Come on manufactures, get real.
Reading Practical Caravan magazine this afternoon and looking at a review of my (at the moment) dream caravan, I was amazed to see the £33,494 Buccneer Barracuda, with a MTPLM of 1990kg has a user payload of 159kg. Add a four wheel mover to it and your tooth brush and some clean undies and it's its all gone 
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WHAT??? How many berth is it designed for? If you leave off the motor mover would it allow for more than clean undies and toothbrush per person?
If it's designed as a family van it certainly could get them into severe trouble if they add and awning and bike or scooter for the kids.
What a shame they're aren't any membership clubs who could advice manufacturers what a buyer might be looking for on payloads and review a van pointing out the relevant available payload 😉
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And still it goes on. Why? Because people actually buy them.
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That's nothing. The Buccaneer Galerea. Has both the Maximum Axle weight and the minimum allowable user payload . They have to get the MRO correct one kilo more and the van wouldn't meet spec. I think that this is a fantastic piece of engineering, mind you I still believe in the tooth fairy.
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....and what is worse is that someone will try towing it using the 'max tow weight' i.e. theoretical capability, of their towcar.
I recently saw an outfit on a CAMC site where a Skoda Yeti was towing (?) a twin axle Swift....I haven't looked at the numbers - but it didn't seem right to me!!
As for manufacturers designing and building a caravan with more than 150-160kgs payload allowance - dream on.....
Perhaps it is time to get the mover and battery included in the MIRO so we can claw back some of the personal allowance?
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I read somewhere that there is an EU directive on calculating the minimum payload. It goes something like:
10 x internal length + 10 x number of berths + 50 Kg
So a 6 metre 4 berth van should have a minimum payload of:
10 x 6 = 60, + 10 x 4 = 40, + 50, total 150Kg. That's why so many have payloads of 151Kg or thereabouts.
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"As for manufacturers designing and building a caravan with more than 150-160kgs payload allowance - dream on....."
My Hymers have been provided with real payloads, [ie even the battery included in the MIRO not bled from payload] of respectively 330kg and 277 kgs. For us, a major purchase making point.
But then I read on this forum that German vans are "rubbish" compared to UK vans!
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My Abbey Vogue 470 had been up-plated by 50Kgs and had a payload of 250Kg. for the bare van without any deductions for batteries, gas, cables etc. Even with only two of us, we managed to use nearly all of it. I haven't been to a weighbridge with the MH yet but, having had it up-plated by 200Kgs., I'm hoping not to have any issues.
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I Just can't understand why a high end £35k luxury 4 berth caravan weighing nearly 2 tons has such a small load margin?
My Elddis Avante dealer special has a MTPLM 1437 kg upgraded to 1500kg. this gives me a user payload of 225kg minus the mover, which is a bit more realistic. My Coachman Amara (same size and layout) was even better at 248kg.
As for mis-matching the outfit. over the weekend at Cherry Hinton site there was a very large twin axle Swift being towed by a Seat Alhambra, that certainly looked to be way over the cars capabilities
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A Buccaneer is still just a Elddis - that can't be good really.
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Just like a S Max is a Mondeo
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Smax went years ago !!!
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You would hope (and pray) that their knowledge would go a little further before starting to tow though hasty. There really is no excuse with all the training courses, forums and any number of references made to towing weights. Sounds like at least one muppet got through the system though!!
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I have commented on this issue on a previous thread. Earlier this year, with some regret, we traded our Bailey Unicorn Vigo series 3 for a Coachman VIP which we had replated to 1700kg. We changed because, last year, we experienced a broken axle, as did some friends with an identical caravan. In both cases, we had been away on the continent for 6 weeks with all of the paraphernalia that entails, although water/waste water containers and canopy were carried in the car. This brought home to us the ridiculously low payload of most caravans (maybe 95kg once motor mover and leisure battery are taken into account). This is completely inadequate and makes a mockery of all the storage space, floor-to-ceiling fridges, etc. Even with the Coachman in which we have roughly double the usable payload, we now no-longer take a stiore of food away - I have checked the weight on a weighbridge and it would easily be possible to take this caravan over its maximum weight.
To be fair to Bailey, they repaired both our caravan and our friends' at no cost but that still left us with an unsuitable caravan (Bailey series 3s cannot be replated). Incidentally, while the Unicorn was at the factory, Baileys found it had been leaking at the rear. A sad tail because we liked the interior very much.
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