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Q What can I actually drive on a standard car licence?
I am confused about weight limits. I am looking at a 2012 Elddis Marquis 180, which has a gross weight of 3,500kg. Can this be driven on a normal car licence?
Gary Jones
AYes, a car driving licence (ie category B licence) permits you to drive a vehicle with a gross weight up to 3,500kg.
Most legislation involving vehicle weight refers to the vehicle’s plated mass, ie the gross vehicle weight shown on the chassis/VIN plate or sticker and not how much the vehicle is loaded up to.
This plate will show four weights and the top figure will be the maximum (gross) weight the vehicle is permitted to be loaded up to. The third and fourth figure down represent the permitted safe front and rear axle loadings.
There may be more than one weight plate on your ’van. Always take the weights given on final converter’s plate, such as Swift, rather than the base vehicle manufacturer’s plate (say, Fiat) or the rear chassis manufacturer (such as Al-Ko).
Care needs to be taken when loading your vehicle to keep within these legal boundaries. It’s not unusual to find motorhomes with the rear axle overloaded where motorhome has a substantial overhang beyond the rear axle and a heavily loaded bike rack is present.
It’s possible in some circumstances for the vehicle to be uprated, which may mean the axle suspension or tyres or both will physically need to be upgraded. Sometimes the vehicle has sufficient axle and tyre loading capacity for the gross weight figure to be up-plated without physical changes, but any up-plating has to be officially approved and registered by the DVLA before you can legally load the vehicle to the revised gross weight.
Once your vehicle is plated with a gross weight in excess of 3,500kg then a normal car licence is no longer sufficient to drive the vehicle. If you have only a category B entitlement on your licence then you can take a test to upgrade to a C1 licence to drive heavier vehicles.
Depending on when you took your driving test you will have different entitlement categories on your driving licence. For those drivers who took their test before 1997, they will have not only a category B entitlement ( for vehicles up to 3,500kg), but also a C1 entitlement for vehicles up to 7,500kg. However, many older drivers revert to a category B entitlement because, at the age of 70, you must renew your licence, and to retain the C1 category (sometimes called Grandfather Rights), you need to renew your licenc
