180 kg397 lb
A T-800 weighs about 180 kg, or 400 lb. The number comes from the films, but only once: in Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), Sarah Connor asks the T-800 called Carl how his wife hasn’t noticed he weighs 400 pounds. The first two films never give a figure, and other sources disagree.
| The Terminator #1, NOW Comics (1988)Ad copy: “Five hundred pounds of unstoppable terror”, for a Terminator in 2031 | 227 kg500 lb |
|---|---|
| Carl in Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)Sarah Connor’s line: 400 pounds | 181 kg399 lb |
| Full-size endoskeleton puppet, The Terminator (1984)100 lb, with steel supports inside; Stan Winston Studio | 45 kg99.2 lb |
| Full-size endoskeleton puppet, Terminator 2 (1991)Half the 1984 puppet’s weight; Stan Winston Studio | 23 kg50.7 lb |
The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2 (1991) describe the T-800 as living tissue over a metal endoskeleton, a hyperalloy combat chassis, but nobody in them says what it weighs. The figure only arrives in Terminator: Dark Fate, which James Cameron produced. Sarah meets Carl, a T-800 that has spent two decades living as a family man in Texas, and asks: “She hasn’t noticed that you weigh 400 pounds?”
That is a throwaway line rather than a spec sheet, but it is the only on-screen number for the T-800 in any of the films. 400 lb is 181 kg, which we round to 180 kg.
Here is our rough check. The T-800 copies Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body, and Arnold stands 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) and weighed 235 lb (107 kg) in contest shape, according to his bodybuilding profile. So Carl is about 75 kg heavier than the man he looks like, while taking up the same space.
People are roughly as dense as water, about 1 kg per litre. Titanium, which several Terminator stories name as endoskeleton metal, is 4.5 kg per litre, so every litre of flesh swapped for titanium adds 3.5 kg. To find 75 extra kilograms, about 21 litres of the body would need to be solid metal (75 ÷ 3.5), roughly a fifth of it. For a metal skeleton with armour plating, motors and a power cell inside, that is a believable amount, so 400 lb is a sensible number.
NOW Comics advertised its 1988 Terminator series with “Five hundred pounds of unstoppable terror”, which works out to 227 kg. That is marketing copy for a comic set in 2031, not a figure from the films.
Going the other way, Josh Friedman, who ran the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, told fans that Terminators weigh the same as their human counterparts, according to the Terminator Wiki. Dark Fate’s line contradicts that for the T-800. Fan sites also quote various other numbers without a source, so we leave those out.
The chrome skeleton on screen was built by Stan Winston Studio. The full-size puppet for the 1984 film weighed 100 lb (45 kg), because it had solid steel supports and epoxy inside. For Terminator 2 the studio used a tougher chromed shell that no longer needed the steel, and the full-body puppet weighed half as much, about 50 lb (23 kg).
Even that was heavy to work with. Effects artists Shane Mahan and John Rosengrant strapped head-and-torso versions of the puppet onto their backs to walk them through mid-range shots.
About 400 lb, the figure Sarah Connor gives in Terminator: Dark Fate. That is roughly 181 kg.
Yes, by a lot. Schwarzenegger weighed 235 lb in contest shape and 260 lb off-season, so a 400 lb T-800 is 140 to 165 lb heavier than the man it is modelled on.
No film states it, but it is as tall as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays it: 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m).
Stan Winston Studio’s full-size puppet weighed 100 lb (45 kg) in The Terminator. The rebuilt puppet for Terminator 2 was about half that, 50 lb (23 kg).
It is said on screen in Terminator: Dark Fate, a film James Cameron produced, so it is the closest thing to an official figure. No earlier film or official guide gives a number.
Last checked October 2, 2026.
