Filling your car’s seats could void your insurance
Just because your car has five or seven seats doesn’t mean you can carry that many people. Read on to find out why.
If your car has seven seats, then it should be able to carry seven adults, right? Wrong. In fact, if you do this you might be voiding your warranty and invalidating your insurance without realising it.
The maximum load of a car is something most people would never think about unless they own a ute or a van. But, it is something all Australians should be aware of, because it’s easier than you think to push your car beyond safe operating limits, and it could cost you thousands if the unexpected happens.
It’s all about the GVM
If you are found to have driven a vehicle while exceeding its maximum permissible weight – gross vehicle mass, or GVM – the factory warranty will be voided. And, if something goes wrong, your insurance won’t cover you.
But surely a car with five seats has been engineered to carry five adults, right? Not always. For example, the Toyota Corolla – Australia’s best-selling small car – would actually exceed its GVM legal limit if five adult males were to jump in.
And it’s not only the Corolla that’s at risk here. Other top sellers like the Mitsubishi Outlander, Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-8 and Mazda CX-9 would all be over the GVM limit if filled with adult males in every seat.
This is a serious issue because it means the vehicle is operating beyond the parameters for which it was engineered. This means the engine, chassis, brakes, suspension and other components may not cope with the full weight of the car, its occupants and its cargo.
For example, the Mazda CX-8 has seven seats and a GVM of 2360kg. The vehicle itself weighs 1799kg, giving it a maximum permissible payload of 561kg. Seven men weighing 87kg (the average according to the 2018 ABS Census) equals 609kg, meaning the CX-8 is 48kg beyond its GVM before any luggage is taken into account.
The CX-9 seven-seater has a similar problem, especially the top-spec Azami variant which has a GVM of 2505kg and a kerb weight of 1939kg. With seven average males onboard, it’s 43kg over the legal operating limit before luggage.
The Mitsubishi Outlander Exceed AWD seven-seater would be 14kg beyond its limit in the same circumstances, and the Corolla hybrid hatch would be 15kg over the limit.
Even the just launched Kia Sorento PHEV falls foul of this hidden trap, exceeding its GVM by 28kg with seven average adult males onboard.
You’d expect a dedicated people mover like the Honda Odyssey to have this under control, right? This vehicle is rated to carry a payload of 596kg, which is 13kg short of the required 609kg it would need to meet the needs of a full-house of blokes.
Worse still, all of those figures do not take any luggage in the boot into account. Or anything on the roof racks or a bike carrier out the back. Or the fact that an ‘average’ 87kg adult male might not be the lightest traveller, and that outliers beyond the average might tip the scales at more than that.
GVM must account for any luggage the car is carrying and any aftermarket accessories such as tow bars, bull bars, roof racks and luggage carriers.
What happens if I drive an overloaded vehicle?
If you’re in an accident and your vehicle is loaded beyond the GVM, then any insurance cover you have will be invalidated.
According to the NRMA website, car insurance exclusions include “reckless driving or improper use of your car”. Improper use, says the product disclosure statement, is exceeding “the number of passengers or load limits recommended by your vehicle’s manufacturer”.
In addition, manufacturer warranties will not cover a car that is overloaded. For example, the Toyota warranty says you are not covered for “failures that Toyota reasonably considers result from your failure to operate, maintain and care for your Toyota properly, in accordance with the instructions in your vehicle’s Owner’s Manual”.
There’s also a specific clause in the warranty terms and conditions addressing “Overloading – permissible loads are covered in the vehicle Owner’s Manual”.
We’re not getting any smaller
Humanity’s inexorable growth over time makes this a bigger issue with every passing year. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 1995 Census, the average Aussie male was 174.8cm tall and weighed 82kg, and females were 161.4cm tall and weighed 67kg.
By 2018, male averages had increased 0.2cm and 5kg, while females were on average 5kg heavier but 0.4cm shorter than their 1995 counterparts.
Car companies have traditionally used a nominal 75kg figure to account for the weight of a driver and their luggage (68kg person plus 7kg luggage) in determining vehicle capacities. But based on current ABS figures, this is only just adequate for the average female and not even close to today’s average male.
Multiply that by the five, seven or eight seats in a passenger vehicle and the mass increase really builds up.
Understanding the different weight measurements
There are four key weight measurements that will help you: tare mass, kerb weight, payload and gross vehicle mass.
Different manufacturers use different standards to express the weight of a vehicle. Kerb weight and tare mass are the two main standards.
Tare mass is the weight of a vehicle straight off the production line with all standard equipment, all fluids necessary for operation (engine oil, coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid etc) at the prescribed levels, but no humans or cargo, and only 10L of fuel in the tank.
Tare mass also includes any factory equipment fitted, such as roof racks, tow bars, side steps and the like.
Kerb weight is not the same as tare mass. Toyota’s website explains kerb weight as “the mass of the vehicle in running order unoccupied and unladen with all fluid reservoirs filled to nominal capacity, including fuel and with all standard equipment”.
Gross vehicle mass (GVM) is the maximum permissible weight at which the manufacturer says a vehicle can safely be operated. This includes everything inside and on the vehicle: occupants, luggage, accessories and fuel.
Payload is the difference between tare mass and gross vehicle weight, and is an indication of how much a vehicle can carry (fuel, occupants, accessories and luggage). Some manufacturers use kerb weight instead of tare mass to get payload, which can make a difference, so keep that in mind when working out your car’s true payload.
How much can my car carry?
Payload is the number you need to keep in mind when loading people and luggage into your car.
The problem is that if you need to work out your payload using tare mass and GVM, tare mass is not always easy to find. Possibly because buyers can fit a variety of options or accessories to their car, and that means not all examples of a model will have the same tare mass.
Kerb weight is usually easier to find and will give you a safe starting point, because while it doesn’t account for accessories, it does assume a full tank of fuel, which can be up to 50kg for a car with a 70-litre tank.
If your car has heavy accessories, such as a bull bar or tow bar, then the dealer who fitted these accessories can tell you the additional weight they add to your vehicle.
Or you can always take your car to a weighbridge and have it weighed. As an alternative, the local tip or refuse recycling centre usually has a weighbridge on the way in and out so they know how much garbage you dumped. Ask them for your car’s kerb weight, but remember you’re probably sitting in it at the time!
What does petrol weigh?
One litre of fuel weighs roughly 719g, but can vary between 710g and 755g due to fuel quality and the liquid’s current temperature.
This means a vehicle with an 80L tank would be 57.6kg heavier with a full tank compared to an empty tank.
If you’re trying to work out the weight of your car with a full tank based on tare mass, remember to subtract 7.2kg first to account for the 10L of fuel included in the tare mass measurement.
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