More about vehicles and carrying stuff

[TimW]

I am buying a car. a cheap one. This isn't the family saloon but a second run-around utility motor. One of its uses will be to use as a van for trips to the dump, collecting materials for DIY and garden jobs, moving adult children in and out of flats and houses.

If I want to know what weight I can carry in a type of car is there any way of finding out other than looking at the paper V11 logbook? If I want to make a guess at the maximum length of pipe, curtain pole, timber, whatever I can get in a certain car is there any way of finding out, like an online scale drawing for instance?

TW

[charles]

get roof bars.

[Andrew]

Go for one that has roof rails or bars fitted by the manufacturer and a model with a *level* roof line. Modern estate cars are not called estate cars any longer and are hopeless for shoving large bits of furniture inside because of the reduced size of the tailgate aperature. The Astra F Mk 3 was excellent for carrying stuff inside and out with additional bars clamped to the roof rails. Astra H estate is OK but has a smaller aperature tailgate hole and needs special clamps for the roof rails. Volvo V50 is another possibility. Volvo V40, V70 or V850 were good load luggers too but finding a good one now is like finding a hen with teeth. An older Honda CRV was a good load lugger too.

[Andrew]

Peugeot 406 and 407 were also very good estate cars. If you are buying something getting on for 20 years old make sure you crawl underneath and look for corrosion near suspension or jacking points.

[nightjar]

Have you tried Googling <car name> dimensions?

I did for a Mercedes E Class Estate and got:

Click on download e-brochure and scroll down to page 59 and later for technical data and dimensioned drawings.

Also

Probably more if I could be bothered to follow all the hits I got.

[charles]

my Citroen C5 estate was good at that - but I still needed roof bars for sheets of plywood, etc.

[TimW]

Well yeah, if necessary. Better to put stuff inside if you can.

TW

[TimW]

Thanks! I will look out for one. TW

[TimW]

I had a Peugot, maybe a 307 which made an excellent van. The garage man said 'those never rot' which I took to be praise, but a lot of bits of plastic fell off it and a half dozen annoying things didn't work, like the passenger side heating was stuck on HOT, and the cd player was bust, the electric windows needed a shove etc.

It was written off one winters night on the motorway when a clown in a BMW 500m ahead managed to spin on a puddle all on his own, hit the central barrier and leave his bumper in the middle lane which I then drove into, but that's another woeful story.

TW

[Chris Green]

If you want a really large capacity go for a Citroen XM estate, or possible an old Ford Granada Estate.

... or buy a Transit! :-)

[Chris Green]

We have a fairly recent (09) C5 'Tourer', it's quite capacious and if you go for a posher one ('Exclusive' I think) you get the self-levelling suspension. It has been reliable for us and puts up with quite a lot heavy loads.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

TimW presented the following explanation :

You might find such data for a van, capacity is a big selling point for a van, but cars are mostly intended for passengers - why would they give such a spec. for a car?

Load capacity data is stamped on a plate in the door frame.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

on 25/08/2021, Chris Green supposed :

Not seen one of those for many decades.

[R D S]

I've a V50,

You can get things up to 1.8m in the back of it and it looks happy enough with 250k in the back.

If you get a 1.6 diesel stop/start they are free to tax, have it remapped and it will drive like an entirely different car while still giving you up to 60mpg* if you behave.

*claims of up to 80mpg IIRC, i'd love to see the test conditions where they pulled that off.

[R D S]

Sorry, meant to add... While they are a reasonable size they are deceptive in that they look bigger than they are probably because of the perception of a Volvo estate. I'm pretty sure it's a rebadged Focus.

Our prior car was a Passat, there's a notable difference.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It is actually very difficult to decide what can be carried in a vehicle size wise.

Example, to fit a tree in my car, I dropped a rear seat and slung it diagonally from the drivers side rear to above the front passengers headrest.

Bending it slightly...

No way I could have predicted that easily from a drawing - 3D model at the least would have been needed.

a tape measure and the ability to visualise how best to fit stuff in, plus folding rear seats is the best bet

[Theo]

Most of those online brochures are for current cars, not those 20 years old. I'd look more at the 'auto dimensions' sites.

to have quite a lot of scale drawings of cars, with dimensions. For example, the 307 from 2003: Without paying, you might be able to take the preview image and magnify it enough to get an idea of what you could get in it, and measure that according to the scale.

Although fitting things inside cars is usually all about the angles, and that's hard to tell from a drawing.

Theo

[williamwright]

Get a van

Bill

[RJH]

When I looked into this a disability site had useful dimensions data. For example:

FWIW, I recently bought a 2015 Peugeot Partner - absolute tardis, and as it's van based I'd guess it can carry a fair load.

A piece of 8x4 would fit, just, if you don't need to see out of many of the windows - I'm looking at roof bars and rails for the (flat) roof. The obvious temptation is the ebay aftermarket - about £100. I'm sure they'd be fine for one peice of ply at 30mph. Not so sure about a roof box at motorway speeds. So a decent solution is likely to be pricey.

[Andrew]

The citroen self-levelling dampers do fail according to Honest John. Not cheap to replace.