Sorry, I cant help you as to where you may be able to obtain a change to your GVM but did you know that the tare weight VW shows only includes 10 litres of fuel in your tank?

I very much doubt that 50Kg increase will see you legal, from what I can see GVM 2890-2340 (Kerb) = 540 Payload.

Less:
Tongue weight =300
Fuel (90lts fuel) = 75
Full size spare tyre + racks = 40
40 ltr fridge + contents = 40
Hitch + towball = 15
Payload remaining = 70 kgs

You are left with 70 kgs to cover everything else including driver and passenger, misc items, tools, and things in your car you don't count such as spare oil, floor mats etc, etc.

Been through the same exercise myself, may be time to change your van to a lighter one:frown2:

TonyB

 

Thanks



Thanks TonyB

I actually weighed our car with a full tank and the hitch/ball in place, so the weight I quoted included those items. Your figures and mine are basically the same. Thanks for your estimates. Either way, we are stuffed. I'll make local enquiries re automotive engineers. May be I'll find one who can help. Our van is brand new. It's tare ball download was not what was quoted on order! I'm working on reducing ball weight in various ways. If I can get it under 280kg, that will be a big help.

Cheers

RobM

 

Rob

If you mount the Treg spare on the caravan rear bumper while you are towing it moves the weight away from the rear of the car giving you an extra 40Kg capacity.

Saves you dieting excessively prior to your trips

 

Thanks Ewie



Thanks Ewie. I'm working on that currently. Our van has a coat hanger for rear bar, so I am about to build a fair dinkum bar for it. I'm planning on incorporating two Jerry cans and the Treg spare. The bar and wheel should take should take at least 25kg on ball weight giving a gain of 65kg. Just need to find a shop where I can get it MIG welded after I'vetacked with my Arc welder. Our van service shop has a MIG, and a guy who they think will come in and do it for me.

Cheers

Rob

 

Also... we only have both water tanks full if we envisage being off the grid for 5 days or more. Rest of the time....only one is full

 

Yes Steve

We'll be using that strategy as well thank you.

Cheers

Rob

 

I am somewhat puzzled by the concerns expressed here.
Weight and hitch limits are , IMnsHO, arbitrary figures calculated by the manufacturer for worst case survival during extreme usage.
Careful and common sense application would probably accomodate 20% or greater overloads.
If you do have an accident , it is hard to imagine an insurer systematically weighing every piece of evidence in an attempt to resile from a claim.
just my 10c worth.. ?

 

Hi Steve and Solandri

Thanks for your input. I agree with Steve here. We are not talking about relocating everything which will certainly cause issues. If all weight is moved to the rear, as the video you linked shows Solandri, then yes, possibly to to a critical point where recovery is not possible. My van is fitted standard with Al-Ko Electronic Stability Control. My wife and I have recently experience a live in-car demonstration of how it works at a caravan show in Melbourne this month. It is amazing! In the demo, believe me, the race car driver tried very hard to lose control. The ESC doesn't allow that critical point to be reached. In my case, there will still be a lot of down load on the car. We're only trying to reduce it by 20-25kg.

 

Why not extend the draw bar on the van? The small extra weight of the extension would be negligible compared to the decrease in ball weight and an added benefit will be you can jack knife the combination better for tight spots. The longer the lever, the less the effort. John

 

Thanks Schootsie

Already have extended draw bar. Good thought though. Thanks for your post ?

 

Check out trailertoad.com. It is a system that sits between the tow vehicle and the trailer. It may do what you a trying to do without vehicle modifications.

 

Thanks Big Earl. That's an interesting system. We are in Australia and it's very doubtful this would be permitted under our road laws here for multiple reasons. Thanks for the input.

 

rather than for insurance reasons

My broker , who is a family member, opined that overweight would not be considered in a claim UNLESS it was contributory.

That gem was offered when I was towing a 4000k+ boat with a mwb cruiser ? and later with a rangie..

I now think I will probably buy an rlinev8 and it will just have to cope with the occasional over spec towball weight

 

as mentioned earlier.....watch out for the 'weight police' - especially on the East Coast. Have heard of many stories where holidaymakers etc have been sidelined, while they work out a plan to decrease weight and where they will keep the infringement notice, and how that will impact on the budget.

With all due respect to the knowledge and opinion of your family member broker, I would suggest that an insurance company would and will seek all known avenues to refuse a claim, especially if the financial impact is going to be high. Pays to read the Product Disclosure Statement of your policy. Simple rule to apply - if it's not mentioned in there, then they can't refuse the claim.

 

Steve,

The answer is the same in every case....Some people engage the brain before the gear, but many more don't. If you struggle to do simple maths to understand what you can and can't tow then how do you cope with the complexities of handling, steering, braking. Accidents are assured. Thankfully we can insure against the numerically challenged on the road...

Stuart....

 

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I have a lot to think about. Cheers, Rob

 

Reduce Touareg weight

I carry a full size spare. Since having a full size spare I have taken out the space saver giving more space and reducing the cars weight. This may make the difference that you may not need to go on a diet.

 

Great thought

I carry a full size spare. Since having a full size spare I have taken out the space saver giving more space and reducing the cars weight. This may make the difference that you may not need to go on a diet.

I have just weighed the space saver - 19.2kg. I was keeping it as a "just in case" but saving that much weight is a real temptation. In addition I could use the space for my recovery gear - Tirfor T15 hand winch, cable, snatch blocks etc, and take them out of the heavy box I made to put it all in saving another 5kg. Yes, Portwine, a great thought! Thank you!:smile2:

 

All, one thing here that has not been considered is individual axle weights. Did some weighing of my vehicle and van the other day and found that with 270kg on the ball, and about 80kg of stuff in the back, full fuel load and 175kg of passengers that whilst I was still under my GVM, I was over my rear axle weight by 120kgs. Thus the real reason for the 280kg ball weight maximum. ie if you have 280kg on the ball you have no payload left to play with unless you mount your fridge on the front bumper bar. Playing around a bit I found that 240 on the ball dropped 320 on the rear axle and took 80kg off the front. Bearing in mind rear axle payload is 490kg. 100kg of fuel increases rear axle load by about 120kg and takes about 20 off the front (this is because its behind the axle and not on top of). So with 240kg on the ball and a full load of fuel thats 400kg out of your 490 kg payload. The take off 50% of passenger weight (because front passengers sit pretty much 50% of the distance between front and rear axles) for me thats about 85kgs leaving 5kg in the back. The front axle however is a different story. Start with 170kg of payload take off 85Kg leaving 85Kg but then the lever effect of the ball weight and fuel behind the rear axle provides another 100kg giving me 185kg of spare payload capacity on the front axle where its totally useless.

At 280kg on the ball you cant even fill you tank let along carry anything in the rear cargo area.

Humm!!!

 

All, one thing here that has not been considered is individual axle weights. Did some weighing of my vehicle and van the other day and found that with 270kg on the ball, and about 80kg of stuff in the back, full fuel load and 175kg of passengers that whilst I was still under my GVM, I was over my rear axle weight by 120kgs. Thus the real reason for the 280kg ball weight maximum. ie if you have 280kg on the ball you have no payload left to play with unless you mount your fridge on the front bumper bar.

This is why weight distribution hitches were invented. With just the two axles on the vehicle and a pivot joint for the trailer (no torque, just weight), this is a straightforward physics problem. You only have to locate the center of mass of the loaded vehicle (treat the tongue weight as a static load located at the ball for the trailer). The location of the CM determines the axle weight distribution.

If it's directly above one of the axles, that axle bears 100%, the other 0%.
If it's 1/2 the distance to one axle (midway between the front and rear axles), the weight is distributed 50%/50%.
If it's 1/3 of the distance to one axle, that axle bears 67%, the other 33%.
If it's 1/4 of the distance to one axle, that axle bears 75%, the other 25%.
And so on.

A weight distribution hitch converts the pivot joint of the trailer ball into a semi-fixed joint that can transmit torque in the up-down direction. That makes the tow vehicle + trailer a single beam for force calculations. Now you have three (or more) sets of axles on the ground, making it a statically indeterminate problem. Which means the weight on each axle can be controlled by tweaking the alignment of the weight distribution hitch (physically move some axles up or down relative to the others).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statically_indeterminate

I'm baffled why Europe refuses to adopt weight distribution hitches, as they simplify the problem of equalizing load between your axles (which shows up as the tow vehicle being nose or rear heavy). Instead of having to physically move the location of weight to equalize the load, all you have to do is adjust the weight distribution hitch until the tow vehicle sits level. (No an air suspension doesn't do this. It just moves the front or back up or down relative to the axles. It doesn't not change the loading on the axles.)

Also, the axle limits are not absolute, since they're being calculated when the vehicle and trailer are static and at rest. As you decelerate and accelerate, the weight distribution gets shifted forward and back. Basically the designer took the static loading on the axles, and used it to estimate the maximum dynamic loading using the vehicle performance characteristics (maximum acceleration, maximum braking, maximum turning for side-to-side loading), and designed the axles to withstand that amount of loading. So there is some wiggle room to operate the vehicle safely even if you're slightly "overloaded" on one axle while at rest. This is not to say that you *should* operate the vehicle overloaded, just that it is not automatically fatal just because you're 1 kg over.

 

Solandri.
What you have indicated is great however the R Lines have air suspension which is not compatible with a WDH

 

Probably coming in too late on this thread: but new laws in effect mean that while GVM can be legally increased (varying from state to state) the GCM cannot be altered by any second stage manufacturer. Eg on a 2016 Tdi the GCM is (without checking) 6390 kgs so with a GVM of 2890 kg plus a 3500 kg van you are at GCM. Increasing GVM will not help unless you can lighten the van weight to compensate.
If you can work with the existing weights, one option would be to change to an Audi Q7 (sorry) with a 350kg ball weight.
Kombi-76