What i still dont get is why you guys buy long nosed dumptrucks with a huge wheelbase: You'll need more ground clearance to get over the same hilltop, a longer frame is heavier which means less payload, and a long wheelbase takes a lot of space to turn it around.
.
Bridge law is a big part of the problem
In Colorado, the max you can get on a straight truck is 54,000lbs with 3 axles. Additional axles do NOT help in Colorado.. (that's just the rules in this state, many others have more with extra axles helping).
to meet Federal Bridge law with 54,000lbs in 3 axles, you have to measure 24 feet from front wheel to rear wheel. (which is effectively a wheelbase of about 22 feet or 264 inches).
In this state, almost all dump trucks have a 14, 15, or 16 foot box and rarely do you see a heavy front axle. And the reason is that most dump trucks weigh about 22,000lbs or so and can thus haul about 15 tons max. Therefore most things are 1 yard per ton, so there's no reason to have a bigger box.
However.
I haul manure and occasionally compost. Manure weighs very little (about 500lbs-750lbs/yard), compost weighs about 1000lbs (1/2 ton) per yard. I can haul 25 yards of compost and still be underweight. Everybody else only has 15/16 yard boxes and can't do that.
That's why my truck is so big. My truck is 5 feet longer than just about anything else in this state.
But I didn't have it built. It's actually a truck from Indiana where extra axles are allowed and do work to add tonnage. When I bought this truck it had two extra lift axles between the rear drives and the cab. This truck probably rated at 66,000/72,000 GVW, but it doesn't work here so I had the axles removed.
That's why MY truck is so long, because it's built for a specific job and nothing else. If i had built it (for a bazillion dollars), I would have gotten something with setback front axle and brought the rears up a foot or two. But it would still have a 20 foot box on it, and that's just going to be a big truck. I bought it because it was reasonably cheap and let me prove the business.
Just having the box built new (not the truck, just the box and installed) for a tractor of my choosing was going to be $33,000. PLUS FET (13% excise tax, plus sales tax, etc). I got this truck for $40k plus put about $13,000 into it so far. I'm still ahead. Especially when you consider any used truck you buy needs $5,000 worth of work, you just don't know what yet.
most dump trucks here in Colorado aren't this big. Nobody makes a cabover tractor anymore here in the states. You can get some cabover straight trucks, but really they are designed for garbage trucks and such.
