Driving overweight van

[tommytaylor]

As a layman I would think a 3.5 tonne van would weigh 3.5 tonnes fully loaded. Are you telling me a sprinter weighs 3.5T-750kg = 2.75 tonnes?

As an amateur I would have thought you could easily get a couple of tonne in the back of a big van. I has 10 bags of cement weighing 25kg each in the boot of a small saloon car this morning, that's 1/3 of what a sprinter can supposedly carry. Crazy.

[r3g]

Sprinter 2 series (3 tonne GVW) have a payload between 970 to 1070 kg depending on spec.
Sprinter 3 series (3.5 tonne GVW) have a payload between 1420 and 1455 kg depending on spec.

An average saloon car can legally carry approx 500-600 kg.

[Teddy Lop]

bigothunter said:

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

bigothunter said:

Which is poor when a late '70s Transit with 3500kg GVM could manage 1900kg payload.

Yes, but they were made of cigarette foil & rusted to nothing in a fortnight

I had a 1980 Transit 100 LCX from new. Incredibly reliable and durable over 11 years of service. But agree rustproofing was poor and evidence was apparent at that age.

Wonder how big the market is today for a simple, sturdy 3500kg van which could carry 1750kg payload never mind 1900kg? Could be very popular.

New vans have a choice of payloads - the transit custom I have now varied from 800 to 1400 IIRC. The problem is likely more the initial specifier not needing or wanting to pay for the payload capacity and the secondhand market just having to choose from whats there.

[siremoon]

r3g said:

Sprinter 2 series (3 tonne GVW) have a payload between 970 to 1070 kg depending on spec.
Sprinter 3 series (3.5 tonne GVW) have a payload between 1420 and 1455 kg depending on spec.

An average saloon car can legally carry approx 500-600 kg.

Probably stating the obvious but just in case it's not obvious. That payload includes the weight of the driver and any passengers not just stuff you pile in the back

[V8 Bob]

bigothunter said:

I had a 1980 Transit 100 LCX from new. Incredibly reliable and durable over 11 years of service. But agree rustproofing was poor and evidence was apparent at that age.

Wonder how big the market is today for a simple, sturdy 3500kg van which could carry 1750kg payload never mind 1900kg? Could be very popular.

Little chance of that, by the time you get your batteries in to do a 100 miles you’ll be lucky to get enough payload to cover the driver

[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

[Fast Bug]

colinrob said:

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

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!

[Chainsaw Rebuild]

That's the problem - part of your payload is taken up by the fridge equipment. Any commercial vehicle over 3.5t will require a tacho and an operators licence.

Edited by Chainsaw Rebuild on Thursday 24th August 10:44

[rscott]

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=...

[Cockaigne]

This campervan craze I do look at some and think they will be overweight. Some people are just clueless.

[Teem50]

Cockaigne said:

This campervan craze I do look at some and think they will be overweight. Some people are just clueless.

I used to tow my race car around with a motorhome plated at 3500 kg. Took it to the local weighbridge (surprisingly at the rice mill in our village) and the weight with nothing in it other than a bit of fuel was 3300kg. Once I filled the water tank and sat in it I'd have been over the limit. I bet there's loads of others like that.

[AlwynMike]

I would dearly love there to be a perfect on caravan weights.
I suggest that more than half and probably three quarters of them on our roads are well beyond the caravans weight limit.
Been there, done that....empty caravan weighed just a few kgs less than its MTPLM. I'm more evangelistic now, and shocked to see how much stuff some (most) people shoehorn into their caravans.....and I sold the heavy caravan!

[48k]

AlwynMike said:

shocked to see how much stuff some (most) people shoehorn into their caravans....

See also horseboxes. The majority of horsey people are utterly clueless, or ignorant, or just downright lie about payload.

[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

[agent006]

colinrob said:

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)

You will have been pulled as it's probably a specialist commercial vehicle enforcement team. Was DVSA there as well? They do this day in day out and know exactly what a heavily loaded van looks like just seeing it drive along.
A lot of the time they will stop every fridge van they see as it's so common for them to be overweight for exactly the reasons you've just found out.

[bigmowley]

I run Sprinters as they are simply the best vans at handling weight. The max legal payload has dropped slowly over the years as the base van weight creeps ever upwards. Our L2H3 vans weigh just over 2200Kgs empty so a payload of circa 1250Kgs or a ton and a quarter. The trouble is that they still drive fine and if the weight is distributed properly look fine with 2 tons in the back, which is very easy to achieve. A pack of concrete blocks for example is 1.6 tons, as is a pallet of cement.
The best way to organize things is a 3500Kg gross weight trailer, which weights about a ton so that’s 2 and a half ton capacity. The Sprinter has a gross train weight of 6500Kgs so fully loaded trailer plus just under a ton in the van and we are all good to go.
Still great vans.

[BertBert]

Teem50 said:

I used to tow my race car around with a motorhome plated at 3500 kg. Took it to the local weighbridge (surprisingly at the rice mill in our village) and the weight with nothing in it other than a bit of fuel was 3300kg. Once I filled the water tank and sat in it I'd have been over the limit. I bet there's loads of others like that.

I have exactly the same. Finding a weighbridge to see what you are actually at is not easy!

[bigothunter]

V8 Bob said:

Little chance of that, by the time you get your batteries in to do a 100 miles you’ll be lucky to get enough payload to cover the driver

Electric vans are fine - they have 750kg latitude. Regulations applying to ICEV at 3500kg increase for EV to 4250kg.

[grumpy52]

When doing agency work at a plumbers merchant they were very surprised when I told them that all their 3.5 t van were overloaded every day . I was driving 7.5t trucks .
Much activity between the office , head office and various van dealers and yes the vans were grossly overloaded.
3.5 t vans with box bodies and tail lifts had a load capacity of 650kg approx.
Loading them up with sanitary ware , boilers , radiators, pipework and fittings soon hit the limit. A pallet of rads exceeded the limit on its own .
So many small branches of even very large companies don't have a clue about the legal side of transport. Many one man operations don't give it a thought .