As a specialist commercial vehicle website, Truckpages advertises light commercial vehicles – vans for sale as well as trucks. The nature of our advertisers means that the vans that are advertised on these pages are typically more specialist than your average white panel van. This means that they may be heavier weight vans. For Example, the Iveco Daily panel van is available right up to 7 tonnes GVW with a fantastic payload to go with it. Other panel vans are also available over the 3.5 tonnes GVW limit for a ‘normal’ van, especially popular in this category is the Mercedes Sprinter and the Fiat Ducato for motorhome conversions.
Other specialist vans may be fitted with a crane or a recovery body – these types of commercial vehicles are usually overly complicated of a standard local van dealer, but straightforward for a truck dealer used to dealing in complicated vehicles and attachments.
There is no straightforward answer to this, as it depends on how old you are. What is certain is that anyone with a car licence can drive a van with a gross vehicle weight of up to 3.5 tonnes.
That doesn’t mean that you can carry 3.5 tonnes, it means that the weight of the van and its payload combined cannot be higher than this amount.
In reality, most 3.5 tonne vans cannot carry much more than 1 tonne.
If you are starting to go grey around the edges, and have been driving since your youth, then chances are you are allowed to drive vans over 3.5 tonnes, (but not over 7.5 tonnes GVW.) If you passed your test before 1997 then these rights apply – you have ‘C1’ entitlement. If you passed your car test after 1997 then you’ll need to take a C1 test to drive a larger van.
However, there’s a ‘however’ (as there usually is). If you want to drive a larger van professionally, then you will need to take 35 hours of driver CPC training every five years – unless you are exempted. If you are just using the van to carry your own equipment – say you are a scaffolder or a builder – then you would be exempt. Equally, if you are a mechanic then you can drive them without the CPC.
If you have ‘C1’ entitlement (see Grandad’s rights above) then chances are that you have ‘C1E’ as well. This means that you can drive a commercial vehicle up to 7.5 tonnes GVW and tow a trailer, as long as it weighs no more than 750kg.
If you passed your test after January 1997, then you can tow a trailer, but chances are the van and trailer combination you are likely to want to drive will mean that you will need to get an additional qualification. You can tow a small trailer weighing less than 750kg. Making it more complicated, you can also tow a trailer over 750kg as long as the combined weight of the trailer and towing vehicle is no more than 3,500kg Maximum Authorised Mass (MAM). So you can tow a trailer with a van as long as the van is empty – useful!
As legislation changes, you must always check what your licence allows you to drive – don’t just trust us! Check online here.