What's the max weight of loads for dry van?

A lot will depend on how heavy your tractor is.

The heaviest I've ever put in a dry van was roughly 46,660 lbs. My cat scale ticket said 79,998. Tractor was a Freightliner Columbia.

Recently I dragged a load home from Washington that had me at 80,360 with full tanks. My Volvo 780 with full tanks and a dry van with full aero doo dads weighs about 33,800. So that load was about 46,560, (44,090 claimed on the BOL!)

 

Too many factors to really answer your question.

Truck model. Truck specs. Engine type. Tire type/size. Wheel type/size. Fuel tank type/size. How much personal effects one carries. Etc. Etc. It all affects the weight of the truck. Two identical appearing trucks sitting side by side can be thousands of pounds different in weight. And then the differences in trailers add to it.

A good ballpark load weight is probably 42,000 lb. But to really know for sure, top off your tanks and roll onto a scale with an empty trailer.

(EDIT: But that number comes from my experience with pulling older trucks and trailers. I have no idea how much lighter the newer stuff really is)

 

When I drove a fleet-speced Volvo 670, I could load about 47500 with a newer light-weight Wabash trailer. 600-700 less with a older Great Dane trailer. My KW T680 maxed out at about 46000.

 

When I hauled RR cans years ago, we were suppose to be able to scale 46K, which was doable in a van ( if the weight was correct) Some containers ( and chassis) weighed as much as a reefer, ( and fixed axles) so lots of going around the scale with those.

 

There's nothing like picking up a heavily loaded trailer at a company terminal with paperwork that includes a CAT scale ticket showing close to 80K gross, only to find out it was scaled with a day cab.

 

I had a Freightliner FLD daycab that weighed 17,500 with fuel, and a 379 that weighed 18,500 full of everything, including food for the week. You would think a day cab would be more than 1,000 lbs lighter than a sleeper!

 

I believe it. I think the weight difference between that Freightliner I drove and my truck now was only a few hundred pounds, 500 tops.

 

A friend of mine and I have the same exact truck. Differences are the engines, fuel tanks, and mine has an APU. Our weight difference was about 2,000.