MTPLM - crikey

[CrewOVtwo]

Well before finally getting round to heading off to the weighbridge next week, I thought I'd weigh the contents that we aim to take on our next trip.....

And with my best guess, we are 27 kg over the limit, with what I considered to be a fairly sparse load.

I'm genuinely shocked and wonder what on earth a family of four would do to manage staying legal (and safe).

We have a four birth van (Bailey Unicorn Cadiz) and there's just two of us. It seems implausible that you could take what was needed for a holiday if we had kids / grandkids with us.

The weighbridge will be most useful now I have a better idea of what is required but I hope this helps someone along the way, as it's certainly helped us.

Thanks to everyone who has helped get us to where we are now on our caravan journey. It is a splendid forum.

 

[otherclive]

Well before finally getting round to heading off to the weighbridge next week, I thought I'd weigh the contents that we aim to take on our next trip.....

And with my best guess, we are 27 kg over the limit, with what I considered to be a fairly sparse load.

I'm genuinely shocked and wonder what on earth a family of four would do to manage staying legal (and safe).

We have a four birth van (Bailey Unicorn Cadiz) and there's just two of us. It seems implausible that you could take what was needed for a holiday if we had kids / grandkids with us.

The weighbridge will be most useful now I have a better idea of what is required but I hope this helps someone along the way, as it's certainly helped us.

Thanks to everyone who has helped get us to where we are now on our caravan journey. It is a splendid forum.

That’s why some years ago I saw more and more retired couples with their new caravans and the car fitted with a roofbox. Some up scale UK vans had only 125kg payload. Battery and mover would have nearly taken 50% approx.

 

[GUMPY]

When we go away just about everything is in the Yeti, the car becomes in effect a van as we fold the rear seats up.
With a family of 4 we would need a Skoda Superb Estate to get a big enough boot.

 

[otherclive]

When we go away just about everything is in the Yeti, the car becomes in effect a van as we fold the rear seats up.
With a family of 4 we would need a Skoda Superb Estate to get a big enough boot.

A Superb vehicle if I may say so. Only car I’ve had that I’ve needed to really lean full stretch to reach the front of the boot. Plus at 6ft 4in I could sit in the rear seat with the drivers seat fully back and my knees didn’t touch the back of the drivers seat. Also the rear seat bases could be flipped up so heavy luggage could go in there, or the dogs. Sometimes both. Great cars.

 

[GUMPY]

A Superb vehicle if I may say so. Only car I’ve had that I’ve needed to really lean full stretch to reach the front of the boot. Plus at 6ft 4in I could sit in the rear seat with the drivers seat fully back and my knees didn’t touch the back of the drivers seat. Also the rear seat bases could be flipped up so heavy luggage could go in there, or the dogs. Sometimes both. Great cars.

I've never had one, but have had two Octavia vRs estates that were pretty large. They also manage huge milage my first one hit 250k by the time it left the family, the second is well over 100k and is in the possession of Stepson.

 

[otherclive]

I've never had one, but have had two Octavia vRs estates that were pretty large. They also manage huge milage my first one hit 250k by the time it left the family, the second is well over 100k and is in the possession of Stepson.

I can see why you like Skodas. My first one was an Estelle 105, not a tow car. 🤭

 

[Beachball]

When we go away just about everything is in the Yeti, the car becomes in effect a van as we fold the rear seats up.
With a family of 4 we would need a Skoda Superb Estate to get a big enough boot.

We also had a Yeti but ours was for only two and dogs , and like you we folded the rear seats but legroom was great for driving .

 

[GUMPY]

In the days before they expanded it used to be said of VAG cars that:

Volkswagen were for normal people
Audi were for people with more money than sense
Skoda were for people with more sense than money.

Now there are too many brands under that umbrella for that to work.

 

[GUMPY]

I can see why you like Skodas. My first one was an Estelle 105, not a tow car. 🤭

I always wanted a Rapide, a friend had one that was slightly modified and it would out handle a Ford Escort with ease.🫣

 

[CrewOVtwo]

Further to my post, after a bit of research that I perhaps should have done before, I've just gleaned that the spare wheel attached to the underside of my caravan, might not be included in the stuff Bailey consider as 'part of the caravan' - is this right?

 

[ProfJohnL]

There are no written regulations that determine what is and isn't included in the manufacturers basic kit, It should tell you in the manufacturers handbook.

 

[Dustydog]

The real problem starts when the caravan leaves the factory with “declared “ MRO.

The number of variables that get mentioned by a dealer would fill a book!

Taking a very pedantic view, get the caravan weighed at a weigh bridge exactly as it came from the factory , as described , fluids etc.

Always seems to me the base point is very unclear model to model , year on year and who is selling it.

 

[Lutz]

There are no written regulations that determine what is and isn't included in the manufacturers basic kit, It should tell you in the manufacturers handbook.

Even if the handbook tells you that an item of equipment is included, it doesn't automatically follow that it's in the MIRO. The MIRO is the weight of the caravan that the manufacturer submitted for type approval. However, he may have made changes to the specification after type approval with amending the respective documentation, so it won't be reflected in the M IRO. The only sure way of knowing what the empty caravan weighs is to put it on a weighbridge.

 

[CrewOVtwo]

I'm pretty rubbish at working these things out, but would it not make sense to weigh it 'fully laden' and then see by how much it exceeds the MTPLM (or is hopefully a few kg under the MTPLM) as that is the figure beyond which I'm going to be travelling illegally?
Hopefully that doesn't sound too stupid.

 

[DaveA1]

The tolerance on road side weighbridges is +/- 50 kg your 27 kg would be well within that.