No, its max vehicle weight. And this is for vehicles that are fully on the recovery vehicle (I have learned a lot about this over the last week!
)Once you have a chassis cab, beaver tail on it. You are typically pushing 2200Kg. To keep within the 3500KG limit for MAM your payload is now very limited. (Like Corsa/fiesta level) As I said, Looking at it I cannot really see why there is a market for 3500Kg recovery trucks at all! They are useless for the vast majority of cars these days (Even small cars are now well over 1400Kg)
I was only looking at this since I am moving house and have a lot of vehicles to move (Some roadworthy, some not) This is actually going to be a bit operation Black Buck and I seriously considered buying a cheap recovery truck on the grounds that it would be cheaper than hiring Transporters or subcontracting the job.
I have now concluded that none of my vehicles could be carried legally on a 3500Kg transporter. I would have to buy/hire a 7500Kg one. I can drive one of these because grandfather rights. but it would be stupidly expensive and inconvenient.
I have decided that a big trailer is probably the best option now
However it does seem bizarre that I can legally load the LC80 up to around 2800KG and actually tow (All on the plate) another 3500Kg on top of that!
OTOH, I can only tow 2500KG behind my twin wheel Luton van (Plated at 3500KG)
(IE the total MAM for the Luton is significantly less than for the Landcruiser)
Why? How? Who works all this out and how do the numbers work?
(The Luton has a MAM of 6000Kg, LC80 nearer (Cant recall exact number) 6300Kg)
I dare say there was a Lawyer in there somewhere!
(Edit on towing limit for Luton)
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