Recovery truck info ?

[STeve-ST]

I know this subject has no doubt been raised many times over the years and the lack of online guidance is a pain in the rear end, but simply need some general info, Want to buy one like a 2 ton unlaiden beaver tail transit with 3.5t GW mainly for transporting mine and my pals track and show cars around but now and again maybe delivering and collecting a few cars to earn some pocket money, truck example shown in pic

queries, I'm guessing my licence should cover me as I have C1,C,C1E,D1,D1E,DE but if I am keeping all my weights below 3.5t I take it I wont need a cpc or tacho ?

also any help towards a insurer for this type of vehicle and also guess I would need liability insurance cover included too

thanks all for any input

[DanT86]

As long as the vehicles grose weight is 3500kg or less then no tacho or CPC is needed but is you ate then towing a trailer and the vehicles grose train weight is more than 3500kg then you will need tacho and CPC

This is how I understand the law.

[agent006]

You'll be fine on a regular car licence for a 3.5t van. You only need CPC and/or tacho if you're using it commercially and it ends up being over 3.5t.

Be careful on weight though. At 2t unladen, it doesn't give you a huge amount to play with. Unless your car is really light, then once you have it plus some spares and tools and two or three people on board you'll be very close to the weight limit.

I've also found that these are a pain to load low cars onto. If you don't catch the splitter on the ramps you'll beach the exhaust once you're actually at the top of the ramps.
There's very little storage space for wheels, tools etc other than in the passenger footwell or in the car you're transporting.

A trailer is much better in pretty much every circumstance.

[STeve-ST]

DanT86 said:

As long as the vehicles grose weight is 3500kg or less then no tacho or CPC is needed but is you ate then towing a trailer and the vehicles grose train weight is more than 3500kg then you will need tacho and CPC

This is how I understand the law.

I was hoping I understood the rules so it was just a case of double checking, thanks

agent006 said:

You'll be fine on a regular car licence for a 3.5t van. You only need CPC and/or tacho if you're using it commercially and it ends up being over 3.5t.

Be careful on weight though. At 2t unladen, it doesn't give you a huge amount to play with. Unless your car is really light, then once you have it plus some spares and tools and two or three people on board you'll be very close to the weight limit.

I've also found that these are a pain to load low cars onto. If you don't catch the splitter on the ramps you'll beach the exhaust once you're actually at the top of the ramps.
There's very little storage space for wheels, tools etc other than in the passenger footwell or in the car you're transporting.

A trailer is much better in pretty much every circumstance.

yes I knew on some cars etc it would be a close call re weight, but mainly it will be light stripped out track cars under a ton but if I find a truck closer to 1.8t it will give me a bit more breathing room as I hope to keep anything on it within the 3.5t restriction on GW, sadly I have no room to store a trailer as I would have gone down this route as at moment I hire one when needed, thanks for info

[MDMA .]

You'll need a tacho if it's for hire or reward. Someone on here just been fined recently.

[STeve-ST]

MDMA . said:

You'll need a tacho if it's for hire or reward. Someone on here just been fined recently.

it would mainly be for private use 70% of the time but was hoping to do the odd job for pocket money if it came up so will look into it, as a chap I know has a transit beaver tail rated to 4.6t gw which I need to look into too

[imagineifyeswill]

If your doing paying jobs Im almost certain you,ll need a tacho. If you go for the 4.6 tonne you will certainly need a Tacho, also it will require a commercial vehicle test rather than a class 7 mot plus using a 4.6 tonne for hire and reward will also need an operators licence.

[STeve-ST]

imagineifyeswill said:

If your doing paying jobs Im almost certain you,ll need a tacho. If you go for the 4.6 tonne you will certainly need a Tacho, also it will require a commercial vehicle test rather than a class 7 mot plus using a 4.6 tonne for hire and reward will also need an operators licence.

from what research I have done today seams like the 1.8t is my best option as leaves me at least 1.5t to play with for a load and a slight bit of wiggle room, cheers

[Countdown]

imagineifyeswill said:

If your doing paying jobs Im almost certain you,ll need a tacho. If you go for the 4.6 tonne you will certainly need a Tacho, also it will require a commercial vehicle test rather than a class 7 mot plus using a 4.6 tonne for hire and reward will also need an operators licence.

Hardly seems worth it if somebody's only going to be doing odd jobs.

If somebody was the scummy type and doing regular jobs without a tacho or licence what are the chances of being caught?

[italianjob1275]

Countdown said:

Hardly seems worth it if somebody's only going to be doing odd jobs.

If somebody was the scummy type and doing regular jobs without a tacho or licence what are the chances of being caught?

Depends how well you know where the various DVSA check points are... they’ll be on something like that like a tramp on chips.

[STeve-ST]

thats just it its being bought for private use simply moving track cars around plus I break the odd sporty ford now and again and always end up losing out on my scrap so would be nice to weigh in my own stuff, plus many of my pals take their car to mechanical tuners and bodyshops and want trusted transport, not wanting one to earn a living off

[sunbeam alpine]

Have you considered a car trailer?

[spikeyhead]

sunbeam alpine said:

Have you considered a car trailer?

Has Sir considered reading the thread?

[sunbeam alpine]

spikeyhead said:

sunbeam alpine said:

Have you considered a car trailer?

Has Sir considered reading the thread?

Oops!

Although it would still probably be cheaper to find somewhere to store a trailer - plus no tax/insurance etc. to pay.

[DickyC]

With the laden weight problem in mind, my truck is fitted with 5 tonne springs that make the truck uncomfortable unladen but it never looks over weight. I'm not advocating driving over weight, I'm suggesting a way of not drawing attention if it's a bit close.

[vaud]

STeve-ST said:

thats just it its being bought for private use simply moving track cars around plus I break the odd sporty ford now and again and always end up losing out on my scrap so would be nice to weigh in my own stuff, plus many of my pals take their car to mechanical tuners and bodyshops and want trusted transport, not wanting one to earn a living off

IIRC then even if they pay your fuel then it is hire/reward. So you would have to be doing it for free?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

STeve-ST said:

it would mainly be for private use 70% of the time but was hoping to do the odd job for pocket money

You'll need to do more than the odd job just to cover the extra van insurance, as you'll need hire & reward cover to carry other people's cars for money, as opposed to pleasure use for just your own cars.

[DickyC]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

You'll need to do more than the odd job just to cover the extra van insurance, as you'll need hire & reward cover to carry other people's cars for money, as opposed to pleasure use for just your own cars.

Ah, now you see, that's not entirely true. I was invited to quote for moving a newish Aston Vanquish from Cambridge to Cheltenham. My goods in transit is £25,000 with an understanding that if the vehicle being transported is more I can call the insurer and they will have it okayed by the underwriter. They blinked at the Aston and said no. They hadn't imagined me moving a car worth eight times the nominal cover. I rang the client to explain and he said to leave it with him. He rang back ten minutes later to say the car was covered on his insurance and I could go ahead.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

DickyC said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

You'll need to do more than the odd job just to cover the extra van insurance, as you'll need hire & reward cover to carry other people's cars for money, as opposed to pleasure use for just your own cars.

Ah, now you see, that's not entirely true. I was invited to quote for moving a newish Aston Vanquish from Cambridge to Cheltenham. My goods in transit is £25,000 with an understanding that if the vehicle being transported is more I can call the insurer and they will have it okayed by the underwriter. They blinked at the Aston and said no. They hadn't imagined me moving a car worth eight times the nominal cover. I rang the client to explain and he said to leave it with him. He rang back ten minutes later to say the car was covered on his insurance and I could go ahead.

I'm not talking about goods in transit insurance, just the insurance for the van. Using your van for hire & reward costs 2-3 times more for motor insurance than a policy for pleasure use only. That's before you get into covering the stuff you're carrying.

As for goods in transit cover, not my strongest subject, but don't you just offer your clients standard RHA cover of 2 SDRs a kilo? If they wasn't more than that, they buy their own cover.

[DickyC]

I'll look into that, thanks. But so far my current cover has worked fine for everything except the Vanquish.