Kerbweights

[DCW27]

Hi All,
I am a member of Caravan Club, Caravan & Camping Club and a subscriber to Practical Caravan. In every towcar test all they bang on about is the towcars kerbweight & the '85%' rule, but do they ever check the kerbweight of the towcars they are testing (I think not), If as they all say this is the most important consideration when buying a towcar. Prime exampe is the Land Rover Freelander 2 (Land Rover quote a kerbweight as 'from 1700kg' ) which they all use, but this is nowhere near the true kerbweight figure. Every test they do it is always in the wrong category. Surely they should put all test cars on a weighbridge so everyone knows the correct kerbweight, and they can then report on it, with a comparable caravan in tow, and the readers will get an accurate assesment of all towcars on test.

David

 

[WatsonJohnG]

I agree and have often commented on the wildly innacurate figures quoted in PC mag road tests
I just had to make a spelling correction and remove an "e" from between the "t" and "s" in tests
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

 

[Lutz]

The car provided for the test will presumably be supplied with its accompanying V5c certificate and the 'kerbweight' is shown there, so there is no need to put test car on a weighbridge. Any kerbweight published by the manufacturer in brochures, etc. can only be a rough guideline and it is usually based on the minimum weight for a car without any factory-fitted options.

 

[WatsonJohnG]

Hi Lutz
This old chestnut again
My Kuga has the kerbweight in the V5 as 1573kg but the Nissaan Xts had no entry for kerbweight in the V5 and Nissan would only give a range of figures in the brochure or if asked
PC mag in one test had the Nissan Qashkai, for example, heavier than the published figures for the XT
So I think that it would be interesting and informative to know the actual kerbweight of a test vehicle fitted with towbar etc
I know that you have stated that cars can vary etc and that's a fair point but if Ford can quote a brochure and V5 figure down to the last number (ie 3) then it makes you wonder about the validity of that in a particular car if they can vary

 

[NigelHutson]

I do know that every vehicle used in the annual Tow Car of the Year event is physically weighed on a weighbridge.
I think that one of the problems is that the vehicles used in the articles are press cars, and usually come loaded with extras. Therefore if we take the Freelander for instance, what's the point in quoting the kerbweight of that vehicle if it's a top of the range HSE fitted with auto box etc, etc, when someone either wants or can afford an S spec? Personally I think it would be more misleading to give the kerbweight of that HSE model, as it is likely to be taken as gospel that all Freelanders weigh that.
If you look in a cars handbook, I'd be very surprised if you found model specific weights rather than a range, so perhaps it's the Manufacturers who need to publish the correct information, but then you get the issue of extras again............

 

[Lutz]

Hi Lutz
This old chestnut again
My Kuga has the kerbweight in the V5 as 1573kg but the Nissaan Xts had no entry for kerbweight in the V5 and Nissan would only give a range of figures in the brochure or if asked
PC mag in one test had the Nissan Qashkai, for example, heavier than the published figures for the XT
So I think that it would be interesting and informative to know the actual kerbweight of a test vehicle fitted with towbar etc
I know that you have stated that cars can vary etc and that's a fair point but if Ford can quote a brochure and V5 figure down to the last number (ie 3) then it makes you wonder about the validity of that in a particular car if they can vary

Nissan should be commended for giving a range of figures. As kerbweight is specific to each an every car, without knowing the chassis number, that is the most sensible approach. Even the figures in the Ford brochure cannot be relied on 100% and can only serve as a rough guideline. If the towbar is not factory-fitted its weight is not included in the kerbweight, but comes out of the payload. The V5c figure is the only definitive value of any significance. This was confirmed to me recently in an email communication that I had with the Department for Transport. Weighing the car on a weighbridge would give you the actual weight, but not the kerbweight.
Besides, the term kerbweight, while conventionally still in use, has no place in law, where it is referred to as "unladen weight", but with a slight difference in content. In other documents it is Mass in Service (as in the V5c) or Mass in Running Order (as in the EU Directive 95/48/EC) - differing again from both the defintion of "unladen weight" and that of kerbweight.