Weights and Plates

Your Vehicle will have a number of information plates installed under the bonnet and in the door jam, these plates are important so don't dismiss them. You should at the very least check that the VIN on the chassis plate matches the VIN in the windscreen, and you must be aware of the weight limits.

Here we can see the manufacturer, the VIN code (starting ZFA25000 in this case) the number of axles, in this case we can see there's 1 front axel and 2 rear axles. The engine is given as a code, in our case its F1CE0481D which means Iveco 3.0D Multijet Power and the rest is irrelevant.

Here we can see the chassis is AL-KO (AL-KO Kober AG). We next see the Type Approval, in our case its e1*2001/116*0429 which defines the specification of the chassis. Next we have Stufe 2 which translates as level 2, and following that we have our VIN repeated.

Now for the interesting stuff, the first value in the weight plate, in our case its 5000Kg is the maximum weight of the vehicle and everything in it, that includes you and all the other stuff you're carrying. This is sometimes called the Laden Mass, Gross Weight, GVWR or MTPLM. This weight should never be exceeded.

The next value, in our case 6000Kg, is the maximum Train Weight (Gross Train Weight or Combination Weight) and this indicates the total weight of the train, which in this case doesn't refer to anything involving trains, but instead refers to the vehicle + the weight of anything you're towing. This DOES NOT mean that if you're not towing your vehicle can be 6000kg, it can't, 5000Kg is that limit, but if you're towing something then the total combined weight cannot exceed 6000Kg. Now, here's the confusion, your motorhome will not weight 5000Kg unladen, most of the larger motorhomes are somewhere around 4000Kg unladen providing 1000Kg of payload (the stuff you put in it) but let's assume for example that you and your stuff weight another 500Kg, then the vehicle weight would be 4500Kg, and you could then tow 1500Kg - make sense?

Now for the axles, which is quite important especially when selecting tyres. The first figure against 1- is the first, or front axel weight and in our case this is 2100Kg, that's spread over two wheels so each wheel can support a MAXIMUM of 1050Kg, and your tyre must be able to handle this load.

2- is the second axel weight, in our case that 1500Kg, so 750Kg per Tyre, and the third axel (yes we have 6 wheels) is also 1500Kg so 750Kg per tyre.

Its important to note that the axel weights exceed the chassis weight by 100Kg and that's normal.

The last line of the weight plate gives us the basecoat used on the chassis and its not really that important.

You CAN in some cases uprate or downrate the Maximum Weight of your vehicle, but there are costs involved and its not always possible. SV Tech are known to perform this service in the UK, but they are not the only company providing it and we simply list them here for your convenience.

I'm going to include this for completeness, but its really not important, this plate simply shows the type of gas used in your A/C and the amount of gas given as Kg. This is useful to the service professional if they need to replace or repair your air conditioning system. In our case we're using R134A as the refrigerant and 0.55Kg of it.

Here we have the paint code plate, which tells us that the vehicle is painted in BIANCO BANCHISA (a kinda dirty white) and the paint code is 249 (usually F.249). This may not, probably not be the same colour as your motorhome which are quite often resprayed and if so there's a chance you'll have another plate over this one with the actual colour, or not.