Pics are of plate by door of my 1994 Puck and the towing info in my Citroën C3 manual. Is the manual telling me 800kg is the max weight I can tow going uphill? As Puck cannot weigh more than 600 (laden) I should be OK? Also what is the plate telling me exactly? It says 600kg, 600kg and 75kg. Not helpful to the uninitiated! I've understood Pucks to weigh 450kg unladen. Any advice welcome before getting towbar fitted!

As Colin says the 75kg is the noseweight/hitch limit.
The 600kg refers to the van's MTPLM and the axle weight limit which, in this case are the same. Sometimes they aren't the same. Lots of UK made vans have axle limits higher than MTPLM but MTPzLM is the legal weight limit.
The car's towing limit is the max it can pull and you must not exceed a cars gross vehicle weight or gross train weight. Both those figures are best confirmed by checking the cars VIN plate rather than any manual or website as that's what any enforcement officers will use.

Quote: eribaMotters wrote in post #2

---

vehicle specific loom and the ecu programming

---

Quote: Steamdrivenandy wrote in post #3

---

axle weight limit

---

Manufacturer's set a limit as to the weight an axle can bear, it is a legal limit and if exceeded you can be fined. The MTPLM is the maximum weight the caravan can weigh in total and again is a legal limit. If you think about it, if you load the van to weigh 600kg and you have it arranged so there's 70kg of pressure on the jockey wheel/hitch, then the axle is only bearing 530kg and, if hitched the car rear axle is bearing the 70kg via the hitch. The MTPLM of the overall caravan (600kg) must never be exceeded so because of the hitchload you'll never get near the axle limit, unless you somehow run with near to zero noseweight which nobody would suggest because the handling would be v poor.

The GVW and GTW of the car are also legal limits but they're also the limits that the car manufacturer warrants that the car can handle without detriment. So, if the car maker thinks the car has been loaded above those limits then they may well decline a warranty claim for repairs. I have heard of caravan manufacturers denying liability when they believe a van has been overloaded too.

In most cases, if you calculate GTW minus GVW it will give you the towing limit. However there are some vehicles where this doesn't hold true - mainly some Peugeot/Citroen and Vauxhall cars. In these rare cases the towing limit is set higher than the difference between GTW and GVW and means that if you load the van to the towing limit, you have to reduce the max that the car can take and vice versa. A bit unnecessarily complicated in my opinion. In any case it's relatively rare for a car to be loaded near GVW anyway. But the maxim is always that you should never exceed any plated weight.