Recent content by Lutz

The Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2021 which came into effect on the 16th December 2021 gives Category B driving licence holders automatic Category BE entitlement without the need for a test or immediate amendment of their licence in the UK. However, if going...

But how can the manufacturer prove that you have never overloaded the caravan? He is never present when you load it, so how is he to know to what the caravan was ever subjected to, and which may have caused the failure? And it's not only an excessive static load that resulted in the failure, but...

Maybe Swift didn’t fit the axle as a separate item but procured the complete chassis assembly from AlKo. It that case they will only have a part number for the chassis as a sub-assembly and only AlKo would know what axle belonged to that chassis. To identify the chassis they would need the AlKo...

In fairness one cannot expect any support from the caravan manufacturer, in your case Swift, unless he has had the caravan type approved also with the higher axle rating. If he hasn’t, only the chassis manufacturer would be in a position to help and even then you would have to rely on his...

Actually, you do have a fifth choice. If you are really set on your current caravan and don't want to change it, you could have the axle replaced by one with a higher load rating. It's not a cheap alternative, and it does involve quite a lot of administrative effort to make such a modification...

In your original post you said that over the weekend you would weigh everything that went into the caravan. Any revelations? It would be wise to have empty caravan weighed, too, as the MIRO quoted may not be its actual unladen weight. It certainly can’t be relied upon.

I doubt whether any anchorage points in the roof box, if provided, are substantial enough to restrain a gas bottle. Contrary to a gas bottle, a caravan has got its own brakes. So long as they are in good working order they should contribute substantially to being able to stop itself without...

One doesn’t need to to reflect on the subject for very long though to come to the conclusion that a caravan can’t have two MTPLMs without a technical change.

If the car is involved in an accident, the bottle will fly through the air like a slingshot, breaking through the roof box in the process.

A declared MTPLM which is less than what the caravan is able to take cannot be a true MTPLM. A maximum is maximum. The lower of two values can’t have been a technical maximum, which is what the term MTPLM implies. A change in the true MTPLM doesn’t make sense unless accompanied by a technical...

If nothing was technically changed then the caravan wasn’t upgraded at all. The MTPLM displayed on the sticker was only brought into line with what was shown all along on the legal (statutory) plate. Without the so-called upgrade, the sticker displays a purely artificial value based on NCC’s...

When specifying a static weight limit such as 1300kg, the manufacturer will already have taken into account that peak dynamic loads will be well in excess of that value.

I have a feeling that axles failing is an issue more as a result of poor quality of the material than actual overloading. For obvious reasons though, it would not be in the interest of the manufacturer to concede that as the potential cost to the manufacturer could be quite enormous. Besides, he...

A caravan manufactured before the introduction of whole vehicle type approval is a bit of a grey area regarding MTPLM if there is nothing better than the sticker on the side to go by. Thereafter however, it’s not a plate on the axle that limits the MTPLM, but what is displayed on the statutory...

240kg extra is still a lot less than the maximum instantaneous dynamic load that the caravan will be subjected to while it's being towed. I wouldn't be surprised if the peak dynamic load would be in the order of 5000kg or even more if the road conditions are bad,