Driving With Full Water Tanks

[HKF]

We're currently on our very first trip with our new-to-us MoHo, in France. We've been on the same site for 2 days and, so far, I've seen 4 different MoHos fill their water tanks full before leaving. Two of them also filled separate water containers. One of them also had 4 adults and two children on board, as well as 3 bikes and no end of chairs, tables, BBQ etc. This wasn't a massive MoHo, just a normal 3.5t one (unless they'd had it re-plated. Anyway, as well as wondering what the weight must be like on these rigs, I'm also wondering why people would do this? Or is it just me being over-cautious about the weight and stability?

 

[daveandsan]

I always travel empty, 120kgs is a lot of extra weight. That’s a lot of wine.

 

[olley]

Full water tank for me.

 

[62272]

They’ll very probably be over weight (each litre is 1 kilo), and they will probably be free camping, and only fill up with water and drop off toilet waste every four-seven days. Although we have a uprated chassis so will usually run with about 1/2 tank touring France, to save rushing to fill on arrival. Same weight as a teenager.

 

[BusyBuilder]

If you have plenty of spare on the chassis, then why not ? we have approx 300kg spare on our 4250kg chassis, that's after loading up for a week or two away. I'm not sure how anyone manages on the lighter chassis.

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[SuperMike]

Always run full of water, with 65gal, don’t know I’ve got it on board. Likewise we leave with a full tank of fuel, 85gal, as well.

 

[Gaston aires]

Full tank for me, especially in France. You never know when you can fill up next.
Phil upmetank

 

[RobbyMClark]

Try and travel with full tanks for 2 reasons.
Never sure where when is next fill
MY appears to handle better with full tanks - less bounce.

 

[royandsharont]

When we had our 4005kg van I was always keen to see & speak to foreign owners of similar sized vans. They were often plated at 3500kg for various reasons, many being EU driving licence rules in their respective countries. I came away after 9 years of believing most, if not all, are overweight and they knew it.

We always travelled with a full tank of fresh water, filled by hand the day before setting off to avoid the queues at the service point, and an empty waste tank. We carried everything we ever wanted, and that was quite a lot of equipment bikes etc and always got weighed in the UK before setting off. We usually set off at around 3850 - 4000kg knowing that would be our max and tried to get a split of 40% over the front axle.

We never had any problems from a driving or safety perspective during the 9 years and 39k miles apart from once we were almost blown over crossing the Rio Ebro & that taught me to check the wind speeds & directions for the intended journey, not just the general weather. A curtain sider did get blown over in front of me. A frightening experience which came upon us instantly as we entered the bridge of the wide crossing and no where to go and avoid it.

 

[Lenny HB]

Alway travel with a full 160 Lt tank never know where we will be able to fill up next. We have a 24+350kg payload and loaded up for 6 weeks have about 300kg spare.

In France nearly all Motorhomes are 3500kg regardless of the weight.

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[HKF]

This making interesting reading, particularly as the handbook for our MoHo says never to drive with water in either of the tanks, and particularly mentions instability. We've also been warned by many of our French Mo-Hoing friends that the French Police are hotting up on overweight MoHos, hence why I was surprised to see people setting off with full tanks.

 

[HKF]

Alway travel with a full 160 Lt tank never know where we will be able to fill up next. We have a 24+350kg payload and loaded up for 6 weeks have about 300kg spare.

In France nearly all Motorhomes are 3500kg regardless of the weight.

This would make sense, as that matches the standard licence. We've been told we can have ours re-plated for a minimal fee, since we both have C1 UK licences. I think we may well do this, to keep us well within the weight limit

 

[Winger]

Better looking at than for! If an extra 100kgs makes your vehicle unstable I suggest upgrading your suspension, after all I weigh 100kg.

 

[busby]

Always run full of water, with 65gal, don’t know I’ve got it on board. Likewise we leave with a full tank of fuel, 85gal, as well.

Think you mean litres,,BUSBY.

 

[peterc10]

We always fill up when we leave because we do not know where we will end up that day and whether or not it has water. Especially in France will all their Aires and wild camping spots.

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[Offagain]

We always fill up /empty whenever The opportunity presents as we wild camp as often as possible.

 

[JockandRita]

We too fill up, and never go below a quarter of a tank, and we dump and refresh whenever we can, for the same reasons as others.

Even in holiday mode with all tanks full, bikes onboard, and weighing in at 5850Kgs on the DVSA Weighbridge, we have a ton of payload spare, since up plating .............................. which is a lot of beer and wine.

Cheers,

Jock.

 

[Scotch mist]

This making interesting reading, particularly as the handbook for our MoHo says never to drive with water in either of the tanks, and particularly mentions instability. We've also been warned by many of our French Mo-Hoing friends that the French Police are hotting up on overweight MoHos, hence why I was surprised to see people setting off with full tanks.

funnily enough my new MoHo says never drive with anymore than 20lts in water tank
BUT I would always have driven with full tank & I suppose I will continue, all 215lts of it
i think if you had an accident with a bit of g force the tank could move forward & potentially
make the MoHo a write off

 

[Two on Tour]

We always fill up when there is the opportunity when touring as we never know if our next stop has water or not and many times the water point has been out of service, plus we often park up for the night off grid.

If we are off to a meet or show, and we know water is on site, then we travel with enough water for a cuppa and to flush the loo on the journey and the same on the way home.

 

[Wh05apk]

We always travel full, never know when we can refill, especially in France in winter, a full tank of 100lts is only 2% of our overall weight, so really makes negligible difference overall.

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[JJ]

No water = no life...

JJ

 

[Shrimp]

In France we use the Aires not campsites and when we move we always make sure our tank is at least 1/2 full (120 ltrs full) and we carry separate water for drinking or topping up the tank.
If we are going to an Aire we know we don’t bother so much.

 

[pandas]

funnily enough my new MoHo says never drive with anymore than 20lts in water tank
BUT I would always have driven with full tank & I suppose I will continue, all 215lts of it
i think if you had an accident with a bit of g force the tank could move forward & potentially
make the MoHo a write off

And if 215kilos (ish) took it over the plated allowed weight by I think the 5% margin it could possibly reduce your vehicle insurance to 3rd Party although there is some doubt by some that happens. My take is that insurance companies do not try wriggle out of anything when paying out - not!

 

[pandas]

We always fill up when we leave because we do not know where we will end up that day and whether or not it has water. Especially in France will all their Aires and wild camping spots.

Or to empty presumably so you potentially may have full tanks of both fresh and waste water - in our case that would be 320 kilos. That a lot of wine I cannot take back with me!

 

[Wh05apk]

Or to empty presumably so you potentially may have full tanks of both fresh and waste water - in our case that would be 320 kilos. That a lot of wine I cannot take back with me!

We would never have both tanks full, if yiu can fill, you can normally empty, failing that we would empty at the side of the road, if only grey.

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[DangerMousy]

Our Rapido handbook says to drain down to 20L before travelling.....as far as I know, it doesn't actually say never travel with full tanks. I think the 20L thing is just so they only have to include 20L of water in the MIRO calculation, which of course makes the payload look better. Ours was originally plated at 3700 - so if we wanted to remain legal we had to chose between bikes and full water, but since we've uprated it to 4.25 we now travel full most of the time. Its just for convenience...if we know we're going to stay at a campsite then we might not bother topping up, but if we're heading for an aire or France Passion then you're never sure if there's going to be water.

In France nearly all Motorhomes are 3500kg regardless of the weight.

That's so true!

 

[pandas]

Better looking at than for! If an extra 100kgs makes your vehicle unstable I suggest upgrading your suspension, after all I weigh 100kg.

I think the driver and passenger will have be calculated within the plated allowance @ 90kg each so that’s 10 over plus it not if you feel it’s unstable it’s the definition the vehicle was tested at which factors in brakes, stopping distance chassis etc. possibly why some are slightly confused why you can slightly up plate you vehicle as a paper process without making any physical changes. Nothing to do with you personally feeling you are okay.
My father tied telling me that our grandchild didn’t need a seatbelt and could sit on the central consul of his car to look out the window whilst travelling as he was more than capable in an accident of immediately grabbing her so perfectly safe!

 

[Despicable]

Normally travel with fresh water at half to full and grey tank empty. Stability? I'd guess that the fuller the tank the more stable the vehicle; unless you move your tank to the roof.

 

[The Dotties]

Think you mean litres,,BUSBY.

No, he doesn’t. SuperMike has an RV. Gurt big thing tiz.

 

[AXO66]

Half tank or less (60L) if off to a site, i.e Cl . Full if touring in Europe as you never know where you might be and what the facilities are each night.

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