I've been curious for a while how much weight I'm carrying in my 2005 Silverado 1500 extended cab 4x4. Yesterday I had to pick up a 396lb order of rebar at the local scrap metal facility.
I pulled my truck, loaded with surveying gear (minus all my wood stakes and a couple things I removed to make room for the rebar order) onto the scales that you have to go across when you enter and leave the facility. When I picked up the paperwork from the attendant inside I asked him if I could find out what my truck weighs to see if it's overloaded. He looked at his screen and said it's just over 6400 lbs/ (that's without me in it - roughly another 170 lbs with my winter gear and boots on).
Once I picked up the load and left I checked the weight rating of the truck and it is exactly 6400 lbs (1310 lbs of payload). So I was about 15 pounds over without me in the truck or the load I took back to the office. After doing the math and adding me and the rebar order I was almost 600 lbs over on that drive to the office.
I will attempt to streamline some of the extras in the truck to get it closer to where it needs to be. I'm not really worried, but I thought it was interesting because there are guys on the surveying forum who only use 3/4 tons and then other guys that say they don't understand why we would need anything more than a midsize truck. By my calculations I'm normally driving around at about 6600lbs with me in the truck. Occasionally I have a 150 lb passenger for the day on top of that.
At almost 7000 lbs the truck felt very heavy (similar to driving a loaded cube van which I've done in the past) but the ride quality was extra smooth and handling didn't seem too effected, though I was definitely going around corners slower and braking earlier.
I pulled my truck, loaded with surveying gear (minus all my wood stakes and a couple things I removed to make room for the rebar order) onto the scales that you have to go across when you enter and leave the facility. When I picked up the paperwork from the attendant inside I asked him if I could find out what my truck weighs to see if it's overloaded. He looked at his screen and said it's just over 6400 lbs/ (that's without me in it - roughly another 170 lbs with my winter gear and boots on).
Once I picked up the load and left I checked the weight rating of the truck and it is exactly 6400 lbs (1310 lbs of payload). So I was about 15 pounds over without me in the truck or the load I took back to the office. After doing the math and adding me and the rebar order I was almost 600 lbs over on that drive to the office.
I will attempt to streamline some of the extras in the truck to get it closer to where it needs to be. I'm not really worried, but I thought it was interesting because there are guys on the surveying forum who only use 3/4 tons and then other guys that say they don't understand why we would need anything more than a midsize truck. By my calculations I'm normally driving around at about 6600lbs with me in the truck. Occasionally I have a 150 lb passenger for the day on top of that.
At almost 7000 lbs the truck felt very heavy (similar to driving a loaded cube van which I've done in the past) but the ride quality was extra smooth and handling didn't seem too effected, though I was definitely going around corners slower and braking earlier.