How to weigh a car with bathroom scales
Have you ever wanted to weigh your car but don’t have access to an industrial size scale? While there may be different reasons why you want to weigh your car we know that it can be done using bathroom scales. While the task may seem complicated it can be done on your driveway.
How to weigh a car with bathroom scales? First start make sure you have some bathroom scales available. You should have 10 scales so you evenly distribute the weight. See all of the tools required below.
| Image | Name | Features | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Bathroom scales | 10 required. 400lb capacity each | |
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Car Jack | Use to lift the car | |
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Wheel Chocks | Use to keep the car from rolling | |
 |
Lumber | At least 1/2″ thick |
Initial Weighing
The first step is to do some initial weighing. This includes seeing how much fuel you have in the vehicle. Make a note which can be used to calculate the weight in a later step. After this make sure that you remove all of the items that you will not normally have in the car. Things like bags, accessories and other non-essential items.
Lifting the car
Next you will want to lift one corner of the car. Using the jack you can raise the car enough so that you can fit the scales and a piece of wood underneath the wheel. Make sure that you are jacking up the car based on your user manual. Also be sure that there will be adequate room to get the scales and wood underneath without hitting the jack.
Placing the scales
After you have the car high enough place two scales side by side with the block of wood on top. Lower the car and place wheel chocks to prevent the car from rolling. You can then repeat the steps to the last three wheels. If you have an issue where you are getting a scale error you may have to up the scale count in that certain area. ie. use 3 scales instead of only 2. This will increase the weight capacityh by 400lb.
Getting a reading
When the scales are all in place you can tap on them to turn them on. For each corner add up the readings for the scales. When you get the weights for all four corners you can add them all together to get your vehicle weight.
Getting the exact weight
The last thing we have to do is account for how much fuel is in the car. First off find out how many gallons your fuel tank holds. If you have half a tank left multiply the capacity by .5 to get how many gallons of fuel are in your car.
A typical gallon of gas weighs 6lbs. Multiple 6lbs by the remaing gallons in your car and you will get the weight of the gasoline. With your vehicle’s weight minus the weight of the gasoline to get a pretty accurate car weight.
Final thoughts
If you were wondering how to weigh a car with bathroom scales, hopefully our guide provided you a practical way to get it done. With this information you can figure out things like your power to weight ratio and other specifications. Let us know in the comments if you weighed your car using this method.
