vehicle weights

look in the front of your atlas, it gives the weights for each state

 

OK, I guess I am getting old...too many changes, I prefer the "good ole days, stagnant, stoic, when truckers wre respected....blah, blah, blah...I will stay out here in CA, OR, WA, NV, UT, and AZ..where we firmly believe in keeping the rules old school and just drive my truck. You youngsters can have and stay abreast of all the changes>

 

I'd sure have every state listing by the DOT and not hear-say. We ran permitted truck and trailers that grossed over 105,000lbs and we still could only have 12,000lbs on the steer. That's why we ran a drop axle. Once we were loaded you had to lower the drop axle to take some weight off the steer. It worked very well because if you left it down and it was raining you'd go to turn and the truck would go straight ahead. But even with permits you had to make sure the axles and tires could take the load or the permit was useless. The company spec'd the trucks for the weight and they made sure they met all the regs including the bridge law because we ran this weight all the time.

Talk about about resale value. We ran KW T-600,425 cat, a 5000gal tank with the drop axle. We would sell our trucks every 5 years and I saw one that sold for $55,000 back in 1998. It didn't have many miles on it but what milage it did have was all street in the city miles. That truck paid for itself a couple time over.

 

Only one time did I have steers go over 12,000 pounds. Nothing I could do about it. Because, the CAT scale ticket said gross weight was 94,000 pounds.

 

a little hight on the steers 12000. 80000 gross and 34000 for the tandems leaves 12000

 

I think it's worth it to clear something up. We're having two different discussion here by accident.

The best rule of thumb for staying under GROSS is 12,000; 34,000; 34,000. However, in some situations (usually where a load has been poorly loaded) the load can safely under gross, but most of the load weight is on the tractor.

A specific example: Hauling 40' reefer cans, sometimes the genset (power unit) for the reefer was hung from the top of the nose of the can (instead of slung under the chassis). That was 1,200 lbs of fun for me, the driver. I tried to get things loaded a little heavy to the rear, but sometimes I didn't have a choice or the can was preloaded. If I left my fifth wheel back, I'd be staring at 34,500 on the drives. With a 40' chassis there's no such thing as moving the trailer tandems. So I had to slide the 5th wheel.

Snuggle that bugger up to the cab and then I've got 12,450 on the steers, 33,700 on the drives and, you know...31,000 on the trailer. Down the road we go. Knowing where I was going and knowing the rules (20,000 for steers on the interstate) saved me a lot of undue stress.

So my rule of thumb: under 12,000 if you can, a little over 12,000 if you have to, but brother, BE CAREFUL if that's what you have to do.

 

When you say 3 axle, you mean one steer and a tandem drive right?