D
Deleted member 47379
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I thought I would share my experience with this bit of kit. I hope this is in the right section.
I bought the Reich Caravan Weight Control 1000kg from campervanstuff.com a little while ago and finally got round to using it. It was £167.
I felt like I wanted to know the weight of my van and had no luck finding a local weighbridge I could use. After a bit of research and some chat with others on here I realised this won't be perfect but I thought I could at least get a rough idea of the weight so I'm not running the risk of being overweight and only finding out when I've been pulled over (or god forbid in an accident) and it's too late.
It was just about the right size to go under a wheel, I've got 18" Wolfrace Assassins with 255 width rims and fortunately (because I didn't check this beforehand!) as you can see from the tyre marks and picture below the device was wide enought to take the whole tyre.
As you can also see, the surface was tarmac. I used the smoothest looking bits in our little cul-de-sac (not this bit in the pic) and the instructions said that block paving was not recommended so I didn't use that area. I used a bit of old decking plank for the opposite wheel as instructed to try to keep the axle level and swept the area in front of each wheel before putting the plank/device in place then driving over. I was aware there was a little bit of camber on whichever area I used so again, chose the flattest looking two areas.
I did all four wheels in one direction, then turned the van around and did them all again in the opposite direction in each space. I did this in two places on the driveway so got four total readings. I thought this would at least eliminate a bit of error for surface/camber differences if I took some averages.
For info, my van is a T28, full conversion with the usual pop top, beefy leisure battery, twin hob/sink, fridge, side kitchen/wardrobe, rock and roll bed etc. and a Fiamma two bike rack.
It was full of fuel and ad blue and the onboard water tank was empty. Gas bottle is in there and I had no food/drink on board but had in the van all my usual kit including the awning, two solar panels, toilet and all towels, bedding, windscreen covers and cooking equipment. Basically I could chuck in my weekend bag and some food/drink, stick the bike on the back and I'm good to go. I weigh about 80kg these days so that's included in the readings also.
The bottom of the device has hard rubber feet which seem to have absorbed a bit of the imperfections in the surface.
So, here's the scores on the doors (in kg):
First location:
F Left.......R Left.....F Right....R Right....Total
503............555.........572...........516.........2146
497............543.........523...........508.........2071........Average of these two: 2108.5kg
Second location:
F Left.......R Left.....F Right....R Right....Total
528............520..........524..........504.........2076
487............524..........598..........511.........2120.......Average of these two: 2098kg
Average of all totals: 2103.25kg
Avg each tyre:
F Left.....R Left.....F Right....R Right
503.75....535.5......554.25......509.75
While there are a couple of quite large differences in some readings for the same tyre, I think it looks like a reasonable assumption that my van is in the 2105kg area for weight without luggage/bike/food/drink/missus added. I'm happy that despite the variance in some readings, by taking averages multiple times I'm going to narrow down the possible weight range of my van. And because it's far enough under the maximum permissible weight I'm pretty confident I'm not going to end up overweight. Just need to weigh my bike now!
I will definitely give it another go somewhere else and see how the averages compare. But overall I am content with the results. Very happy for smarter people than me to add a bit of perspective and share their interpretation of the data. Hope it's been of some use.
I bought the Reich Caravan Weight Control 1000kg from campervanstuff.com a little while ago and finally got round to using it. It was £167.
I felt like I wanted to know the weight of my van and had no luck finding a local weighbridge I could use. After a bit of research and some chat with others on here I realised this won't be perfect but I thought I could at least get a rough idea of the weight so I'm not running the risk of being overweight and only finding out when I've been pulled over (or god forbid in an accident) and it's too late.
It was just about the right size to go under a wheel, I've got 18" Wolfrace Assassins with 255 width rims and fortunately (because I didn't check this beforehand!) as you can see from the tyre marks and picture below the device was wide enought to take the whole tyre.
As you can also see, the surface was tarmac. I used the smoothest looking bits in our little cul-de-sac (not this bit in the pic) and the instructions said that block paving was not recommended so I didn't use that area. I used a bit of old decking plank for the opposite wheel as instructed to try to keep the axle level and swept the area in front of each wheel before putting the plank/device in place then driving over. I was aware there was a little bit of camber on whichever area I used so again, chose the flattest looking two areas.
I did all four wheels in one direction, then turned the van around and did them all again in the opposite direction in each space. I did this in two places on the driveway so got four total readings. I thought this would at least eliminate a bit of error for surface/camber differences if I took some averages.
For info, my van is a T28, full conversion with the usual pop top, beefy leisure battery, twin hob/sink, fridge, side kitchen/wardrobe, rock and roll bed etc. and a Fiamma two bike rack.
It was full of fuel and ad blue and the onboard water tank was empty. Gas bottle is in there and I had no food/drink on board but had in the van all my usual kit including the awning, two solar panels, toilet and all towels, bedding, windscreen covers and cooking equipment. Basically I could chuck in my weekend bag and some food/drink, stick the bike on the back and I'm good to go. I weigh about 80kg these days so that's included in the readings also.
The bottom of the device has hard rubber feet which seem to have absorbed a bit of the imperfections in the surface.
So, here's the scores on the doors (in kg):
First location:
F Left.......R Left.....F Right....R Right....Total
503............555.........572...........516.........2146
497............543.........523...........508.........2071........Average of these two: 2108.5kg
Second location:
F Left.......R Left.....F Right....R Right....Total
528............520..........524..........504.........2076
487............524..........598..........511.........2120.......Average of these two: 2098kg
Average of all totals: 2103.25kg
Avg each tyre:
F Left.....R Left.....F Right....R Right
503.75....535.5......554.25......509.75
While there are a couple of quite large differences in some readings for the same tyre, I think it looks like a reasonable assumption that my van is in the 2105kg area for weight without luggage/bike/food/drink/missus added. I'm happy that despite the variance in some readings, by taking averages multiple times I'm going to narrow down the possible weight range of my van. And because it's far enough under the maximum permissible weight I'm pretty confident I'm not going to end up overweight. Just need to weigh my bike now!
I will definitely give it another go somewhere else and see how the averages compare. But overall I am content with the results. Very happy for smarter people than me to add a bit of perspective and share their interpretation of the data. Hope it's been of some use.
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