Pick-up speed limits

[Treewolf]

On 07/06/2018 at 01:32, wicklamulla said:

well i must have heard it somewhere along the line and it kind of stuck with me,  so i always thought a single cab Hilux was never allowed to do 70mph on the motorway.  I wonder is this why some pickup manufacturers offer those 'space cab', extra cab', 'sports cab' variants which more or less give you almost the same bed length as a single cab but since they are a 4 seater you can tank along the motorway at 70mph versus 60mph?

This is slightly more complex to answer than at first may appear. If you compared a 4x2 single cab pickup with a 4x2 double cab pickup, then there is a very significant likelihood that the double cab would fall into the Dual Purpose Vehicle definition but the single cab wouldn't, in which case the double cab would legally be allowed to travel at higher speeds than the single cab where National Speed Limits apply. It would however depend on a few other factors so is not a "given".

 

If you were to compare single-cab and double-cab pickups both of which have full-time or part-time all-wheel drive (note that the requirement is all wheel drive, not four wheel drive) then provided that the unladen weight of the vehicle is less than 2040kg and the gross laden weight does not exceed 3500kg then both are Dual Purpose Vehicles by virtue of the all-wheel-drive capability and both can travel at normal "car" maxima where National Speed Limits apply.

 

Some people are caught out by the unladen weight limit since (a) 2040Kg is quite a low limit (vehicles such as a Disco3 commercial are much heavier than this and therefore cannot be Dual Purpose Vehicles, and I think that several other current popular pick-ups are similarly over this weight), and (b) it can be very difficult to ascertain the legally-defined unladen weight of a vehicle since it is not something that manufacturers are required to provide, and most do not. Manufacturers are required to declare the Kerb Weight of a vehicle, and the kerb weight is always greater than the unladen weight. If a declared kerb weight is less than 2040Kg it always follows that the unladen weight is also less than 2040Kg, however if the kerb weight is slightly over the situation can be complex. Defender 110 vehicles (dependent upon configuration) and Defender 130 double cab pick-ups, for example, have kerb weights over 2040Kg but the unladen weight is under, since JLR includes a 90% full tank of fuel, a 70Kg driver, plus items such as spare wheel, jack, and tools in the KW figure which are not included in the legal definition of ULW. Deduct these, and the ULW drops under the 2040Kg threshold.

 

Knowing the speed limits is easy. Determining what is, and what is not, a Dual Purpose Vehicle is sometimes not so easy.