Compliance

DIY motorhome compliance inspection

OK, so you bought a bus and have built a motor-home.

Now you need to have it "written off" as a bus, and "re-complianced" as a motorhome! In essence, you can re-register it as a bus (providing it is still within it's certified operational time frame) for thousands of dollars, or have it re-complianced as a motorhome and register it for road use for a whole lot less money!

To register your newly converted 40' "bus" as motorhome, you will need the minimum following certifications. (Queensland)

1. Certification of conversion as a motorhome
2. LPG Gas Certificate
3. Heavy Vehicle Roadworthiness Safety Inspection

The certificate of conversion is supplied by a certified engineer, who will certify your seating in accordance with the number of beds you have.

Basically, if you have 10 beds, but only 2 seats with approved seatbelt, then your bus will be registerable as a 2 berth motorhome only!!

So, in other words, you need to have approved seatbelted seating equal or greater than the number of beds you have. Therefore if you have 4 approved seats, and 4 beds then the engineer will certify it as a 4 berth motorhome.

Don't stress about this too much though, as you can easily have more seats certified later on. New seatbelts and anchorages are expensive, averaging around $100 per bum, so you can add more later and have an engineer re-certify the seating and then make an adjustment to your registeration at the transport department.

The engineer will not approve the use of old or secondhand seatbelts from a car wreckers etc. They are quite adamant in requiring brand new seatbelts for approval. We purchased ours at our local "REPCO" store, and found the staff to be most helpful and co-operative as they had provided seatbelts for many other motorhomes before we came along. Basically, the REPCO salesperson knew what they were talking about.