confused about the weight Forums

bandaid

Dougie,

this may be a trade secret you'd rather not share, but, out of curiosity, what would make you' for instance, give a motorhome a tug for being overweight.

Apart from the obviously, bottomed out suspension and 1/2 a mile a fortnight up a slope, and towing a trailer the size of the queen mary, (things slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect).

takeaflight

Sorry, yes I did mean 260 kgs.

Just another point, if you don't like the answers IMHO don't ask the qusetion Rolling Eyes

However my first Hymer we drove for two years totaly over it's train weight because I didn't know it only had a towing limit of 750Kgs, Embarassed

At times I was towing upto 1500kgs. Sadly because we loved that van, we still sold it for something that could do the job, I dread to think what could have happened in an accident.

Vennwood

Just to add a little more gloom to this question. A friend of mine had an accident with his MH and the insurance company weighed his MH and found he was overloaded at the time of the accident and declared his insurance invalid. I took this up with our insurance broker (Caravan Club) who confirmed that this is correct and that insurance companies are getting wise to this and carrying out more and more weighing of MH's.

A number of people don't realise these days that items such as awnings, extra batteries, aircon etc. etc. all come off the available payload. A number of Mh's these days have at best reasonable payload and at worst poor payload. I had a Dethleffs i7870, tag axle and we fitted awning, generator, extra batteries, aircon - all coming off the measly 350kg payload, leaving us with less than 150kgs to play with - very difficult planning a trip as bikes & BBQ's sometimes had to be left behind.

Rapide561

Hi

Just to add a bit more.....my motorhome has a gross weight of 5000 kg - that is a lot for a european motorhome, and mine is a tag axle.

Follow the info on the plate rather than the manual.

R

asprn

bandaid

Dougie, nope, I wasnt worrying about being caught overweight,* although the G,P did mention it to me on my C licence medical Crying or Very sad

I was just curious, theres alot of the " what makes you suspect/why would you " questions I've heard and mostly the answers come down to instinct, gut feeling or however you want to describe it. I thought it may be the same in this instance, and, it appeas, I was close.

which is nice.

* the reason I'm not worried about being overweight in the RV is cos I dont possess enough kit to make it overweight, I got 1580 pounds of load margin before it goes from Unladen to max laden, or whatever the terms are today according to the makers spec. sheet.

Smile

smick

I'm not so bothered about being stopped and weighed, cos I think that the law is trying to protect road users from those of us who think it doesn't matter too much. ( I have a similar view on speeding, but that's another story...)

However, I have this horror of being stopped and being found to be overweight. Now I've read so much about it. I know darn well I couldn't lie well enough to convince someone that I didn't know the law.

Hence the reason why me and "her indoors" + two collies, van with a full fuel tank, a full water tank, full gas cylinders and all the gubbins we usually carry, were to be found sitting on a weighbridge near Penrith last week, where we discovered to our joy that we didn't make the all up weight limit by 360kg.

Happy days...what else can I stuff in it ? Or perhaps I can sell weight to anyone else who wants stuff carried down to the South West on 9th June ? Come to think of it, that could be a nice little earner .... Nuke, I think we need a new forum, for weight gains...

Smick

pippin

3.5 tonnes appears to be a magical weight for Motorhomes as above it take them into a different class for driving licences and various other things both here and abroad.

Now, engine capacities are invariably quoted as "whole" numbers, largely as a marketing ploy.
Invariably they are actually 2cc or so less, as in a "2 litre" being 1998cc.
This is presumably to keep the vehicle in the next lowest insurance class.

Apply that principle to the weight of a motorhome.

My Hymer VAN522 is plated as 3500 and not 3499.

So, is it in the super class or is it "up to and including 3500kg" and not a gram more than that or risk being prosecuted for excess weight?