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Have you weighed your Prevost lately?
It seem like every time I ask a salesman or an owner what their coach weighs, they come back with the gross weight. I sure hope it doesn’t weigh the gross weight since that means you can’t put anything in it without being overweight! Just curious if you have weighed your coaches, and whether you have gotten each axle weight. I do remember seeing a Prevost conversion some 12-15 years ago, and allowable weight was only about 1,500 pounds, which is not much, especially the weight DW packs!
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7 Replies
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There is no way to determine the correct tire pressures without weighing the coach when it is fully loaded with all the owner’s belongings, has full fuel, full water, and an empty holding tank.
What few do however is weight the coach during the purchase process. I have never done that, but probably should have. What we do know from hearing about weights from individual owners, plus being involved in coach weighing at a rally that most coaches are OK when loaded, but some few start out heavy, and when the owner adds his stuff it becomes grossly overweight. Maybe the gross weight is not exceeded, but an axle weight can be over the rating. In one instance at the rally weighing we saw one coach 1500 pounds in excess of its steer axle limit.
Some converters typically tend to be heavy, particularly on the steer axle. Some rarely have weight issues unless the owner is carrying heavy items. Perhaps if there is a concern about the coach weight or weight distribution it is worth while getting it weighed during a test drive.
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I put our’s on a scale before a few long trips this summer and had just put on new tires all the way around.
Steer: 15,520
Drive: 18,120
Tag: 11,260
Total: 44,900
I then visited the Prevost tire site to get the proper PSI and I was off quite a bit on tire pressures. I was full of fuel and water at the time of weighing.
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Per,
Are you saying the carrying capacity was 1,500?
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Yes, the one I looked at years ago had a carrying capacity of 1,500 pounds. But that was many moons ago. I became a bit concerned when salesmen started to get evasive about actual coach weight.
Chris, it seems you have a coach that is very lightweight.
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I weighed mine, full water, half fuel.
13,800 steer
45,700 gross
Didn’t split the rears, should have, will do that next time. -
We bought our coach from Parliment. On the drive home from Florida to Texas I stopped and weighed it on Cat scales w/1 person, 3/4 fuel, and less than1/2 in the other tanks.
Steer=12,720(14,600 is max);
drive=22,560(20,400 is max);
tag=6,060(12,000 is max);
total=41,340(GVW=47,000 + we can tow another 10,000= 57,000)
Obviously something was wrong. The tag wasn’t carrying its fair share and the drive was overloaded. The tag air bags weren’t inflating. I got home, fixed it, then re-weighed it with 2 people in the front seats, 3/4 fuel, and mostly empty holding tanks
steer=13,120(14,600 is max);
drive=19,000(20,400 ismax)
tag=8,880(12,000 is max)
Total=41,000 (GVW=47,000 + we can tow another 10,000= 57,000)
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Don makes an excellent point and in addition to knowing if something is right or wrong, he found when it was right he has plenty of room to spare. One item overlooked when a coach is out of balance is that his braking is compromised. a lightly loaded axle that is way underweight is going to have brake lock up, while an excessively loaded axle is not going to have the brake effectiveness that is needed.
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