sliding tandems

^ What he said. The key is if the pallets all weigh about the same and it's evenly loaded.

 

That is how I do it every time with dry van and load under 40,000lbs.---and never once have I had a problem. But hey OP; I am me, and you are you...do what you want. Your profile still says you are a student...so until you get some experience 'eyeballing' loads---weigh that thing.

 

99% of the loads will scale with the tandems set at the 41' mark.. Always set the tandems at the shortest required setting for the states the load travels through.. BEFORE loading. I picked up a load that was supposedly 15,000 lbs of plastic vacuum cleaner parts.. set the axles at the 41 foot mark and headed to the closest scales on route.

At the scales the weights were 10,500, 15,500 and 40,600... the load had 15k of plastic.. and 16 skids of electric motors.. they were not manifested

The smartest thing is to ALWAYs set the tandems and scale the loads..

 

scale and then slide to the problem

 

The scale fee is deductible even if the OP pays it. Like Balakov said, a ticket will take a lot longer and cost a whole lot more than a scale. What if he has to crossdock to lighten some load, how long and how much is that? Most shippers know what they've loaded, but it's not their trip, and it's not their CDL. If you don't scale, you don't know. You can tell a lot by how your truck rides down the highway, though. You'll figure it out, no problem. I usually run my first pin 10 holes back, then scale if I get something heavy. I like to run the drives a bit heavier than the tandems, if my axle weights are flexible enough.

 

I scaled a load Monday night that was 100 lbs. over on the tandems. I told myself every excuse I could think of, it was only 100 lbs, the weigh station is always closed when I pass it at that time of the night, even when it's open I always get a green light...

But it would have been obvious I hadn't fixed it out of laziness. Ohio can be a cast iron b#### over the small stuff. I bumped back a hole and was good. Sure enough, the scalehouse was open, and they pulled me in. The 5 min. it took to adjust the weight was well worth it in peace of mind.

 

Question: do all trailers have similar tandem mounting rails, for lack of a better term? For instance, is 12 holes back the same point on all trailers, when measured from the rear? I assume the kingpins on most vans are in the same spot also?
Thanks

 

Really thankful we have the Right Weigh system on all our tactors and trailers. The ones on the trailers can be iffy at time but I know the gauge on my dash is dead on for my drives.

 

Some trailers have larger spaces between the holes so other then that they both use rails but will weigh different if set in same holes.