Driving overweight van

[colinrob]

What is the likely outcome of driving an overweight van, is a 3.5 tonne sprinter thought i could carry 1600-1700 kgs was pulled with what I thought was slightly overweight as carrying 1800kgs, turned out i was 1140kgs overweight or 32.5% does anyone know the consequences, please only reply if you know and please don't give your sanctimonious views, i am after information (60 year old with clean driving licence) wont happen again as i am selling the van.

[colinrob]

Thanks for all the replies, they didn’t bother doing each axle weight was just total weight of van with me in it, luckily I hadn’t filled with fuel as that would have been another 63kg, worked out max I can take is 770kgs with a full tank of fuel and me driving, we are now selling the van, will apologise and tell them the van is sold so it wont happen again. Was not reported or questioned about any other aspect of my driving so not sure why I was pulled, it may have been that I was sticking to the speed limit, unlike other vans around me (60mph A1)

[colinrob]

Fast Bug said:

Sorry, but there's no way a 3 Series Sprinter can only take 770kgs unless it's got a conversion of some kind that weighs half a ton. I've sold MB commercials for years and every Sprinter has over a 1000kgs payload.

If you PM me the reg number I'll happily tell you what the factory payload is

It is a refrigerated van, the 1800kg did not include the pallets as it was just the weight of the meat, but after subtracting everything off with me a a full tank I can carry 770kgs

[colinrob]

rscott said:

Mercedes Irish site has a really helpful tool to show the payloads for the various options:-

https://www.mercedes-benz.ie/vans/en/sprinter/pane...


Extra long, AWD, super-high roof has a payload of 955 -980kg. That seems to be the smallest I can find. A compact, front wheel drive standard roof is 1505kg.

Here's an example of a 3.5 tonne van which was 30% overweight - https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=...

Everything on mine looked fine, i should have taken a photo of it, had it been on its arse like that one I wouldn’t have driven it

[colinrob]

Fast Bug said:

That explains it then. The only way you're going to be able to carry that much meat is to go to a 5t van, you'd need to check if you have to run a tacho as they come as standard but I think there are some exemptions. You can stay with the same size van though, both Sprinter and Iveco come in 5000/5500kg GVW, I think the Crafter might be as well.

That's a lot of meat!

Trouble is the 5 tonne van weighs more without load so you can still carry very little, would not have minded tacho but the 6 weekly check kill you cost wise, we sell between 5 and 15 tonne of meat a week but we are having it all delivered direct from the supplier now

[colinrob]

Monkeylegend said:

Sparks from the tailgate.

No the van looked fine, when i took the 1100kg off and put it on a van I borrowed the other van looked a lot worse.

[colinrob]

I think if I got a electric refrigerated van I could probably carry 1 pork chop, or could possibly be over weight with just me in it

[colinrob]

Just an update and thanks for everyone not judging me, we have sold our van and have all our products delivered direct so will not have the issue of being overweight again, court was more than fair £452 fine including costs and victim surcharge no points

[colinrob]

LosingGrip said:

Weirdly it doesn't carry any points which I find a little bit weird if it's massively overweight.

Not a bad result in my mind. Thankfully from your point of view the courts don't fully understand that side of traffic stuff.

Thing is van drove perfect and did not feel overweight or dangerous, anyway my mistake hands up guilty as charged will never do it again

Obviously could have had points or ban but I think they may have taken my clean license into consideration

Edited by colinrob on Saturday 17th February 23:57

Edited by colinrob on Sunday 18th February 00:01

[colinrob]

Personally I think the rules are madness's, I suppose its a but like braking distances, everything is out of date but the rules are there, if you get caught you took the risk, if you didn't you are lucky, sold my van now so will not drive overweight, I made a stupid mistake being overweight, won't do it again.