Down rating vehicle weight

stezie wrote: »

OK, so the saga is complete and the Van is now registered as a 3500KG motorhome.. eventually.

Here is the process I had to follow, I will put lessons learned below.

1. Apply a weight plate from the likes of SVtech.
2. Carry out motorhome modifications, and have an engineer sign off on the motorhome modifications and the new weight plate being attached. Have the engineer sign an RSA modification report on the weight plate to state that no modifications are required for the lower weight limits. Needed this later for the test.
3. Submit application to Revenue and pay them the motorhome VRT.
4. Take letter from Revenue and inform motor tax office of weight change ( SEE NOTE BELOW) and get it taxed as a motor home.
5. Inform RSA that the van is now 3500kg and get it tested as a LGV/motorhome


The motortax office will only have access to modify the vehicle record at time of taxing. If you already have tax on the vehicle I don't think it is possible to update the vehicle weight. You will need to wait until renewal. MAKE sure you have them update the weights as you tax it as motorhome. As the motor home tax disc is for one year, as far as I can tell , you will need to wait for this tax disc to be cancelled / renewed to modify.


Although I had all my paper work above in place, the RSA test centre still failed the van on "modification of vehicle VIN plate, without supporting documentation" . Their computer system still had the van listed as a HGV even though I had the log book there to show that it was registered as 3500KG. He didn't want to test the van as he would have to put it through as a HGV. After a bit of a heated discussion, I said I paid for a test and they he should put it through as a LGV, which he did, but failed it on the note above. I said he would need to clarify with the RSA on the manual because I believed I had everything in place as requested by the RSA tester manual. A week later I got a call from the test centre , that I indeed had everything in order and issued the pass result.


From what I have learned above, the Revenue, Motortax office and the RSA have all got their own convoluted processes and they don't know themselves what they should be doing! Each department will bounce you from one to the next without giving you a clear answer, expecting you to know their processes inside and out. You try and do things legally in this country and you are thrown so many roadblocks, and are expected to pay heavily to get over them.. I'm pretty sure they are doing their power to keep vehicles off the road, not support safe road users..


Not an easy process to learn first hand, but got there in the end.

Note: this is my experience, your vehicle and situation may have a different process. I'm still not an expert on this.

stezie wrote: »

The steps I followed in is post 36..

Your scenario is different in that yours is already registered as a motor caravan.

I would imagine, but I could be wrong, is that you need a SVTECH cert and updated VIN sticker for the weight change. You then notify the motor tax office who will update the record to 3500kg using the change of particulars form, you then book a CVRT test as a LGV ( you will need to phone the CVRT office and tell them as the system will still have it as a HGV), and then take the CVRT test and retax it.

good luck!