Re: Move everything to Italy!
 

Well, your advice is excellent. We left most of the heavy stuff behind: cooker, washing machine, fridge freezer and bedroom furniture were all included in the house sale and we sold our dining and garden furniture to friends, so I think our load was more bulk than weight. I am glad we were not stopped by the police for a check, nevertheless!

Re: Move everything to Italy!
 

I nearly made the same mistake with the tail lift. Max weight was 1250KG without and 650 with, rendering it pretty useless. Just measure and weigh each box as you pack it and you will see how quickly it adds up. It also means you can accurately calculate volume for shippers and weights if you choose to send via pallets.

Don't forget cars without trailers also have very light weight limits, low enough to put the average IKEA trip in the danger zone. For example we have an EcoSport, max payload is 450KG, my old Volvo V70 was only around 550KG, it doesn't leave much after passengers.
Aside from the fact you would be risking your life and others, if anything happens your insurance isn't going to pay out and if someone else is injured you're going to land yourself in a whole lot of legal trouble.

Seriously consider taking away all risks by using someone else to do it. The stories you hear of the man with a van having blowouts are most likely because he's overloading the vehicle.

Re: Move everything to Italy!
 

:goodpost: The "payload" on private cars and light commercial vehicles is remarkably low, especially in light vans which may have a misleadingly large volume of space available to carry things - I recall some years ago that the ubiquitous Ford transit minibus would be overloaded if an adult was sitting in each seat!

The weight of boxes of books, CDs, china, pans, tools, etc. will add up very quickly even if the volume remains small and if you were to stack such boxes up on a standard fork lift pallet, it would be quite easy to reach the 1,000kg/2,200lb load limit for a pallet long before you reach the practical height limit of around 1.80m-2.00m.

Per the load limits posted in lifts, an average adult is assumed to weight 175lb/ 80kg, so a vehicle with a load limit of 450K is only rated to carry five average adults plus 50Kg/ 110lb of luggage, or about what a "full service" airline will allow two adults to bring with them. Bear in mind that that assumes "average adults" - so if we overlook for a moment the fact that in many cars there wouldn't be any leg room behind me if I was sitting in a front seat, hypothetically if I was in a car with four average adults, there would be little or no spare weight capacity for any luggage. :blink: