Overweight by 300 kgs!!!

[Litespeed]

Hi,
My Father in law last year purchased a brand new Bucanneer Schooner and a Range Rover Sport V8 as a tow car.
He had a factory upgrade to include airconditioning, twin axle motor mover and spare HD Battery, he carry's a spare wheel, jack, tools and all the other normal things you may need in an emergency.
He has just returned from France and through curiosity headed straight for the weigh bridge. To his shock and amazement the caravan was 600 kgs over the MIRO weight which makes 300kgs overweight.
Below are the weights for the van,Mass in Running Order1668 / 32.76 cwtMaximum User Payload282kgs / 5.54 cwtPlated MTPLM1950kgs / 38.30 cwt

He is now worried sick and cannot possibly see where he can lose 300kgs His tow car ratio is 68% so what are the implications of carrying 300 kgs to much?
Thanks
Litespeed

 

[Easyvanner]

Can't imagine Aircon, Mover and Spare Wheel account for any more than 90-100kg.
Is he sure he's got the weights correct????
300kg is big shed load of baked bean and beer cans or is his tool kit a full Snap-on workshop ensemble

 

[otherclive]

If he really was that far over weight then he should check the load rating of his tyers and see if they have been overloaded which could mmake them a bit suspect for future use. Although witha twin axle he might be okay.

 

[oldievanner]

Weighbridges are notoriously inaccurate at a low weight of 2000kgs, when they are usually weighing lorries at about 20000 kgs and a lot more.Its akin to using your bathroom scales to weigh a suitcase at 20kg when its usually accurate to weigh people at 90-100kgs. I would try another weighbridge and see what the difference is. If the van really is that heavy, I would be worried about the load you are putting on the towbar, having just seen a van last week on the A14 breakaway from a vehicle as it accelerated away from a rounabout. It pulled half the tow bar off of the car, which was only 2 years old.

 

[xtrailman]

Can't imagine Aircon, Mover and Spare Wheel account for any more than 90-100kg.
Is he sure he's got the weights correct????
300kg is big shed load of baked bean and beer cans or is his tool kit a full Snap-on workshop ensemble

A sigle axle mover weighs around 30kg, so a twin would be around 50kg?
Air con at a guess i would say 30kg.
A battery again at a guess 25kg?

If the weigh bridge accurately shows your body weight, then from experience i would assume it will weigh your caravan reasonably accurately.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Litespeed,

All public weighbridges must have calibration certificates. These indicate the accuracy of the weighbridge, and most importantly describe the error that any reading may contain. This information must made available at the weighbridge, and the print out should also contain the permitted degree of inaccuracy.

Your FiL’s readout should contain that information or the weigh bridge operator should be able to supply it.

However, even allowing for the allowable error, a 300Kg overload on a 2000Kg gross that represents a 15% overload and that is well above any normal allowable tolerance, and if stopped that would almost certainly incur the wrath of the authorities.

There is also the strong possibility the caravan will be in excess of the mechanical strength of several of its components, and under towing conditions there could be failures.

As for the towing ratio, the RR sports V8s seem to have a MIRO of about 2480Kg, which means the ratio for the MTPLM of the caravan will be closer to 78%

I cant identify what has caused the overload, but certainly a spare battery seems an unnecessary extra, but assuming the figures are correct there must be many other items that are contributing to the load.
Your Fil needs to carefully re-evaluate what is carried in the caravan.

 

[trickydicky]

My Alpine4 has a MIRO of 999kgs(small is beautiful),so its like slicing my van in half and then putting this equivalent weight inside your father in laws Buccaneer. The mind boggles. Surely the numbers that the weighbridge are giving must be wrong.
Cheers Richard

 

[TheTravellingRooster]

Hi Litespeed. I don't know where you or your Farther In-law got the MiRO & MTPLM from, but the 2010 Buccaneer Schooner on their website is listed as MiRO 1668kgs & Plated MTPLM 1950kgs and yet the 2011 model takes a wallop with MiRO 1790kgs & Plated MTPLM 1940kgs,with an MTPLM upgrade to 2000kgs. This more to the point, on the basis of no upgrade on the 2011 model drops the user payload from 282kgs(2010) down to 150kgs(2011).This is a difference of 132kgs!!?. The factory upgrade on the 2010 model would likely only account for +50kgs; to 2000kgs from the 1950kgs. This would fall in-line with the 2011 model.
The additional HD Battery would account for 25kgs,the mover probably 10kgs & the air conditioning perhaps 20kgs.
I am aware that the definitions of MiRO & MTPLM are being juggled with but this is something else!.
On a lighter note,maybe the resolve is to Dump the Range Rover Sport V8 and look for a newish Turbo Charged Tractor Unit from an Articulated Vehicle,then have a 50mm ball fitted at the appropriate height for towing.

 

[TheTravellingRooster]

Hi Eastvanner. Spescavers for you, ASAP. Perhaps even before you take the car out,never mind with the caravan on the back!.
There was no mention of Spare Wheel,it was a spare HD Battery. In any event the mention by the Son In-law of "he carries a wheel" etc,doesn't count in the over-weight;because a Spare Wheel and Carrier is part of the MiRO in that range and also for a great many others.

 

[TheTravellingRooster]

Hi again Litespeed. A quick passing thought. Did he check the caravan interior for Four 75kg Illegal Immigrants or 300kgs of someone's Smack. It might well by now, be to late.A review of the caravan weight might be worthwhile on the same weighbridge,and loaded with what he thought was its' only contents.

 

[dave8858]

I was amazed to find that I was exceeding my MPTLM when I got the outfit weighed together and separately on my way for a weekend away prior to a trip to France. Van is fitted with a mover and a leisure battery but I thought we travelled light it being a 4 berth and there only being the 2 of us. Van MPTLM is 1435 on that day it weighed in at 1443. I moved the dog food and a 3l bottle of cider to the car and we were down at 1420 but still a tad close for comfort.

I use lightweight propane gas cylinders so no saving to be made there. When I had a good look around the van it turned out I was carrying several Kg's of awning pegs, 2 hefty hammers, enough crockery and cutlery for 4 people even though there are only 2 of us. Loo Blue and Pink are heavy in 1/2 gallon containers so we decanted those into 1pt milk sized containers (not actual milk cartons obviously). These contain enough Blue and Pink for more than a 2 week stay away. All in all I reckon we've reduced the weight by something like 35kgs just by thinking more carefully about what you actually NEED to carry.

Evidently Bailey are willing to upgrade the MPTLM for our van to 1500Kg but I think I'll just be careful what we put in it.

D