Exactly - mine for instance is a 10k GVW, even tho it's about as heavy-haul as they came from the factory, with the cooling and wiring upgrades and all...

 

i've had just over 8k in the bed of mine in rock... but i have overloads too... helps some.. tires were bulging is the only reason i didnt go more...

 

That is why I have my 86 F250 registered at 20,000 pounds with commercial plates.

 

That sounds spendy.

And then would I be required to have a CDL?

-Matt

 

You shouldn't, as you're still under the 26k lbs limit. You may have to get commercial plates and insurance and US DOT number tho... Honestly I'd stay away from all this mess, which is why I no longer haul cars - I never made enough on those runs to cover what commercial tags and insurance would cost, so nowadays at most I'll move one vehicle at a time, on back roads, and under the cover of night...

 

You will find a registered weight on you registration card.

Now take the truck to a set of scales and get the lite weight.

Subtract the lite weight from the registered gross weight and you have your legal payload weight limit.

Your lite weight should include passengers, fuel and everything you normally carry when you are hauling your wood.

Commercial plates and insurance cost about 5 times what regular plates cost.
Or put it another way, they cost about what one overweight ticket would cost.

If you pull a trailer, the truck plate gross weight needs to be equal to or above the weight of the truck, passengers, trailer and all cargo on both vehicles weigh.
RV's are exempt from this.

 

its cheaper than getting busted lol.
check here:
http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistr...tvehweight.pdf

where i am,the truck's weight alone puts me above passenger plates lol.so id be breaking the law every time i tried going anywhere just running empty if i registered it as a passenger vehicle.

its important to know your local laws:
http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/fees.html

 

Here in Maine, Any vehicle 6k and over has Commercial plates, You can either do <10k or 10k to 25,999, 26k and up requires Air brakes.

There are two options for the Commercial plates:NON Commerce is basically the same as a normal car registration, a few dollars more, it is for non business activities ... Local racer towing his car(s) to the track, just can't haul anyone else's for $$$. (Yea right )

Commerce gets real expensive real fast.

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

Do you register your trailers with the DMV there? If so, does the fee depend on the trailer weight? We register them by weight here, say the trailer will be 10k or more then you pay a $300-something one-time fee and get your lifetime plate and you're good to go - as long as the trailer weight loaded don't exceed your registration (say 12k with an 9,999 lbs plate) there will be no hassle from the staties. Which means as explained to me by a statie, that I can pull my buddy's gooseneck safely provided I don't have too much load too far forward to where it exceed my truck's 10k registration, and my total loaded weight don't exceed the 17k manufacturer's limit (both easily checked at the Cat scales).

 

I think i've got it figured out law-wise.

Here's the table for personal registration:
http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistr...tvehweight.pdf

And if i want commercial registration, here's the table for those:
http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistr...rossweight.pdf

So I'm a little bit confused still but it looks like either way i go, to declare it at 12,000 pounds i'm somewhere under $100.

I think i'm going to buy a trailer and haul 1 chord on the truck and up to 2 on the trailer. It'd be nice to have a heavy dual axle flatbed trailer anyway, to haul my '67 mustang around on.

 

Boy they sure make it confusing... Or I just can't comprehend properly today..

So if we say my truck weighs 6,000 LBS
My plates are registered for 8,000 LBS
And I have a trailer that weighs in at 7,000 LBS loaded

A. Does that mean to hook the 7k lb trailer up to my 6klb truck I should really have my truck licensed for 13K or better?

B. OR, is it as long as the weight of the truck plus the tongue/gooseneck/5th wheel load on the truck is less than 8K I'm ok?

Thanks for clearing it up!
Chris

 

Call the DMV and ask them - a state trooper told me that I'm good as long as I register the trailer for more than I normally haul and when I weigh in the axle loads add up to less than the truck's registered weight and overall weight is less than manufacturers limit.

 

trailer laws vary so much from state to state it'll drive you nuts, look it up locally, if you cross state lines often might want to check the regs on both states

 

Here if you had a 6,000 pound truck pulling a 7,000 pound trailer with 8,000 pound plates on the truck, you would get a ticket for 5,000 pounds overweight.

A trailer that would be towed behind a pickup, one plate cost, no weight listed on the registration.
A trailer that would be towed behind a semi, one plate cost, no weight listed on the registration.

The power unit has to be registered for the gross weight of the entire vehicle as it is rolling down the road.

So when you pull on the scales, all passengers, fuel and cargo are part of the gross weight of the vehicle.

Way back when I started driving cross country, this state had this law for axle weight, total weight, length and height.
As soon as you crossed to the next state those limits were probably different.

In the 80's most states went to 80,000 pounds for a 5 axle semi with axle limits of 34,000 on the tandems and 20,000 on the steering axle except Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas which stayed at 73,280 pounds gross with 32,000 on the tandems and 20,000 on the steer axle.

So the western shippers all wanted you at 80,000 gross when you left there, the consignee's all wanted 80,000 pounds gross when you got to your delivery point since they got more shipped for less money.

So that left us poor truckers out there running scales taking big detours to get across the center of the country.

Course when they caught you, the fine came out of the owner operators pocket.
Nothing more than a big cash cow for the states that stayed at 73,280 pounds gross weight.

Out west bridge laws were used to determine how much weight you could carry, long trucks could carry more weight.
Back east, with the narrow roads, tight congested cities overall lengths were restricted to 50 or 55 feet, or slightly more than the 52 foot trailers they are running today.

Add all the fuel stickers you had to have to run through each state since you may buy more fuel than you used in that state and less than you used in the next state you were basically paying to import or export fuel from each state.

Pa. was 309 miles across, so I better buy 61.8 gallons of fuel in Pa.
Ohio was 223 miles across, so I had to buy 44.6 gallons there.
Indianna was 156 miles across, so I had to buy 31.2 gallons there.

If I did not buy that amount of fuel, I had to pay the highway use tax on the fuel I burned in each state that I imported from another state.

However the state I bought to much fuel in would refund the highway use tax on the fuel I bought there that was over and above what I burned there, course the refund came with the lightning speed of your income tax return in those days, 4 or 5 months.

So you think things are confusing today, you should have been out there in the 70's.

Moral of the story, check with the DMV of any state you plan on running through with a trailer or loaded truck if it looks like it may be business use.
There is a 99.2% chance that you not knowing the laws will cost you money when you cross a state line.