The "real" capacity of a 26000 lbs. GVW moving truck

[puckgrinder85]

i dont think you can ever load one to their capacity unless you loading logs or metal or a bunch of books in there. House hold stuff just does not weigh that much for the volume it occupies.

I agree, you'd have to be moving some odd **** to load that truck up that much.

 

[ultrarunner]

In scouts we had a paper drive and a moving company let the scout master use one of their trucks... we had it loaded solid with newspapers... the rear tires started to rub... guess it was too much?

 

[Alexdm]

Preface: I'm not planning on overloading the truck, I'm just curious.

I'm getting ready to move soon, so I'm looking at renting a moving truck, trucks like these that have stated GVW's at or just 26,000 lbs.:

22 ft. - 26 ft. Diesel Non-CDL Cargo Vans - Penske Truck Rental
Moving Truck Rentals & Add Ons | Budget Truck Rental

As I understand it, driving a truck with a GWV over 26000 lbs. requires a CDL, but as an engineer I know that things don't often come out to nice round numbers like 26,000. So is the GVW on these trucks understated so that they can be driven without a CDL?

That is, are these the same as a nearly-identical truck that requires a CDL and has a higher GVW?

The tare weight of a Penske 26 foot non-liftgate truck is 15,241 pounds. The tare weight is tough to get from Penske. Not that they're avoiding the topic, but the folks who answer the phones just don't know. After multiple calls and wildly different answers, I got to a Penske service department, where they were able to look up the tare weights. Add 50 gallons of diesel at 7.5 pounds per gallon and a 200 pound driver, and you have an "empty" truck weight of 15, 816 pounds, meaning you can put 10,184 pounds of cargo in the truck without exceeding the 26,000 GVW rating of the truck and the limits of a non-CDL driver. The tare weight of the liftgate 26 foot Penske trucks are 16,108 pounds (International) and 16,242 pounds (Freightliner), so by the same calculations, the max payload is a bit over 9000 pounds for this "10,000 pound" truck. Data is current as of June, 2017.

 

[newbury]

Preface: I'm not planning on overloading the truck, I'm just curious.

I'm getting ready to move soon, so I'm looking at renting a moving truck, trucks like these that have stated GVW's at or just 26,000 lbs.:

22 ft. - 26 ft. Diesel Non-CDL Cargo Vans - Penske Truck Rental
Moving Resources | Budget Truck Rental

As I understand it, driving a truck with a GWV over 26000 lbs. requires a CDL, but as an engineer I know that things don't often come out to nice round numbers like 26,000. So is the GVW on these trucks understated so that they can be driven without a CDL?

That is, are these the same as a nearly-identical truck that requires a CDL and has a higher GVW?

The tare weight of a Penske 26 foot non-liftgate truck is 15,241 pounds. The tare weight is tough to get from Penske. Not that they're avoiding the topic, but the folks who answer the phones just don't know. After multiple calls and wildly different answers, I got to a Penske service department, where they were able to look up the tare weights. Add 50 gallons of diesel at 7.5 pounds per gallon and a 200 pound driver, and you have an "empty" truck weight of 15, 816 pounds, meaning you can put 10,184 pounds of cargo in the truck without exceeding the 26,000 GVW rating of the truck and the limits of a non-CDL driver. The tare weight of the liftgate 26 foot Penske trucks are 16,108 pounds (International) and 16,242 pounds (Freightliner), so by the same calculations, the max payload is a bit over 9000 pounds for this "10,000 pound" truck. Data is current as of June, 2017.

Alex - Do you realize mystryda posted that back in 2012?

Good info, but a little late