DesRes
Free Member
The question was: "How much can we legally get in the new motorhome?"
Some months ago we became proud owners of a brand new Autotrail Tribute 275G, 6 berth coachbuilt on a long wheelbase Ford Transit.
The Maximum Gross Weight is 3500kg and the Mass in Running Order is stated as 2860kg.
This ought to give a relatively healthy payload of 640kg, but is it true?
The van did not come with a spare wheel as standard so I picked one up earlier this week, plus a jack and brace, that's 40kg just eaten up.
The only modifications I've made since delivery are the fitting of two additional 85Ahr leisure batteries and a 1200W inverter, didn't weigh those but I'm guessing that's another 30kg or so.
The "G" of 275G stands for "garage" and the thing's enormous. It's just what I wanted though so as to carry all my surf gear, bicycle and all the other clobber we like to have...The maximum load for this area is stated to be 150kg so this morning I took the bathroom scales and weighed every item that I want to take. I stopped loading when it was a total of 150kg
Then I filled the fresh water tank, emptied the waste tank, left the toilet pretty much full, put my Missus in the passenger seat and headed for a local weighbridge.
The items missing for a proper trip away amounted to our daughter, food, clothing and bedding. The fuel tank was just half full.
So, drum roll as we drive on to the scales, precisely 3200kg with me in the driving seat!
One big sigh of relief and I am really quite pleased. The axle weights came out at 1440kg forward and 1760kg rear, well within the tolerance and any additional weight is going to be biased towards the front so it will be pretty evenly balanced.
Despite being happy with the outcome the exercise has demonstrated how precarious the situation can be. I'm glad that we are just a three person family. I had no plans of fitting a bike rack, nor an awning nor anything extra on the roof and today these figures have confirmed those ideas.:thumb:
Some months ago we became proud owners of a brand new Autotrail Tribute 275G, 6 berth coachbuilt on a long wheelbase Ford Transit.
The Maximum Gross Weight is 3500kg and the Mass in Running Order is stated as 2860kg.
This ought to give a relatively healthy payload of 640kg, but is it true?
The van did not come with a spare wheel as standard so I picked one up earlier this week, plus a jack and brace, that's 40kg just eaten up.
The only modifications I've made since delivery are the fitting of two additional 85Ahr leisure batteries and a 1200W inverter, didn't weigh those but I'm guessing that's another 30kg or so.
The "G" of 275G stands for "garage" and the thing's enormous. It's just what I wanted though so as to carry all my surf gear, bicycle and all the other clobber we like to have...The maximum load for this area is stated to be 150kg so this morning I took the bathroom scales and weighed every item that I want to take. I stopped loading when it was a total of 150kg
Then I filled the fresh water tank, emptied the waste tank, left the toilet pretty much full, put my Missus in the passenger seat and headed for a local weighbridge.
The items missing for a proper trip away amounted to our daughter, food, clothing and bedding. The fuel tank was just half full.
So, drum roll as we drive on to the scales, precisely 3200kg with me in the driving seat!
One big sigh of relief and I am really quite pleased. The axle weights came out at 1440kg forward and 1760kg rear, well within the tolerance and any additional weight is going to be biased towards the front so it will be pretty evenly balanced.
Despite being happy with the outcome the exercise has demonstrated how precarious the situation can be. I'm glad that we are just a three person family. I had no plans of fitting a bike rack, nor an awning nor anything extra on the roof and today these figures have confirmed those ideas.:thumb:
