Motorhome Rego & Driver's Licence

Xennon · Veteran Member

Motorhome Rego & Driver's Licence

gypsy rover · Senior Member

My rig is registered in Tassie (have a house there), but I think in Queensland you just have to register it as a Motorhome to get the cheaper rego.

Winnie is 4.5 ton and I think it can be driven on a car license, but I have an HR license just in case some states differ in their regulations.

Cheers!

Chris

-- Edited by gypsy rover on Tuesday 29th of May 2012 11:58:20 AM

signwilson · Senior Member

If you are an RACQ member have them do any mechanical checks before you buy it. They will also have all the info you need

beiffe · Guru

The license required and also much of the cost re registration are defined by the weight. Under 4.5 tonne considered a car over that a LR or MR etc.

Different states are different. In QLD I think over 4.5 tonne needs a yearly inspection but not positive so best to check.

Many buses such as mine can be either under 4.5 or over as they are often down rated to comply with the under 4.5 tonne limit.

Mine is under but I intend to upgrade to the original tare and that will make it over but in SA there are not the restrictions as in other states plus there is no yearly inspection and the registration can be done by internet each year.

Consider a trip to VIC or SA and then re register your vehicle in one of those states as it is much simpler. Just need a receipt from a business in the state and tell them you are a traveler and all is OK (or it was for me.)

Regards
Brian

billeeeeeee · Guru

Howdyeeeeee I have a Motor Home, 4 Ton, car licence.......(pensioner) stay excited,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Billeeeeeee

Xennon · Veteran Member

Thank you all for the rapid & useful responses. SA rego sounds like the way to go eventually. I really feel like I'm at the very beginning of a very very long road given my level of ignorance about ... well ... everything to do with being a wannabe nomad. I'm not patient when I get excited about something and wanna just DO IT but don't wanna do it blindly so one side of me wants to just jump in boots-n-all while the other half needs every "T" crossed and "i" dotted before doing anything. I 'spose that's what they call the clash-of-minds. Very frustrating.

~Xen~

milo · Guru

we were told anything over 25 feet needed a truck liscense, thats for nsw

Xennon · Veteran Member

What about rego? When is a truck not a truck? Truck rego is expensive but do these big rigs that are clearly built on truck chassis get some special treatment because they are motorhomes and not trucks?

Keith19837 · Senior Member

I

Hi Xennon. I'll just qualiify myself, then you can take it from there. I spent over a quarter of a century through 4 decades in the Victoria Police as a working copper. The VicRoads website is somewhat confusing and I find they frequently do things which don't tally with the various Acts here. Maybe this is because they're being kind or something. Anyhow, a Victorian Car licence will allow you to drive a vehicle of up to 4.5 tonnes tare weight. This means the weight of the vehicle when it's unladen. Any added (like passengers, luggage, water tanks etc) weight over that is fine so long as that added weight does not exceed its Gross Vehicle Mass (top allowable laden weight for that vehicle). There's a lot more to this, such as calculating G.V.M.s and G.V.Cs and all the rest, but here in Victoria you can drive a two axle vehicle of 4.5 tonnes (or less) tare weight on a standard car licence. If the vehicle is registered as a motorhome (sometimes called a caravan for some reason) you will pay about $500 to $700 rego depending on engine size and how far away from the C.B.D. you register the car at (must be in Vic). The vehicle must not have seating for more than 12 passengers. There are concessions for health care card holders and these concessions vary depending on the type of card (age pension, disability pension, New Start etc). For what it's worth.

mari · Member

Hi There,

We have a truck based motorhome which is 5.5GVM & registered in Qld. Because it is over 4.5GVM we needed a LR or higher truck licence. Make sure it is registered as a motorhome not a truck which is almost double the price. Our last rego was around $860.00.

In Qld you also need to get a yearly certificate of inspection before it can be reregistered. (cost about $90.00). This can be a bit of a pain to organise if you are travelling interstate so probably having it registered in a state which doesn't have this requirement would be much easier.

Good luck, was a real learning curve for us to as we have only ever had cars before

Marianne

Xennon · Veteran Member

I have yet to actually get out and about and start talking to existing owners and/or dealers - All my research at this point has been via the web. I expect that many of my queries and concerns will be addressed once I start doing the legwork. Once I find the rig, or more specifically the type of rig I want to ultimately want to get into, I can then focus on getting all the nitty-gritty details.

Jason F · Veteran Member

Anyone recently found out if its cheaper to register a truck with a slide-on camper, as a truck, or as a camper in NSW?

montie · Guru

Under 4.5 tonne GVM requires only a car licence in Queensland.
Rego costs are the same as a car if under 4.5 tonne and will vary with motor size by the number of cylinders. ie..4 Cyl is $780.

Tony LEE · Guru

And if you need a heavy vehicle license and are over 79/75 you will need an expensive doctors certificate every year

montie · Guru

Tony LEE wrote:
And if you need a heavy vehicle license and are over 79/75 you will need an expensive doctors certificate every year

In Qld a doctors certification is required for 75 and over year old drivers.

Can be done during your annual checkup and doctor signs the paperwork which you can download online...no extra charge.

Queensland....Beautiful one day...Perfect the next. smile

Jaahn · Guru

Hi smile

Please note that the first 11 replies on this thread are very old 2012 and may not be current good information. It is often better to just ask a question straight out from new, instead of tacking it onto a very old thread that the search has found from the past. wink

Jaahn

bgt · Guru

We just transferred our campervan from NSW to Qld registration. (In December). Just note that they have changed the classification for motorhomes. I can't recall all the details but the girls behind the desk got caught out with the change and had to start again. I think motorhomes were in with the caravans and now they have their own section.

Driving licenses are the same all over Australia. ie over 4.5t you need an LR license.

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

Jason F wrote:
Anyone recently found out if its cheaper to register a truck with a slide-on camper, as a truck, or as a camper in NSW?

In SA, a truck (with a GVM of 4.5T or greater) costs more to register than a motorhome.

A slide-on is a "load" (it can be removed) so has no influence on the registration. The camper body must be fixed in place to qualify as a motorhome.

Driver's licences are determined by the GVM of the vehicle (not the actual weight). The limit of a car license is GVM 4.49T. 4,5T to 8T requires a light rigid license. The medical for that is minor.

SA.GOV.AU - Driver's licence classes (www.sa.gov.au)

Cheers,

Peter

yobarr · Guru

Peter_n_Margaret wrote:
Driver's licences are determined by the GVM of the vehicle (not the actual weight). The limit of a car license is GVM 4.49T. 4,5T to 8T requires a light rigid license. The medical for that is minor.
SA.GOV.AU - Driver's licence classes (www.sa.gov.au)
Cheers,Peter

And therein lies the stupidity of the legislation. Any old geriatric,who has never towed anything,can hook up to a 3500kg PIG trailer,the most unstable of all towed vehicles,and set sail around Australia,using only a car licence.These setups can,and do,regularly weigh 6000kg-7000kg and are inherently unstable,so accidents often occur.....and let's not even discuss reversing the van! But to drive a 5 ton rigid truck,probably the most stable of all trucks,requires a different licence altogether. Too much thinking involved,perhaps,and such "rules" seem to be made by those who are too stupid to get a real job.Cheers

bgt · Guru

yobarr the issue is that when the rules were design there weren't many folks towing big vans around. A Vanguard and a 12ft plywood van. Times have moved on but the rules haven't. Changing the rules will cause one hell of a debate and no government will take that risk. The stupidity is the politicians unwillingness to change.

yobarr · Guru

bgt wrote:
yobarr the issue is that when the rules were design there weren't many folks towing big vans around. A Vanguard and a 12ft plywood van. Times have moved on but the rules haven't. Changing the rules will cause one hell of a debate and no government will take that risk. The stupidity is the politicians unwillingness to change.

Absolutely,Bruce."Vanguard and 12ft plywood van" sums it up nicely,as those old Fergy Fastbacks certainly didn't handle and they didn't stop,but at least they were so gutless they couldn't reach any dangerous speeds.These days,Ma and Pa Kettle whack a 3500kg ATM van behind their lightweight 200hp twin-cab,or some other such dreamer's machine that is "rated" to tow 3500kg,but can NEVER safely do so,and set sail to see the world.In an effort to protect people from their own ignorance, perhaps there should be different tow capacity ratings for PIG trailers and DOG trailers? Nah,that'd be too hard.How often do we have someone waffling-on about "Done a Million kms (sic) with 3500kg behind my little ute,no worries mate.Just gotta drive to the conditions mate",or some such rubbish.Such an "achievement" is certainly more a result of good luck than it is of good management.Maybe a newly elected Government could change the rules,thus allowing three years for those affected to forget how they were protected from their own stupidity? In the meantime,we on here can but maintain our efforts to teach people about weights and dynamics,with a view to helping them make their setups much safer? Cheers.

-- Edited by yobarr on Saturday 6th of February 2021 02:37:16 PM

Roger Roger · Veteran Member

In Queensland motorhome weighing 8000 kg on LR license, rego $ 740.00 with age concession, $ 1000.00 no age concession, NQR-450, yearly check (COI) $ 140.00, medical no problem as listed as non commercial licence.

Aus-Kiwi · Guru

My 6.5 ton MH is hardly any more than my cars !! NSW rego . No its not registered as a TRUCK !!

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

milo wrote:
we were told anything over 25 feet needed a truck liscense, thats for nsw

You were misinformed.

Cheers,

Peter

Jason F · Veteran Member

This is an old series of posts, but I have a quandary with my rego in NSW. I'm paying ~$2400 per year rego for 7.2m long motorhome to sit in my yard for 99.999% of the time (travelled about 70km in the last 6 months). Its a small (but heavy) truck with a permanently fixed camper on the back of the tray (needs tools to remove it in a workshop, about 4 hours work). I want to get it registered as a motorhome. My engineer says that because it still has a tray, and because there is no walk/crawl through to the cabin, it cannot be registered as a motorhome. I can always pull up the tray. Yet I see many similar vehicles without walk/crawl throughs registered as a motorhome !!

yobarr · Guru

Jason F wrote:
This is an old series of posts, but I have a quandary with my rego in NSW. I'm paying ~$2400 per year rego for 7.2m long motorhome to sit in my yard for 99.999% of the time (travelled about 70km in the last 6 months). Its a small (but heavy) truck with a permanently fixed camper on the back of the tray (needs tools to remove it in a workshop, about 4 hours work). I want to get it registered as a motorhome. My engineer says that because it still has a tray, and because there is no walk/crawl through to the cabin, it cannot be registered as a motorhome. I can always pull up the tray. Yet I see many similar vehicles without walk/crawl throughs registered as a motorhome !!

Simply Google "NSW motorhome classification" and you will be able to access the NVHR site,which has about 7 pages of relevant rules and regulations.Good luck.Cheers