Pay loads

Sadly, I am blissfully ignorant of the payload in my caravan. All I know is that we seem to be carrying a hell of a lot of crap with us. SWMBO keeps collecting it. It reminds me of the movie "The Long Long Trailer" with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. I'd be interested to hear what weights other people have actually measured and recorded.

The tare weight of my caravan as listed on the compliance plate is 2.2 Tonne - its 24 foot long.
With the following – 180 litres water, 20 litres petrol, 2 X 9 kg gas bottles, a 2.5 Kva genset, a boot full of awning pieces, 1 spare tyre, a 50 kg battery, an aftermarket rear bumper and a month’s food and clothing - it comes up to 800 kg (3 tonne gross over a weighbridge) When the maker marked the tare weight I don’t know if it included the battery, gas bottles and the spare in that weight.
If you wanted to exclude Genset and its all weather cover 40 Kg, gas bottles 40 kg, water 180 kg, bumper 20kg - subtract 280kg from that total.

Was that with or without the wife pet rock collection?

Hi Hooks, we recently checked out a wide range of vans around the 20 - 21 ft and found the majority provided a loading capacity of around 300 kg which we seem to manage - mainly by only taking on a half load of water. We do tend to shop regularly.

Regular checks over the nearby weighbridge have given us a good idea of how the load pans out.

If we need to take on the extra 90 litres of water (90kg), we transfer an equivalent load to the Pajero as that has spare capacity most of the time.

I think the jack that came with the latest van is one of the heaviest items we cart around, so that is the first item transferred.

If you have a 700 kg payload capacity you could probably hire out some spare space the the rest of us on the road.

Happy travelling - Phil

2400kg empty

3450kg full, includes 400kg of water and fishing gear.

Our load approaches 500 kg in a 5.5 m single axle van (including 80 kg water.)

The tare weight is defined as:

TARE MASS - mass of a vehicle other than a L-group vehicle ready for service,
unoccupied and unladen, with all fluid reservoirs filled to nominal capacity except
for fuel, which shall be 10 litres only, and with all standard equipment and any
options fitted.

This is the weight of the vehicle when it leaves the manufacturer. Any fixtures added by the dealer for you are not added to the tare, the weights of these fixtures must be subtracted from the load allowance. The same rules apply to a van as it would when you add a bull bar or tow bar to your tug.