Who determines what load can be carried safely?

I don't agree with your comment, I have always gone one better when doing things through my life, if you need a battery for the car, get bigger than what was in it when new, if you need a 12 inch ruler, get a 24 inch ruler, so the same would apply to an axle in my opinion, then you know it won't fail.

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Hey Doug,

You forgot the most important one of all

If you think you need a 30' long shed build one at least 40' long (maybe bigger) especially if you are a hoarder like me (;-))

Cheers
Pop

Well thats great Doug but your not the avearge consumer who only needs something in X capacity and doesn't want to pay more for some thing bigger they think they don't need.

In your way of thinking; if you have a wife and two kids you should not buy a five seater vehicle...... you should buy a 45 seater bus.... bigger is better!

Or a caravan that sleeps eight even that there is only two of yous using it

Hey mate...if I had a caravan to sleep 8 , 7 of the beds would have blondes in 'em, but at my age I'd probably have a heart attack.

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olcoolone, your assessment that a vans carrying capacity is determined by axle size alone is way to simple.

A vehicles structural components are (or should be) engineered to cope with a whole range of forces that are applied to them in operation. Off road vans have higher dynamic forces applied than road based vans and thus requires a different design. The van components that need specific design consideration include, but are not limited to; wheels, suspension, chassis and drawer bar, and the vans floor, walls and roof.

When the manufacturer can come up with a way of building the van which is light but strong enough to cope with all the load applied, then the saving in weight will increase the weight carrying capacity of the vehicle.

The savings in weight can be made in a number of ways, with the most common being the selection of lightweight material such as high tensile steel or even lightweight aluminum alloys. I recently saw carbon fiber components in a caravan.

This is the approach taken by car manufactures with Range Rover just announcing that the next model will be 400Kg lighter essentially due to the increased use of aluminum.

The approach of making it stronger by making it heavier is self defeating.

Spot on! Hear hear.

nutwood,
While I agree with you about distributing your load as you have said and having a tow vehicle that is not out weighed by the trailer I think what all this is about is either getting pinged for overloading by the scalees because what your van or trailer weighs exceeds what the compliance plate says or in the unfortunate situation where you are involved in a serious accident your insurance does not want to pay out because you have exceeded the manufacturers specs.

You beat me to it Pop. I was going to ask Nutwood if your going to pay for any accidents he has cause his insurance won't if he is over loaded. Also if some one dies as a result of the accident and your over loaded then charges will be laid. Regardless of what you think it can handle, ignoring compliance plates makes you responsible for everything.

Josh

or if you get sued civilly because the fact you were overloaded and that caused or contributed to the crash. Ppl are being awarded sums around A$9M these days for being TPI from road trauma.
Why not spend another $10 or $20K and buy the correct size vehicle to carry or tow the load of your choice.

Predictable responses. I understand where you are coming from but the point I'm making is that the compliance plate rating on smaller vehicles has little to do with reality in many cases.
I'm an ex truck driver and I take the load ratings on trucks very seriously. They are designed as load carrying vehicles and the figures reflect properly engineered conclusions.
When we come to the smaller vehicles it's a lot more haphazard. My J20 has the same GVM as GCM. This is because Jeep didn't specify a GCM. In WA, where it was previously registered, they automatically add 1000kg to the GVM and call it the GCM when there's nothing specified. Tasmania has a different policy. They don't add anything. No engineering there!
I've been told that the 3700kg comes from the US designation of vehicles. A traditional Jeep is a 1/4 ton, a F100 is a 1/2 ton, a F250 a 3/4 ton and a F350 a 1 ton. It goes back to the military designations and reflects the load a vehicle can carry over any terrain.
My J20 is a 3/4 ton, so is allowed 750kg over tare. No engineering there!
With regard to the hazards involved in using your common sense and simply ignoring the plate, that's your call. I've never seen a light vehicle pulled over and put over the scales, unless it's an obvious problem. We've all seen them. The commodore with a big van behind, swaying up the road at 70km/h, with the safety chains sending up sparks. Ironically, when weighed, they probably transgress less than my Jeep but I know which I'd rather be driving!
Insurance wise, if I'm involved in an accident caused by my over loading, I'll wear it. I would expect that it would have to be proven that the overloading caused the accident. I'm sensible, I've been driving the same vehicle since 1995. It was purchased to do a job and it's been doing it very well for many years.
I've seen some ridiculously high figures stamped on trailers and I've seen some ridiculously low figures. I prefer to look at the tyre ratings, the chassis, the springs, the brakes and also the weight of the tow vehicle, before making judgement on what's safe

nutwood, in WA they don't just 'add 1000kg' to the GVM to calculate the GCM if none is quoted. Light vehicles generally do not have a GCM quoted on the compliance plate apart from NA category vehicles which are designated light commercial and are therefore primarily for load carrying. In WA, if the towing capacity is not in their database the DoT would check the Owners manual to see if a towing capacity is quoted or failing that would ask the owner to obtain a letter from the manufacturer specifying the towing capacity or GCM. With some vehicles the GVM and GCM are the same because the manufacturer did not intend that a trailer should be towed at all whether it has brakes or not..
Military designations has nothing to do with the GVM/GCM. It is calculated by the manufacturer on an engineering basis taking in to account vehicle safety, it strength (so it won't break) and what they are prepared to warrant the vehicle to carry/tow. Australian compliance plates are fitted in Australia and the load ratings have nothing to do with overseas markets.
I am not sure what you mean by 'predictable responses'. If you mean those of us who take responsibility for their safety and that of other road users seriously are less sensible than yourself who by your own admission seem to load your vehicle to whatever weigh you think is OK, well good luck to you.......you will probably need it. I would not like to be in your position as a witness in court when you try to convince the judge that you know more about safe the loading of a vehicle than those who designed it.

Sorry mate. I lived and worked in WA for 32 years. I drove heavy vehicles for a living. The "1000kg added to GVM" quote came from the Department of Transport when I queried the figures for my J20. Basically they reckoned that any light commercial should be OK towing 1000kg so, in the absence of manufacturer information, they were prepared to concede that. If an owner could mount a case for a higher figure they'd look at it. Things undoubtedly have changed now but that was how it was done.
I'm trying to make the point that whilst persons like yourself have the fond belief that the numbers stamped on plates are based on solid engineering reality, the truth is not so simple. I quoted my own J20 in a caravan discussion because it's a classic case. The load figures are completely different in WA to Tasmania. My Jeep has a 6.2 litre V8, 12" discs, Dana 60 diffs, 8 stud wheels, spring packs one man can't pick up, and you reckon it can't tow any trailer at all?
A lot of times these figures come out of a little book in someone's office. Single axle; 300kg capacity, dual axle; 400kg capacity. The manufacturers could probably dispute these figures but don't bother because of the cost.
I take a lot of responsibility for safety, probably more than those who slavishly follow the numbers. I'll load a vehicle to what's safe and that's often a lot less than the rated load. What a load is, along with where and how it's carried, counts for a lot more than total mass.

Not quite a correct observation, you are looking at the Little Joey that I down traded to. My present caravan. It is more like a highway vehicle. The article is writiten about my previous caravan, the Off Road vehicle called the New Age Barra, this vehicle is included in my profile. You will notice the larger Off Road tyres and wheels that the Barra has. They both are allowed to carry only 300 kgs, even as you state one has car tyres and the other has stronger Off Road tyres.

Another thing, you may have looked at the New Age Barra photo and have seen the two spare wheels on the back of it and then looked at the New Age Little Joey and saw the spare wheel on the front of it counting three spares in all, it doesn't matter any way the spare wheels are accounted for in the tare weight from the factory, not in the payload.

If the extra two spare wheels are optional accessories I doubt they would be included in the original Tare especilly if they are Dealer or Owner fitted after the van had left the factory. Many manufacturers use 'generic' weighbridge dockets that are 'years' old and are for vans that are of different design and equipment specs possibly than yours. A current docket from a registered weighbridge for your own van is the only way to be sure of the Tare.

No, the two spares were not optional extras they are on every one of that model, we traded the New Age Barra in on a New Age Little Joey but we stipulated that we would not take ownership until it was weighed empty and we had a stat deck from the dealer that it weighed the weight written on the compliance plate.
The New Age Barra had more weight distribution problems than they could fix, more than 250 kgs heavier on one side than the other.
Look at my blog on Straight out of the factory.