What weight plate do you have on your pickup?

[Dargo]

After reading through some of the threads here something made me notice the weight of the plate on my pickup. Er, um, my truck empty weighs more than what my plate says. My trailer is fine, the plate I have on it equals the rated total weight limit of the trailer, but my truck plate is apparently a wee bit light. With just me in my truck it seems to weigh just under 8000 on the scales. Now, I do have a toolbox in the bed with some "stuff" in it, but that's it at that weight.

I guess my real question is, what weight do you run on your 1 ton pickups? My plates come due fairly soon, so I'll up my weight limit on my plate. I'm just wondering how much I ought to go? The most I've ever weighed in my truck was just over 14k, and that was when I had a full bed of really heavy trap rock for landscaping. I generally don't haul that much, but I certainly will fill it with as much firewood as you can stack in a full sized long bed box. I don't know how much weight that would be, but it sure seems to be quite a bit when the wood is all red oak; which is what I generally get. So, what plate would be prudent to get?

 

[LarryRB]

Being that I have a special veteran plate issued by CT, I had no choice. THe 01 was registered as 10,000 and the new one the same.. We have "combination" plates, which is another way for them to make money,,. One can register a 1/2 ton as a car and get away cheaply.. The down side is,,, you really can't use the pick up bed or two any good sized trailer, With a combo plate, then you can do anything.. Ahh, the way for states to get extra monies.

 

[Highbeam]

I always grab the next increment above the stickered GVWR so on my pickup with a 6200 lb GVWR I purchased the 8000 lb registered weight. I could have gone to 10,000 for another 20$ per year.

 

[Ford960]

My first F-350 weighed 6650# and the dealer registered it at 7,000#. I went to the DMV and raised it to the max of 9,000# for a non-commercial plate. When I traded that truck for my present F-350 I transfered the plate to it. The new truck grosses at 8840# full fuel, hitches, tools, and two fatboys. I tow a 5th wheel camper that weighs 14,500# so when I got back here I again went to the DMV to purchase a 24,000# plate for the combined gross weight. I was told again that I didn't need to change my plate and the clerk even had her supervisor tell me that same thing. So the 9,000# plate is still on the truck 2 years later. In that time I've been all over the US pulling various trailers and have not had a problem.

 

[Dargo]

I think I'll check tomorrow what the price delta would be for me to go from my 7k plate (yeah, I know...) to either a 10k or 12k plate. I'd rather not have some ticked off DOT cop throw the book at me because my truck weighs more than my plate with nothing in it but me. I was wondering if anyone else ran a 10k or 12k plate on their 1 ton pickup. I'm thinking that a 14k plate would be too much even though I may weigh that much sometimes. Or, since that is the case, would I be better to just get a 14k plate? My trailer has a 20k plate for it. It must weigh quite a bit itself since I'm told that I only have about 13k or so loading capacity on it and still remain legal.

 

[XmasTreeGrower]

9000 lb. Commercial Farm Truck plate in NC.

That's on an F-250 that weighs 6200 lbs. wet.

Can't visualize hauling more than 2500 lbs. on a regular basis in the bed.

We don't worry about the combined truck-trailer weight in NC. Just have to have the solo truck weight right.

Thanks
Bill

 

[LBrown59]

5 Ounces

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Kentucky doesn't weight trailer tags. You just get a tag. The truck has to be tagged for GVW of entire load. I've got 22,000 lb tags on the Dodge. Tires, trailer rating,and truck rating all shook out, I can haul just shy of 20,000lbs. Tags are next step above GVW on the menu.

 

[Dallas_Lilly]

I have lived in Arizona all my life so this may sound like dumb question but why is the vehicle registration fee more for the heavier vehicles? In AZ the higher the value of the vehicle the more the registration.

 

[jarokoro]

I did not know there was a weight to the plate. My truck is registered in MI and when I traded in my 2004 CHEVY 2500 ext Cab 4x4 for a 2006 CHEVY 3500 ext Cab 4x4, I transferred plates. They seemed more interested in how much I paid then what it weighed. When I registered my trailers, they were very interested in the weight for the permanent plate. The cut off is 2500lbs, when I had my GN 12,000lb trailer built it weighed in at 2460lbs., so I got the lower price. Eventually I had some railing put on the trailer to stiffen the ride. (That is a whole another thread) By then I had the plates and since they are permanent I guess I will need to keep the receipts for the add on railing in case the DOT weight my trailer.

Some may think I was being slick but in reality I had no idea how much the trailer was going to weigh, I was more concerned about being able to haul my tractor around because it ended up taking longer to build. However, now that I think about it I don’t think I could have planned it the way it worked.