DNC wrote:
On such a heavy truck, you can blow way past your 10,000 lbs easily. Does that mean the truck can't handle it? No. You will likely be under your rear axle rating if you stick to a trailer with a gross of 12,000lbs or under. But will you be over GVWR? Yup...sure will if you approach that much trailer. Will the truck care? Probably not. Will the DOT care if you were sent to the scales? Yup...and they'll be happy to drain your wallet of all remaining cash. The latter is unlikely to happen unless you LOOK overloaded.
Actually DOT doesn't use the truck mfg GVWR for how much load the truck can legally carry. Your right about looking overloaded however dot will look at over loading the trucks axle/tire capacities. If the dot officers home state requires a weighted tag or a registered weight he may look at that also.
In my state (and other states that don't register private use trucks at any weight) a higher registered weight gets the out of state truck owner nothing.
Having hauled for a living I'm a firm believer I can have too much truck.