Im about to purchase a new dually. Rams these days have a 23-24,000 gcwr. Which leaves around 16-17,000 pounds for towing. Im starting up a car tote biz and my avg load will be 20,000. I do plan on getting my CDL within a year so I can move up to a bigger truck maybe like a F650. ( no worrys. i wouldnt buy 1 with the 6.0 or 6.4.)
ANYWAYZ, my total weight with trailer will be around 26,000 pounds. I will have proper insurance and blah blah blah, but im breaking the rams gcwr everyday. What were to happen if I were to get caught at a weighh station or if i were to get in a wreck. I will be towing by gooseneck!! Any info would be nice on how rams duallys do this all day long. Does it work like dont let DC know im toting around 20,000 pounds and dont tote more then 26,000 on the highways cause of DOT purposes without a CDL. Kinda like a catch 22?? PLEASE HELP

 

DOT takes the GVRW from your truck and trailers both and adds them together. That being said your going to have to get your class A CDL if your load is 20k including trailer weight because your total GVRW will be 31000LBS or so. It doesn't matter what you have tagged your truck DOT doesn’t go by that. Anything over 26000 LBS GVRW truck and trailer combined requires CDL class A in combination. If your truck is 11500 GVRW then your trailer has to have a 14500 GVRW to get around the 26k weight restriction. That would only allow you to run 2 cars or small trucks at a time. I run 48' flatbeds not car haulers so talk to some of those guys and see how much the trailer weighs empty and how many that load. Good luck on your new line of work.

Mark

 

Thanks, i decided im going to dmv in a week and get my CDL. im already studying for it now at home. This way i will get lower insurance premiums and not have to worry about breaking the 26 limit. Thanks for all your guys help!!!

 

Just chiming in here kinda blindly...

If your tire ratings are high enough, the limit of your GCVW would be your axles, Bags needed of course and good trailer brakes.

But if the F650 has the same engine as our Dodges what is the advantage to the F650 other than not needing to upgrade the suspension?

 

Bags will be on order, wither brake controller too. As for the F650, comes with multiple engine upgrades from stock being 6.0PS to the 6.4 now, then the 5.9 to 6.7, and ultimatly the cat motors. Not only is suspension upgraded too, but front and rear end, and frame too. Comes with a allyison tranny. They are bad *** trucks with the cat motor in them. GVWR of 26000 with tow ratings of 76000. Now that is 1 bad *** truck. Not to mention 2 106 gallon tanks!!!!

 

With a Cat engine your going to need those twin 106gal tanks. The good news is that engine is know to be good for 1,000,000 miles too.

Mark

 

It's ALL LEGAL 'TIL you get caught

 

If you haul trailers that are obviously commercial (multi car trailers) in CA you WILL get caught ($10,000 fine). Trust me, I get stopped by CAHP DOT enforcment at least every other month here in Socal and I'm legal!!. The best thing to do is figure the max GVW you will be rollin at (it sounds like about 36-40k for you), get your class A and register the truck for 40,000lbs GVW, it'll cost around 4-5,000 a year to get the truck registered but they give you a cool little "CA-40" sticker for the side for your doors!!!!

As far as the truck is concerned i would not be worried about overloading it as long as you are equipped for the extra weight (bags or springs or both and brakes!!!). I regularly pull goosneck flatbeds that weigh 25-30K in my 04.5 3500, after a run in with the CA Highway Patrol DOT division a couple years ago I got my class A and the truck is registered for 40K GVW. The only other thing they seem to care about is the sidewall weight ratings of your tires. Good Luck!!

 

I plan on getting my cdl within a couple more weeks, Im just studying some free websites and then im going to the dmv to take the free test!!!! from there i will have my 180 day permit to take the actual driving test which cost less then 100 bucks. As for my load, my load on the 3500 07 im getting will max out at 20,000 at the most since the trailer is only a 20000gvwr too. I figure total weight with truck will avg around 26000 pounds. Should I still do that registration thing?? Which website can i look that stuff up on??? Thanks

 

Brakes
Gearing (some will say that's not an advantage)
Suspension (as you mentioned)
Tires
Allison option (I say that's not an advantage)
etc...