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I have recently been involved in registering an imported MH and found that it was subjected, under "new rules" to inspection and measurement. Currently ALL imported MHs are being inspected and measured by DVLA prior to registration.
According to my inside DVLA source, the nice young man who measured mine, this new practice follows discovery by a zealous inspector that an RV which he decided to measure because it looked a bit big, that the RV was over 12 meters long, in this case about 12.2 meters. The owner, who had spent a lot of money importing the RV, cited other oversize RVs he knew of which were registered in UK but to no avail. He was not allowed to register his vehicle and therefore seems to be at risk of being left holding a very expensive white elephant.
This led to realisation by someone in DVLA Swansea that they had been sloppy and were likely to have allowed a number of oversize RVs to be registered. In a fine example of the Civil Service thinking which inspired the TV series Yes Minister, DVLA Swansea issued instructions to local offices that all motorhomes are now to be measured before registration. The local DVLA Offices pointed out that this would mean a huge amount of work but Swansea insisted, so currently all MHs are being measured. The chap who measured mine had been to HymerUK and another local dealer one day earlier this week and measured 120 MHs! He said it was a very cold day and he didn't enjoy it much. Who said civil servants cannot be expected to work productively?
The glimmer of hope on the horizon is that Swansea are relenting a little and have said that once a particular type and model of MH has been measured, the Inspector does not have to keep mesuring that same model again and again although whether this means that DVLA will organise a national database of MH measurements so that each local office Inspector does not have to accumulate this measuring experience for himself remains to be seen.
To those of you who have already imported an registered an oversize RV, take consolation that there is no proposal to review registrations retrospectively, so that if your overssize RV is registered you can apparently sleep easily, it is not at risk of being deregistered. At least not until some other Swansea DVLA Official gets a rush of blood to the brain or a politician tells him to nit pick his way through the back list in order to be "fair".
If you are unlucky enough to have imported an oversize RV and have yet to register it, the only hope would appear to be to bide your time, perhaps a couple of months, until the novelty of this new policy is wearing off and they have got fed up with measuring everything. Then apply for your registration at a local office which registers a lot of RVs in the hope that they will already have measured a 38 ft model of yours which is a tad longer and then hope they don't bother measuring your "38 ft model" either. It might help if you ask them to inspect at your location which is in some remote and inhospitable place where the Inspector would prefer not to have to go. If the man with the tape measure actually turns up, your only hope would appear to be bribery; we are European these days after all!
DVLA do not allow any excess length or width, not even 1 cm! The limits are 12 meter long and 2.55 meters wide, excluding mirrors.
Stuart Ormerod
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I believe, but could be wrong, that they take any object that is fixed to the vehicle ie rear ladder or bike rack into the measurement also, so it is not just bumper to bumper but actual overall length.... Same thing would apply to width (except rear view mirrors).
As George says, best to check and get it in writing though if you are concerned.
Keith
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Well the Speedferries small print doesn't relate at all to practice. It says:
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"Standard Car - A vehicle no longer than 5.0 m, wider than 2.0 m ....."
"All measurements indicated above include roof racks, top boxes, bicycles and any other objects mounted on or fixed to the car."
Which, formally, includes door mirrors. However, a Vauxhall Zafira, promoted as a compact car, is wider than 2.0m including mirrors.
Unfortunately it is rather adademic for me anyway, for despite being a fan of Speedferries and getting my motorhome, which is just as wide as yours, on there no problem, the reality is that they have been undercut by Norfolkline this year.
Dave
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