What does your Bus weigh now?

The manual tells us what they weighed when they came from the factory but what about now?
Added weight of furniture, gas bottles, accessories and in some cases not insubstantial amounts of filler!
Has anyone actually weighed their bus? If so what did it weigh?

 

Best weird thread of the day award goes to TBR

 

Let me just put it on the kitchen scales and find out

 

Take it on a public weigh bridge, our local changes £7.50. Not done it yet, I'm waiting until I'm loaded for my hols. 72wilma it's a guy thing ;-)

 

why bother how do we find out what they weighed when they left the factory... being 37 yrs old i'll allow a bit for middle age spread.

 

blimey £7.50 to go on the scales my pockets would feel a bit lighter after that. or just drive it to your local recycling depot. they weight the lorrys as they drive in and out to see how much they have dropped off in material.

just say opps on the way out. and it is free and gives the weight in Kgs

 

This is my local recycling place, they have no external display, my local pit does, but I'm going to look a bit retarded pulling up there in a camper van and saying oops.

 

The reasoning behind the question was that I'm about to buy a trailer to transport a Crewcab back from Italy. A Crewcab is around 1200kg so a 1500kg payload trailer would be fine, however I have intentions to lend it out to TLB members and was wondering whether it might be better to find a 2000kg payload one as something like a fully loaded Viking may well be north of 1500kg?
BTW if you want to know and are in the OX7 postcode anytime you can use my weighbridge for free!

 

Out of interest, how heavy would the towing vehicle need to be?

 

If I remember correctly it is dependant on the towing vehicle manufacture.
Small commercials have a Max towing weight on a plate somewhere on the vehicle and car manufacturers list the max towing weights for their vehicles. These are obviously for commercially available braked trailers, not home made bodges.
Back in the day it was reckoned the trailer should be no more than 85% of towing vehicle.

 

Quick check shows the 85% rule is 'recommended' and manufacturers list the max permissible towing weight for any given vehicle.
Apparently 'modern' cars can tow much more weight safely due to braking efficiencies and chassis design.
For example my newHyundai is allowed to tow 2200kg but only weighs 1700kg. Whereas my old Vivaro weighs 1800kg but can only pull 2000kg.
Clear as mud like all modern legislation.

 

I towed a splitty on a 1750kg plant trailer with a Renault Scenic and it scared me and the wife screamed about 12 times on the way home! I towed the same trailer with a latebay on with a Fronterra and barely noticed I was being followed. I assumed the weight helped quite a lot.

 

Towed a bay back from cumbria on a trailer with an Opel Manta . Far tooooo many tank slappers, it wasnt safe.

 

Either way I'm well within limits.
konaboy6284 bus will be on the Hyundai 7 seat 4x4 and the Crewcab will be towed by a 16 tonne Motorhome!

 

Its not just down to the weight of the towing vehicles as i know landrovers are allowed to tow well above there own weight and do so very well

I once saw a post on here where a member towed a bus home with a mondeo and they were struggling for traction at times on the journey
Scary stuff indeed

Im pretty sure it also depends on when you past your driving test as after a certain year you have to do a towing test and after passing your limited to the weight you can tow

 

paradox is right. If you're young or didn't pass your test until this century you have to take a further test to tow.
There's a massive difference between what's legal and what's safe! Having driven towing vehicles up to 44 tonnes for many years there are some seriously dangerous outfits running around, many of them Caravans.

 

Ive seen lots of transits towing carravans that you could fit the transit inside

 

thats interesting, i didnt know there were so many rules to towing!! although, after reading some of your points it does seem to make sense.

although, if you were wondering about mine mate,
its a tintop that has nothing but a full width r'n'r bed in the back, so that should be significantly lighter than a lot of buses out there