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Has anybody else got (or has had) one of these on the driver’s side door of their truck? I have a ‘74 F-250, cosmetically all original. I’ve always been curious about it; looks factory, but I’ve never seen another one. Thanks for any input .🍻
I've never owned one, but used to see them all the time around here and out on the road in other states. At one time there was a fairly involved discussion about it too, but I don't remember if there was a consensus or not.
I believe it to be a commercial holdover for when trucks mostly got used to haul stuff and in some states were even required to stop at truck scales on the highways. Maybe pickups don't have to anymore, but they did in some areas in the past. The decal makes it easier for the patrol to see without getting out of the office and questioning the owner. A big-rig may have a known capacity based on just the number of axles or the box length and tractor size, but pickup trucks had multiple GVWR's for them to contend with and they wanted to make sure that nobody was overloading unsafely on the road.
I don't think it was a factory thing, but could easily have been a dealer item. More likely the company that owned the truck for commercial use did it themselves.
But maybe someone has a link to that other discussion that could clear things up.
Oh, and does it accurately represent your truck's GVWR?
I believe back then that 8,000lbs was the max for a 250, but not sure. I know they kept getting heavier duty almost every couple of years, but not sure where the limits were.
If it's a heavy-duty F250 then it's even more likely it was originally bought to do work. Does yours have the extra "overload springs" or whatever they're called? That would be the additional spring or three on top of the main leaf pack, with bump-pads mounted to the frame.
A few of my Washington trucks have those stickers ranging from 6000 to 8000. Multiple states required them back in the day. It seems to me that the western trucks tend to have them.
If I remember right, it had to do with registration fees and taxes and whether the truck needed to pull into the scales located on highways. Trucks were, and may still be, taxed based on vehicle weight.
At one point, most if not all trucks in Washington state were required to display the maximum GVW for their class which is not the same as the maximum rating for the actual vehicle. The most common decals I remember seeing on pickups were 6000 and 8000 and maybe one that said under ? pounds.
My F250 SuperCab is labeled by Ford as having a GVWR of 7500 pounds. It weighs 5400 empty. That leaves 2100 pounds for fuel, driver and load. The state of Washington required it to display a 8000 pound decal on both sides.
