If I knew for a fact that my gross is not going to be over, and the weight is easy enough to figure out to know that I have a little more weight on the rear than the front, I don't need to scale. If the stuff I'm carrying is a little complicated and I'm not sure where the weight is, it's a good idea to scale. As for the weight between the two rear axles, our trailer are set up to balance the weights between the axles, so it should be fine. Sometimes there is a problem, and the weights won't be the same, and the trailer needs to get into the shop. Our trailer regularly scale at our yard, which is a single axle scale, so it should get noticed pretty quickly if there is a problem. So if I pick one up outside of the yard, I'm not bothering to try to figure out the weights between the two. If I was for some reason loaded over 38 in the back, I probably would. BTW, the other nice thing about air suspension is you can have air scales set up on the truck and trailer. They aren't perfectly accurate, but if my truck says I'm under 33 on the drives, and I know I'm not going to be over gross, I can be confident I'm ok.
http://catscale.com/how-to-weigh Ask the scale master at the truck stops if you can look at their laminated copy. Good luck though, most employees working at these places have no training on scaling.
In the old days some people (certainly not me ) would occasionally "hide" weight by playing with dump valves while crossing the scales, unless they were a full platform. Occasionally, scale masters would split weigh spread axles to keep us honest. Some creative drivers had dumps on each of their drives as well, and would play the same game by pulling weight off of the steering when it crossed, then leveling for the drives. Ah, the good old days!
I was told that with split axle your axle weight difference should be around 1,000lb or so since there's valve that should distribute weight between two axles.
In theory they should be equal, and as mentioned earlier, if they are off by more than a few hundred pounds something needs attention (suspension bushings for example).
Has anyone weighed a spread like cat shows? Do the cashiers know what they're doing? Do they just charge the one fee?
I have Here is on level pads. Nothing raised. drove on weight on pad 1 and 2 Then move to weigh 2 and three
As long as the frame that everything is hooked to is relitively level this is true. If you have a bunch of sag created by loading something really heavy ahead of the spread the air ride will not compensate for it. If you run under the false impression the air ride will even it out you'll be a ticket waiting to happen. This is a lot of the reason they build camber into a trailer.
