Caravan safety chains

Submitted: Friday, Apr 24, 2009 at 11:36
ThreadID: 68159 Views:7811 Replies:14 FollowUps:14
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G'day all,

we purchased and registered our new Kedron caravan in Queensland last December. We have at last returned to our home state of WA and yesterday had the van inspected as part of the process of having it registered in WA.

Wouldn't you know it, the van 's safety chains apparently don't comply with Australian Standard AS 4177.4 1994 “Safety Chains up to 3500 kg capacity". So we had to buy some high tensile chain and some hammerlocks and replace the original chain. ($77.00 later).

My question is, does anyone out there know Australian Standard AS 4177.4 1994 “Safety Chains up to 3500 kg capacity" well enough to comment on whether the guy doing the inspection was correct? I don't want to have to buy the entire Standard only to find out he was right.

His argument was that even though the chain we had was very substantive, it was not stamped with a rating on the links. He argued that the chains were most likely mild steel as they were welded diectly to the caravan chassis - apparently this is not possible with high tensile steel.

Additionally he said that the standard required the chain to be attached to the caravan with hammerlocks, and not shackles.

The main reason I'm asking all of this is that if he is correct, then I'm going to hit Kedron's with the bill for the chain and hammelocks.

Cheers

Russ.
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