Lorry Plating

[AdorableAlice]

I've not tested a truck for a few years, and I always drove it down the lane myself, so things may well have changed. A friend is testing next week and tells me he has to go to test with the lorry loaded with the same weight of his horse. I fell about laughing and googled it. I found the website he read, it actually is a Gov.UK site.
Get an MOT for a heavy goods vehicle (HGV), bus or trailer: At the test station - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Most specifically
Horseboxes
You should load the horsebox with heavy items like bags of feed, fertiliser or straw bales. This is so that the centre can check the brakes work properly.

In all the tests I did, the brakes were tested on the rolling road, with instructions 'steady on and hard on' the air brakes and then the hand brake. When did this change to include having to spend the day before loading god knows what on the truck ? The lorry that is going next has a huge payload and carries 2 heavyweight hunters legally. That is a lot of feed bags !!

 

[Slightlyconfused]

Erm, my dad is a hgv mechanic and he doesnt do this for the horse boxes he tests.

The haulage trucks and trailers yes, not the horse boxes.

Get him to ring the mechanic / test center for clarification.

 

[AdorableAlice]

Erm, my dad is a hgv mechanic and he doesnt do this for the horse boxes he tests.

The haulage trucks and trailers yes, not the horse boxes.

Get him to ring the mechanic / test center for clarification.

Thanks, that is what I thought, I've seen plenty of trailers with the concrete blocks on at the test centre. I just have this vision of chucking anything you find on the yard into the truck. Why it is on the Gov site is beyond me, it clearly says horseboxes. We would need 80 sacks of pony nuts ! Hilarious.

 

[Bob notacob]

The key word here is "should" and it is not the same as "must".It is certainly better to test with a fully loaded truck. If the wheels lock during a brake test they pass but it does not mean that they are working at their best necessarily.

 

[milliepops]

Apparently as its not practical to put stuff in they'll just say insufficient load on the brake test. But if your brakes are a bit iffy it's best to stick something in as they work better ?

 

[AdorableAlice]

Thanks all, its going fully serviced and checked. I reckon Ted the Twit would love a trip to the testing centre, he is 800kg. I wonder if they would let him go down the pit with them. He loves tinkering with things. The mechanics might share their lunch with him too.

 

[meleeka]

OH is a lorry mechanic and doesn’t load horse boxes.

 

[Cowpony]

I've never loaded mine and never been asked to.

 

[mutley75]

Livestock carriers have an exemption from being loaded for annual test.
The fastest way to be escorted off of the test site would be to turn up with a live animal inside!

 

[Red-1]

I think this has been in place for a long time. One year our brakes passed but we were told they work better when loaded. Not sure why that was, you would think it would be easier with no load??‍ We had them overhauled anyway, never have loaded the box.

 

[Bernster]

Hmm my mechanic does this, adds a load in for plating.

 

[eggs]

I had a 7.5 ton lorry with over 2.5 ton payload. I had to load it with shavings bales to get it through the brake test as otherwise it was too light and failed. It was the guy doing the test who advised loading it after it had failed the brake test - went back loaded and it passed easily.

 

[AdorableAlice]

Livestock carriers have an exemption from being loaded for annual test.
The fastest way to be escorted off of the test site would be to turn up with a live animal inside!

I was joking !

 

[humblepie]

My OH does - he puts a tractor weight in the back. If it is a customer's one and they haven't given it to him in time to do this, then he has taken them without the weight. As above, it is to with the testing of the brakes.

 

[dorsetladette]

When we booked ours in we booked it threw a friend. He told my OH he needed to empty the back out so they could but weights in for the brake test. I said 'I'm sure that's not right' but OH insisted. So, we unloaded the partitions and then reloaded them afterwards. They didn't put weights in the back at all. And we made the lorry lighter as the partitions are really heavy once they are not swinging on the rail.