Gross Weight Vs. Actual Weight For RV Title

[MarkyDee]

Originally Posted by Twigg

Reciprocity works in Canada too.

If you are legal in Indiana, you are legal in Canada.

I would appreciate a reference to Canadian law somewhere stating that.... Do you have something like that, or know where I can start looking for that?

[Ronnie]

Weigh stations... To be clear, the state operated ones with highway patrol officers I would not go to unless required to. They are after all looking for violations. They can be training new officers.. this is bad... have had it happen to me. Charged for over weight on an empty truck, as well as some other things I never heard of.

Safe weigh stations to go to are truck stops, expect to pay about $10 or so. local gravel yards will often weigh for free if you do not need a weigh slip. Expect to pay if you do need a certified weight. My local one will do either.

As for driving onto the scale use your lowest gear and idle on, stop nice and easy, and be sure your axles are not on the same section of scale.

What weight to put on the title; once you have an actual weight, this can be your empty weight. Then you need to add whatever supplies, luggage, people you could have for the gross weight. In Virginia we have to add the trailer weight to it as well. So as an example if I am planning to pull my boat I add that weight to the gross as the gross combined weight, and that it what it gets registered for. In my case that is 17,000 or so empty weight, just for safe measure 2000 more for water, fuel , people , supplies, and 10,000 for the boat, for a grand total of 29,000lbs. Check with your state and see if anything towed needs to be added or not if you plan to tow.

[Twigg]

Originally Posted by MarkyDee

I would appreciate a reference to Canadian law somewhere stating that.... Do you have something like that, or know where I can start looking for that?

I had a quote from Ontario that stated it unequivocally.

Ontario is a province that requires an air-brake endorsement.

I guess Google is your friend.

[Mountain Gnome]

To clarify:

The feds require a CDL only if you drive across state lines with a commercial vehicle used for commercial purposes.

The individual states require a CDL only if you use the vehicle for commercial purposes within the state you are driving in. They may require a weight endorsement (or multi-passenger endorsement) on any vehicle. Many do not if it is registered/titled as a private RV/Motorhome (CA does), but then you may be limited to carrying only family members in your vehicle (no friends). I just say we are all related, back to Africa, or an Alien test-tube.

[PNW_Steve]

Hey Casey,

I have registered and insured two buses in WA over the last 18 months.

In both cases the folks at the licensing office simply asked me how much they weighed and took my word for it.

I had to sign an "affadavit of conversion" and they were titled as RV's. They are insured through State Farm as commercial vehicles for personal use. The insurance will change to RV when the conversion is complete.

Where are you located? I am in Dayton. We also have members in Clarkston, Walla Walla, Tri-Cities and Yakima.

[o1marc]

For those worried about going to a weigh station on the road check out any salvage yard in your area. They pay you for your salvage metal by weight and have a large truck scale and will weigh for free.

[Kubla]

One other rule you have to worry about is that you have max axle weights that do not apply to school buses, 12000 front axle, 20,000 rear single axle, municipal vehicles are exempt from these rules, school buses are classed as municipal in places