When you finally decide to purchase a pre owned Motor-home what are you actually letting yourself in for. Obviously, you will be attracted to the external looks, the internal layout and some, if not all, the additional extras that previous owners have installed. However, can I offer a word of caution. Something that needs to be considered is the payload of the vehicle. The payload is the weight that can be legally carried in the vehicle and is a simple mathematical equation. The vehicle has a Maximum Authorised Weight (M.A.W), this is displayed on the Vehicle VIN Plate and the Log Book. When we took delivery of Maurice the weight limit was 3,500 kg.
The manufacturer has a design unladen weight, often referred to as Mass in Running Order (M.I.R.O). The original M.I.R.O for Maurice was 3,162 kg. So a simple M.A.W minus M.I.R.O equals Payload. So our Motor-home had the following payload 3,500 – 3,162 = 338 kg. Reasonably healthy and quite workable. However, this is where you must be cautious. The M.I.R.O is a designated figure from the manufacturer in its basic condition. So what about all those additional extras, like Satellite TV System, Bike Rack, Awning, extra leisure battery, Alarm System, Beeny Box etc,etc. These all add weight. So where did I stand in respect of Maurice. The only way to find out was to set the Motor-home up in basic running order, fuel water gas etc and put it on a weighbridge. What a shock Maurice weighed 3,440 kg. He must of had some good living he’d put on a few kilos. Our problem was that we only had a spare 60 kg’s as payload, not enough to even allow Lina to travel.
So what choice do we have. Well we could strip out some of the equipment, and yes we have lost the bike rack and we are now contemplating removing the Awning. The other option is to up-rate the M.A.W. After some investigations a very helpful company SV Tech were able to up-rate the M.A.W to 4,000 kg’s this has given us a very healthy 540 kg payload. Of course the ultimate test is to pack it all on board and have another check at the weighbridge.
The frightening point about this is the previous owners had spent years driving a vehicle over the weight limit. This has all sorts of possible issues, invalid insurance, dangerous handling properties of the vehicle, breaking regulations like driving over 3.5 T weight limits when in fact the vehicle is too heavy. So I think it is really important that you know the starting point with your vehicles weight and what the actual M.A.W allowance is. It could save you a lot of embarrassment to keep within the limits.
Maurice on Manoeuvres 