Whats the law regarding seats?

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bpattenden

bpattenden

Member
Posts
11
Location
Eastbourne
Hi

I am looking to buy a Landrover defender 110 CSW for the first time after I fell in love with them while working as a survival instructor (quad bikes as well, all amazing fun)

However, my question is:

I am 21 and passed my test about a year ago so I only have a Cat B, B1 full UK licence. I have searched about on various sites and as far as I am aware I can only drive a vehicle with a maximum of 8 passengers. Thats 9 seats in total but the landy I am looking at has 11. Is there a way around this such as pulling out/modifying seats to reduce this number or do I have to extend my licence to include D1 (ie Minibus)?

Any answers are greatly welcomed and a great help,

Thanks,
Ben
 
A 110 CSW at full capacity is 12 seats ... nearly every insurer will only insure a max of 7 seats. I know NFU will insure 12 but not sure of the other two. I insure mine as a 7 seater and it doesn't matter as long as you never carry more than 7 people.
 
I think if you just take the rear side facing seats out and insure it as a 6 seater you would be fine. BUT, have a search and check, this has definitely been done before, and Im sure there have been links to regulations and what have you;););)
 
This recently stopped me swapping my TD5 Discovery for a 110 as I am the same with my licence.

I didn't see any point in taking the extra seats out of the back as it would defeat the point of having a 110 CSW.

I am still looking in to which bits and who to see about upgrading my licence.
 
I took one side of the rear seats ot, the rules are up to 8 PASSENGER seats, so 9 total.
Some insurers will only take forward facing seats, and/or max of 7, so watch out, especially if you use a comparison site, even if you put the actual number in there, they will automatically drop it to 7 to quote, check carefully.

licence upgrade is a PIA, it essentially a bus licence :(
 
Thanks guys,

I was on the phone to adrian flux yesterday and they will insure me on it for around £900 so long as i remove the bench seats from the rear. I also got in contact with my familys insurer admiral, and they quoted around £700 on the multicar policy and they didn't seem to have a problem when I told them it had 11 seats? I will call a few more companys but I think I have a general idea of them.

I will be looking at the landy today so I will see if the V5 mentions the amount of seats it has and I may get in contact with the DVLA if I feel I need to. If I get a definitive answer then I shall post it here.

Thanks again,

Ben
 
My missus had this problem. Our 110 was originally 12 seats so she couldn't drive it as such. Thankfully, it is really easy to convert it to 9 seats. All I did was to take out the front centre seat, and fill in the V5 to show 9 seats, really simple. It now has 2 seats in the front, 3 in the middle and 2x2 person bench seats in the rear, and it is shown on the V5 as having 9 seats, and is insured as such. Also having the number of seats on the V5 means that if the insurance company do check the vehicle with the DVLA, it will come back legit. Oh, and my insurance is just over £400 fully comp, with all mods declared, and insured for work. :D
 
My 109 Stage 1 had 12 seats - some insurers wanted the extra seats physically removed & some were just happy for me to say I wouldn't carry more than 7. Apparently classic insurance doesn't cover more than 7 seats
 
bpattenden said:
I also got in contact with my familys insurer admiral, and they quoted around £700 on the multicar policy and they didn't seem to have a problem when I told them it had 11 seats?
Click to expand...

make sure they don't specify forward facing, some do.

I spoke to my insurers, they weren't bothered about it being on the V5, as it wasnt originally, so I didn't have it added, means it can be swapped back to full 12 with no hassle in the future.

looking at building a box to fit the other arch and make the space usable.
 
Ok so I looked at the Landy and it has 9 seats, as the Bench seats seem to have been changed at some point to the smaller 2 man benches (with 3 point seatbelts) and the front middle seat is a cubby box. However the V5 says that it has 6 seats meaning it could have started life with no bench seats and a middle seat in the front?

I will probably send off the V5 for this to be updated to it's current configuration of 9 seats (inc. Drivers) but would this be Ok for me to use in this setup legally (and of course i'll inform the insurance company.) And on a side note the engine has been changed from whatever it was before, most likely a 2.5 TDI to a 200TDi and this is recorded on a receipt from a landrover specialist but what do I look for on the V5 as to what engine it has? I am pretty sure it hasn't been updated since it was first registered so a few of the bits on there are no longer relevent or wrong. What should I get changed on the V5? Is it worth looking at updating it completely, just the seats or just leave it as is (after all it has gone 21 years without being scrutinised despite the changes!)

Thanks guys

Ben
 
bpattenden said:
Ok so I looked at the Landy and it has 9 seats, as the Bench seats seem to have been changed at some point to the smaller 2 man benches (with 3 point seatbelts) and the front middle seat is a cubby box. However the V5 says that it has 6 seats meaning it could have started life with no bench seats and a middle seat in the front?

I will probably send off the V5 for this to be updated to it's current configuration of 9 seats (inc. Drivers) but would this be Ok for me to use in this setup legally (and of course i'll inform the insurance company.) And on a side note the engine has been changed from whatever it was before, most likely a 2.5 TDI to a 200TDi and this is recorded on a receipt from a landrover specialist but what do I look for on the V5 as to what engine it has? I am pretty sure it hasn't been updated since it was first registered so a few of the bits on there are no longer relevent or wrong. What should I get changed on the V5? Is it worth looking at updating it completely, just the seats or just leave it as is (after all it has gone 21 years without being scrutinised despite the changes!)

Thanks guys

Ben
Click to expand...
Because of it's age, inward facing bench seats are fine, and as you can drive a vehicle with 9 seats, why not make it into such. As for the engine, it would probably have started life with a 2.5 TD, with the 200 Tdi added later. This is a very common conversion, and most people don't bother putting the change on the V5. My advice when dealing with the DVLA is tell as little as you can get away with. That way there is less chance of them f***ing things up for you. :D
 
martin1512 said:
Because of it's age, inward facing bench seats are fine, and as you can drive a vehicle with 9 seats, why not make it into such. As for the engine, it would probably have started life with a 2.5 TD, with the 200 Tdi added later. This is a very common conversion, and most people don't bother putting the change on the V5. My advice when dealing with the DVLA is tell as little as you can get away with. That way there is less chance of them f***ing things up for you. :D
Click to expand...

That sounds like sound advice to me :D This will be my first Landy so although I have been on the forum for a little while now, I have not posted much so this will probably be the first of loads of Threads and posts asking for advice and help hahaha. I will try and keep posted about the outcomes of the seats if I get any more information.

Thanks again,

Ben
 
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