. . .

Yeah, I dont try to spend too much time equalizing the wieghts. The only exception is when I have to drive over an icy mountain pass i like to have as much weight on the drives as possible since i was told numerous times that a trailer skid is a lot easier to recover from than a drive axle skid.

 

That's true, not a doubt about it. But I'm kinda gutless sometimes. LOL

Should have mentioned as well, that if I have to have a large difference in weight, be it icy, wet, or dry, I do prefer it to be on the drives.

 

Equalizing weights on drives and tandems is mostly about minimizing your fuel burn. If your company and your pocketbook don't care then it doesn't matter. But yeah, the excess goes on the drives.

 

So, having more weight on the tandems can hurt mileage?

 

Yes. It's better fuel wise to even the weights out as more weight on the drives=more fuel to turn the drive shaft! Also the ride is better if drive and tandem are close to equal! More weight kept on the drives also equals more wear and tear on the suspension.

 

Thanks Rollover for the navigation help with my search on the forum. Being used to running 48' 100yd trailers with fixed tandems never had to worry about the art of wieghts & measures you folks deal with. Especially with a 100K over wieght permit.

 

Yup... you got it - plus what Rollover said.

Get a notebook, keep track of your fuel burn and mileage. What I do when I'm trying something different is to break-up a trip into legs... like between P-stops. Figure your leg mileage, and the overall mileage.

So do what you're doing, get a good feel for your mileage, then try ONE thing different. If your mileage gets better, keep it. If it doesn't, toss the idea, and move on to something different.

I've heard people say that YOU are responsible for 30% of the mileage a truck gets. The keys are to keep track of your mileage religiously, WRITE it down so you're not guessing, try new things long enough to KNOW whether it works for you, and only try ONE thing different at a time.

 

Not much experiance in spread's but one thing I can tell you is that they are a pain in the arse to back into a hole. Especially if the lot is uneven or pitted with pot holes because your tunring pivot will change from the front to the back axle or vise versa as one axle end's up on higher ground than the other. You can get set up perfect and start your back. Everything look's good but then the weight shift's from say the rear axle to the forward axle so you are no longer guiding the rear axle, your guiding the forward axle which mean's the axle just gave you a #### load tail swing that wasn't there before. The tires on the other axle are still touching the ground but there's not enough weight on it to steer it and it will change back and forth across uneven ground. That's why I choose not to mess with them. If I do ever get the itch to pull flat bed it will be one with a slider or a step deck with both axles together stationary. Pardon me if this seem's confusing. If it is maybe someone here can better explain it than I can.

 

Only thing is, some of these truck's no matter what you do alway's ride like ####. Even a brand new Freightliner Century that I had over at FFE. Roughest ridin' #### truck I've ever drivin'.

 

If it's that rough have the equalizer checked. It could be set wrong putting to much air in the bags making it ride "hard" or even the cab bags might be wrong. Every Century I had rode pretty well and especially the Cascadia! That thing handled like a charm with that rack and pinion steering! But one question. Do the trailers have air ride? If not that's your problem! The spring suspension transfers a lot of "bounce" to the tractor!