Here's a pic of my door sticker, and same 2003 E-350 Extended PSD with half a tank and me in the driver seat, at CAT scale.

I only weigh 200lbs... that I'm assuming is mostly on the steer axle.

 

Cargo maybe?

GAWR means "Gross Axle Weight Rating" and GVWR means "Gross Vehicle Weight Rating" so you can add about 1800 lbs of cargo within the capacity of the van. And the rear axle weight rating shows you have plenty of leeway to add the 1800 lbs.

I'm surprised that the front axle is already over its GAWR (very slightly) and would guess that maybe the scale is over-reading by a tiny bit if it is a completely empty van with no cargo. Do you have any added equipment on the van?

Take care,
George

 

June 2015... Can you remember what cargo you had 11 months ago?

 

There was nothing in the van.
Just me at a svelt 200lbs.

 

Then life is good except your van is a bit heavy on the front axle for some reason. I know the 7.3 is a huge and heavy engine but I would have thought Ford would have allowed some additional leeway for your twin bro in the passenger seat.

Are you sure you don't have a heavy tool box in the front of the van? Are your front tires filled with concrete instead of air?

If you load stuff at the extreme rear of the van, though, it would tend to unload the front axle. Are you missing a spare tire or rear bumper?

Again, if you are comparing your actual scale weights of an empty van to gross weights on the sticker, what you are missing is that gross weight is max loaded weight.

And total gross weight is less than front and rear gross weights added up to allow for the load being in slightly different places. Gross weight is max loaded weight. Is that your question? If not, what is the question?

One question I might have is whether this is a stripped cargo van or a passenger van/bus? And if it's the latter is it all stock as built by Ford or is it some kind of conversion with extra equipment?

George

 

I think something fishy is going on.
7500lbs "empty" for a ford van seems high, even with a Diesel engine.

And like you said George, no way is it exceeding the front GAWR in stock condition with one 200lb dude in the seat.

Also literally LOL about the twin brother comment.

Methinks this guy is missing something or else not telling us the whole story... Why is the scale papers almost a year old?

 

OK BD-Dad...I checked some of your prior posts and you have a 15 passenger Club Wagon. I assume it was weighed with all seats in place.

Found a spec panel for '03 E350 Club Wagons and it looks like total weight is 6,770 (assume the diesel is the heaviest version) and the front axle weight is 3,464, so with you it would be 3,664 lbs so the scale shows almost an extra 200 lbs.

Rear axle weight empty is listed as 3306 and your scale shows 3740 so you are about 400 lbs over what Ford says your van should weigh.

I still don't know what your question is. I believe weights shown are minus fuel, so you are about 200 lbs heavy in front and maybe not quite 400 lbs heavy in back if you have fuel in the van. So I ask if there is weight added from the factory configuration, or 600 lbs of mud caked on the chassis. Heavy undercoating? 600 lbs of stale french fries under the seats? Tools? Anything extra?

Looks like it does not come thru legibly but look at the bottom line where GVW is 9400. Here is the website:

http://www.new-cars.com/2003/ford/fo...ine-specs.html

Chart section below:

Base Curb Weights
Passengers
Total Weight (lbs.)
Front (lbs.)
Rear (lbs.)
GVWR (lbs.)

15 6,770 3,464 3,306 9,400

 

600lbs of French fries under the front seats lol.

Maybe it has 600lbs of cocaine stuffed in its crevices because it was a drug mule before you got it.

 

Strange indeed. Could the CAT scale be off? Was someone or something standing outside your truck when it got weighed?

 

Awesome.
I bought a Scarface van.

Say hello TO MY LITTLE FRIEND

Seriously. Nothing fishy.
Does it matter the slip's a year old? Pretty sure the van isn't perishable.

Airstream made a 25' Safari for a couple years that had Dexter axles that were right at their load rating... but, that was an easy fix with bolt on axles.
Not to mention it was a travel trailer. This is a passenger vehicle.

I'm gonna re-weigh to confirm.

But, is increasing front GAWR even possible on an E-350?
Is it possible Ford screwed the pooch on this?

???

 

I strongly suspect it would be impossible for ford to screw the pooch on GAWR exceeding. Seems like all of this government intrusion stuff would have too many checks and balances on that kind of thing…

However, I agree with you that it seems really odd to even be possible to exceed that on the front. Aside from a snowplow or crazy front bumper… Seems weird.

Maybe just those CAT scales are not accurate down to that weight… After all they are used for weighing trucks up to 80,000 pounds… What's the math on that? 600 pounds out of 80,000?

I just did the math, its less than 1%. Maybe that's the answer to your mystery here –> margin of error on the scale.

 

The van was empty AND very rear bench removed.
No tools, no crumbsnatchers, no French fries.

I'm 40lbs OVER the GAWR.
No buffer for cargo weight, and the drivers gotta be a race horse jockey?

 

Scale error. Seriously. Has to be. How accurate is your bathroom scale when you try to weigh a housefly?

 

That's a good point. But, the CAT fine print says something like it's accurate to +/- 40lbs. They don't give a percentage.
Hmmmm

There's several plates on the scale.
I'll do a weigh, then a re-weigh using two different plates.
See what we get.

 

Dunno.
If it's accurate,
Might explain why I was replacing the front coil springs at 55k miles. Front end was low, and I snapped off a shock mount going over a little bump.