I was always told that exceeding the weight rating would get you a ticket.
Well, in a commercial motor vehicle, you would. That's just one of many FMCSA trucking regulations that people mistakenly try to apply to non-CMVs, either because of reasoning, common sense, or most likely, the ever-ubiquitous "common knowledge."
I still believe that everyone should weigh their vehicle to know what the real curb weight is.
Absolutely. And they should very rarely exceed it. And when they do they should know by exactly how much they are exceeding it. The closer you are to maxing out, or exceeding your GVWR, the more stress and wear & tear you put on the vehicle. Transmission, suspension, wheel bearings, cooling system, not to mention fuel mileage, they are all affected. Like FlyingVan said, why would you want to abuse your van like that?
The goal shouldn't be to see how heavy you can load, it should be to see how often you can avoid loading heavy at all. My last eight loads: 18,1200, 325, 800, 72, 500, 3, 103. All those loads paid the same as 3000 pound loads.
Now that's what I'm takin' about!
