Curb weight (American English) or kerb weight (British English) is the total mass of a vehicle with standard equipment and all necessary operating consumables such as motor oil, transmission oil, brake fluid, coolant, air conditioning refrigerant, and sometimes a full tank of fuel, while not loaded with either passengers or cargo.
For example, many European Union manufacturers include the weight of a 75-kilogram (165 lb) driver and luggage to follow EU Directive 95/48/EC.
[2] Organizations may also define curb weight with fixed levels of fuel and other variables to equalize the value for the comparison of different vehicles.
The dry weight of a motorcycle excludes some or all of the following: gasoline (or other fuel), engine oil, coolant, brake fluid, or battery.
Gross combined weight rating (GCWR) refers to the total mass of a vehicle including all trailers.
A car driver licence is limited to driving vehicles up to a maximum GVM of 4,500 kg (9,921 lb).
These restrictions may be applied for technical reasons such as load limited bridges, or as a method of reducing the number of heavy vehicles on local roads.
Commercial vehicles over the 8,500 lb threshold are required to have insurance under the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 and 49 CFR 387.303.
[10] Most U.S. and Australian commercial trucks are required by licensing authorities to have this information printed on the outside of the vehicle, and for it to be clearly visible from a specified distance.
In the United States and Canada, there are four main weight classes of trailer hitches as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE): The gross combined weight rating or gross combination weight rating (GCWR), also referred to as the gross combination mass (GCM), gross train weight (GTW), is the maximum allowable combined mass of a road vehicle, the passengers and cargo in the tow vehicle, plus the mass of the trailer and cargo in the trailer.
Examples of GAWR on common axles: In the EU and U.S. legal maximum load restrictions are placed on weight, independent of the manufacturer's rating.
In the EU a tractor can generally have 10 tonnes (22,000 lb) on a single axle, with suspension type and number of tires often allowing slightly higher loads.