Truck Weight – actual weight vs. advertised weight

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I’m suddenly fascinated by truck weighing, weights and seeing how things add up. I was “lucky” that I got to take 1,500 pounds of yard waste to the dump today. The fun part is that I got to go across the dump’s scales.

On my way in, loaded – I weighed 10,020 pounds.

On my way out, without the load in the bed – I weighed 8,500 pounds right on the nose.

First, that’s a lot of yard waste. No wonder my back hurts. Baby boy better appreciate the back breaking work we’re doing getting ready for his 1st birthday!

CAT Scale
CAT Scale
Second, now I get to geek out on numbers are bit. This 8,500 pounds consisted of:

What’s now fun about this is playing the “let’s compare this against what’s advertised”:

  • Advertised dry weight of the truck, 7,872 pounds (from Ram Body Builder Guide)
  • Taking my weight out of play, that means I have 363 pounds of “add-ons and stuff” that are always there (truck weight – advertised dry weight)
  • Yellow/white sticker advertised payload, 4,297 pounds
    • Interestingly and showing how factory options matter: my yellow/white sticker is less than the Ram Body Builder Guide advertised payload capacity of 4,430 pounds (we opted for just about everything – heavy duty alternator, bed liner are the two that come to mind right out of the gate)
  • Available payload capacity with just me and some stuff, 3,800 pounds (GVWR of 12,300 – truck weight of 8,500)
  • Proving that the yellow/white sticker includes a 150 driver — 3,800 pounds of available payload + 115 pounds of my weight that is over 150 pounds + 363 pounds of “stuff” equals 4,278 which is awfully close to the printed payload of 4,297 pounds

I think what all of this reaffirms is – you never really know what stuff weighs until you get out to a scale and get weighed. Quarry, dump, bulk landscape company, or CAT scales are all possible places to get weighed.

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