Autotrail Tracker EKS awning

GD....your sailing beautifully into 'brochure' territory......I would suggest this van need careful weight management and is far from a 'safe bet'...

at 3500kg that 310kg (which is very low) has to be adjusted downwards by your OH (nominal 75kg), any variance upwards in your own weight over 75kg, any water you'll be carrying (many folk travel with a good supply, half a tank is 75kg, remember, it's not a caravan), the dog (15kg?) plus AT's list of Personal Payload 85kg (the small items, clothes etc)..

that's 250kg gone (leaving you just 60kg) before you actually put anything of significant weight in the van....tables, chairs, BBQ, levellers, second gas bottle etc, etc....in fact all the stuff (and more) I mentioned upthread.....include dog crate, awning and things are more than tight...

...and what extras or accessories have you added to the order....?

as I mentioned, upplating to 3650 DOES NOT increase the axle weight allowances, so it is certainly likely that the rear axle will exceed its legal limit before you reach the 3650 total weight.

so, you won't get the full benefit of the extra 150kg, in fact you may not get any benefit at all, as it will be down to how the weight distribution of the van is and how the payload is distributed....

again, not trying to scare you or put you off the van, but any van with a payload as low as 150kg (which is effectively what you have after the OH, dog and half a tank of water have been loaded) is marginal in the extreme....

thats 150kg to carry ALL the stuff in AT's list AND all the stuff in my list AND the awning and, and , ....

and if the van is significantly rear biased, that 150kg may cause the rear axle to be very close (or worse) to its limit.

i hope I'm way out on these numbers, but generally vans don't come in under their brochure weight (read 'tollerance')....

manufacturers now 'conveniently' don't include a tank of water in the MIRO which (miraculously) allows them to quote a 'payload' 100kg or so more than they used to......for the same van...

for the sake of a phone call why not ask John or Paul or whoever to weigh the van with both axle weights, and you can also weigh everything that's going in the van....incl OH and dog....

I have a list of the 'stuff' that lives in our van....I went through everything as I wanted to run our small Carthago at 3500kg....so,I can give you some detailled help there....but I think it's paramount to understand your starting point and that is the actual weight of your van....

just to illustrate how far manufacturers have come in the 'deceit' stakes with regard to payload (and unusable vans) just take a look at the AutoTrail Imala 620 weight calculator page....

marketed on the 'license friendly' 3500kg chassis, it has four belts, can sleep six....put four people in it, and just the AT list of light stuff, no water, no heavy 'stuff',no bedding, kettles toasters, crockery, cutlery, clothes, maps etc....available payload 24kg....yes, 24kg....

even at 3650kg the payload is way, way too small for four people and the rear axle will go over before that extra 150kg is loaded....

We picked our EKS Tracker up on Tuesday from Chelston and drove straight over to the Devon and Somerset trading standards Weigh bridge (hopefully fairly accurate).
The weight was 3080kg, for anybody out there that has any interest, this is unladen without fluids or passengers and only 20lt of fuel.

ok, you've weighed the van that's great...do you have the axle weighs, remember I said that this is the light chassis' Achiles Heel at only 2000kg loading on the rear axle...

so....this is just surmise.....but as your van is pretty rear biased let's say 40/60.....(it could be 45/55 so we really need those actual axle weights)

3080 X 60% = 1848kg...so, this is the likely unladen load on your rear axle.....so you have 152kg spare....

now, let's add you (75), OH (75), just half a tank of water (70), full hot water tank (10), dog (15), full fuel tank extra 70ltr (70)....total...315kg.

spread this arbitrarily (40/60) across the axles as above....126 (front) 189 (rear).

now 189 is more than the 152 you had spare....so overloaded by 40kg before you put in any food, clothes, chairs tables, awning, or anything on the lists I posted earlier....

with a 55% rear bias, the unladen load is 1694, the rear load of you plus water etc is 173 (but it depends where the tanks are located....) so add these and you get a rear loading of 1867, so you (might) have 133 spare on the rear axle....but I have been estimating the bias so we need the actual weights....

however, it is certainly fair to say that your 'real' starting point (no 'stuff' on board) for the rear axle is somewhere between 133kg and -40 kg (ie overloaded). even if we split the difference this gives a start point of arpund 80kg.....in payload terms......nothing...

now take the MTPLM.....add 3080 to 315 and you get 3395, so you have (apparently) 105 kg spare.....or even more if you upgrade to 3650. another 150 seems to have given you 255kg spare....a small amount for all the stuff we need to carry....

however, none of this matters as you are going to be in difficulties on the rear axle long before you even reach 3500....

please come back with your axle weights....this is very important ....