Originally Posted by
Melbourne Park
I did not say 65kg at the front would take much weight at all from the rear axle - I just said - or meant to say - that I hadn't taken any weight off the rear axle, and BobB has a bull bar, but it maybe alloy or steel, and have lights, but whatever it would take a bit of weight off the rear axle. That's all I meant to say ...
The formula is pretty simple. You measure the distance of the weight added, from the rear axle, if its behind the rear axle. Then you divide that into the overall wheel base. My calculations showed that for the rear tongue if it weighed 10kg, because its behind the rear axle ( I measured mine), it would add 13kg to the rear axle. Likewise, it would take 3kg off the weight off the front tyres. All weight added which is behind the rear axle, removes weight from the front tyres. You must know this surely? Maybe you don't tow ... but think about it Gordon!
If the weight is close to the rear axle but in front of it, then not all the weight is added to the rear axle. So if I put my fridge inside the vehicle on top of the rear axle, then all its weight would be added to the rear axle. If I put my 40kg fridge in the centre of the two axles, then 20kg would go to the front axle and 20kg to the rear axle. Its quite simple really ... as far as the bull bar goes, it does take weight off the rear axle, because its in front of the front axle. It doesn't make a huge difference though because its only just in front of the front axle, but it does make a difference.
But if anyone has a tare for the front and the rear axle, and the fuel load, that would be useful. LR don't provide a tare weight for the front and rear, or a distribution percentage of the weight for and back. They just provide the maximum weight allowed for the front and rear axles. It doesn't take that much to go over the rear weight. Especially if your towing and carrying passengers. Add a rear fuel tank and twin rear tyre carriers when towing with passengers with a decent tow ball weight, its extremely easy to go over the maximum rear axle weight.
Toyota have tricks to get over this - they do not specify all the maximum weights, so when a 3rd party changes the maximum towing ability and load carrying, the 200 series can still be legal. But that's way off topic - sorry for that!