Weighing Motorhome

[sew0177]

I went to a CAT scale in Grain Vally, MO to have my motorhome weighed and unfortunatly they could only weigh the front and rear axle, could not weigh individual corners. Does anyone know of a scale that will allow me to have all 4 corners weighed in the Kansas City area?

[discovery4us]

Well said hipower. I remember a trip from CA to TX on I10 and my wife could not believe the number of tire carcasses on the road. I told here to start counting the semis coming the opposite direction and then multiple by 18 and see if she still felt the same way.

No road is level and no RV is loaded exactly the same every time. Make sure you are within weights on each and all axels and call it good.

[ArchHoagland]

sew0177 wrote:
I've been calling around and still cannot find a place to weigh it. I am going to take a trip for a few days in the next week. While I am looking for a scale to weigh the corners, can I take the axel weigh and divide by 2 to at least come close?

Absolutely.

That's how mine is weighed as I've never found a scale to be able to weigh all four corners.

I add 5 lb to the recommended weight from the Michelin chart.

10 years so far and all is well.

[hipower]

I always find these air pressure, weight distribution posts interesting and amusing.

Since I have a diverse background in commercial fleet operations from small to quite large as well as being a RV owner for over 40 years I find the thinking somewhat difficult to understand. Maybe as an owner group we have too much time to worry about things that may happen rather than other things that probably will happen.

The majority of the problems we see or hear about with tire failures or unusual wear problems are caused by underinflation or poor vehicle maintainence. Toss in some for road hazards and we have about covered the issues.

We discuss endlessly how important it is to know exactly what each corner of our motorhomes weigh yet never think that the shift of a person from one seating position to another will change that weight differential more than the difference across an axle in most coaches when weighed.

If we are logical and look at the fleet operators across our country who operate thousands of vehicles many millions of miles yearly and their goal is to have minimal tire failures. They set a fleet wide tire pressure for all similar vehicles and don't adjust that every time they are loaded or unloaded or when the altitide or temperature changes. Do they experience tire failures? Absolutely, but here again in most cases it comes from abuse from too low pressure and road hazards. We all see trucks jumping curbs with their trailer wheels frequently and forget that the places where trucks deliver daily are the best or worst places to run over things that ruin tires. On a failure per mile of operation basis a fleet will rarely experience anything close to 4-5 failures per 100,000 miles under conditions far worse than an RV ever sees. It isn't unusual to find fleet drivers travel many hundreds of thousands of miles without any tire failures. When compiling stats for safe driver awards it was enlightening to find some who had millions of miles of safe driving and they had also never had a mechanical failure while on the road.

No one expects a commercial vehicle to ride like a Lexus or even a pickup truck, but keeping pressures in a range where the tires wear evenly and trying very hard to avoid scrubbing our tires on curbs or running over things that will damage them should serve the majority of us well. Our intermittent use patterns and being parked in less than ideal places frequently causes us problems, but that is just the nature of RV usage. Beyond that diligent inspection of wear patterns and sidewalls as well as keeping tires within an age range where we know they are not dying of old age should keep most of us out of trouble.

[tropical36]

FIRE UP wrote:
sew0177,
You can go crazy trying to get those four corners weighed. I myself have really not put to much into that. Yep, there'll be a few pounds difference to be sure but, as I've stated many times, in my case, even if I did find that much difference, based on my compartment layout and, the way things are organized etc., I wouldn't change anything.

I've weighed my coach, twice and, the tire pressure chart dictates just what's supposed to be in there. I don't add anything. I figure they pretty much know what to suggest, being that THEY made the tires. The coach handles perfect, the tires wear flawlessly, the mpg is what it is. I've had those tires as much as 15 lbs. higher than what's called for and, the mileage IS THE EXACT SAME only, it rode a lot rougher. If you get it weighed, front and back, then do the math and, apply it to the recommended tire pressure for your specific tires, you'll be just fine.
Scott

Only one problem with exactness, when it comes to psi and air in your tires. It's only good for the moment you aired them up. When traveling and with the following morning, there can be quite a bit of difference in the ambient temp. between Death Valley and Yosemite NP.
Then there's a slow leak maybe that might take a day or so before you catch it and maybe ruining the tire. Adding or shifting weights around with people of other changes things as well. Most aren't of a critical nature, but then being exact isn't critical either. Just saying that IMO, you're better off with covering all the bases and variables.

[J-Rooster]

FIRE UP wrote:
sew0177,
You can go crazy trying to get those four corners weighed. I myself have really not put to much into that. Yep, there'll be a few pounds difference to be sure but, as I've stated many times, in my case, even if I did find that much difference, based on my compartment layout and, the way things are organized etc., I wouldn't change anything.

I've weighed my coach, twice and, the tire pressure chart dictates just what's supposed to be in there. I don't add anything. I figure they pretty much know what to suggest, being that THEY made the tires. The coach handles perfect, the tires wear flawlessly, the mpg is what it is. I've had those tires as much as 15 lbs. higher than what's called for and, the mileage IS THE EXACT SAME only, it rode a lot rougher. If you get it weighed, front and back, then do the math and, apply it to the recommended tire pressure for your specific tires, you'll be just fine.
Scott

X-2, My Winnebago is overweight when full of water, gas, propane, etc.

[sew0177]

wallynm ... I had just thought about that last evening. There is one just 30 min down I35. I'm going to give them a call.

[Dutch_12078]

ncrowley wrote:
The Escapees do four corner weighing at their locations. Get on their web site and see if there is a location near where you are going. I had mine done at the place NW of Phoenix. They did a great job and the price was very reasonable.

X2... We had our coach 4-corner weighed at the Escapees Sumter Oaks RV Park near Bushnell, FL.

[ncrowley]

The Escapees do four corner weighing at their locations. Get on their web site and see if there is a location near where you are going. I had mine done at the place NW of Phoenix. They did a great job and the price was very reasonable.

[wallynm]

Go west into KS and find a grain elevator.

sew0177 wrote:
I went to a CAT scale in Grain Vally, MO to have my motorhome weighed and unfortunatly they could only weigh the front and rear axle, could not weigh individual corners. Does anyone know of a scale that will allow me to have all 4 corners weighed in the Kansas City area?

[tropical36]

sew0177 wrote:
I went to a CAT scale in Grain Vally, MO to have my motorhome weighed and unfortunatly they could only weigh the front and rear axle, could not weigh individual corners. Does anyone know of a scale that will allow me to have all 4 corners weighed in the Kansas City area?

Go to a Flying J or other and do it yourself by putting half your rig on the scales at a time or just assume that both sides are near equal and when using your tire pressure chart, add 15psi for taking care of the variables.

[stripit]

sew0177 wrote:
I've been calling around and still cannot find a place to weigh it. I am going to take a trip for a few days in the next week. While I am looking for a scale to weigh the corners, can I take the axel weigh and divide by 2 to at least come close?

Maybe, maybe not. When I was weighing rv's by wheel position I found some coaches as much as 1,800 lbs different from right rear to left rear, and as much as 1,000 lbs different in front loading. Some rigs were built heavier on one corner, or one side and others just loaded with personal stuff causing that difference. Four corner weighing shows a lot of how the rig is balanced where just weighing axles will not show.

[FIRE_UP]

sew0177,
You can go crazy trying to get those four corners weighed. I myself have really not put to much into that. Yep, there'll be a few pounds difference to be sure but, as I've stated many times, in my case, even if I did find that much difference, based on my compartment layout and, the way things are organized etc., I wouldn't change anything.

I've weighed my coach, twice and, the tire pressure chart dictates just what's supposed to be in there. I don't add anything. I figure they pretty much know what to suggest, being that THEY made the tires. The coach handles perfect, the tires wear flawlessly, the mpg is what it is. I've had those tires as much as 15 lbs. higher than what's called for and, the mileage IS THE EXACT SAME only, it rode a lot rougher. If you get it weighed, front and back, then do the math and, apply it to the recommended tire pressure for your specific tires, you'll be just fine.
Scott

[imgoin4it]

Getting the weight of each axel and dividing by two for the wheel weight is better than nothing or guessing. If you do that I would air up based on that and add 5 pounds. I add 5 pounds anyway. Before I got individual wheel weights that's what I did. After I got the individual weights the reguired air pressure did not change.

[sew0177]

I've been calling around and still cannot find a place to weigh it. I am going to take a trip for a few days in the next week. While I am looking for a scale to weigh the corners, can I take the axel weigh and divide by 2 to at least come close?