Single cab or double cab tipper: which do you need?

Single cab tipper

• Three seats up front and the rest of the vehicle is body. That gives you the longest, largest tipping body you can get on the chassis.
• More payload left for materials, because you are not carrying the weight of a second row of seats and the extra bodywork.
• The natural choice if there are usually only one or two of you travelling in the vehicle and the job is all about shifting muck, aggregate, spoil or green waste.

Double cab tipper

• A second row of seats, so between four to seven of you can travel together depending on the model.
• A shorter tipping body, because the second cab takes up more of the chassis.
• The one to go for if you work in a group and need everyone plus the materials in a single vehicle.

Watch the payload, it disappears fast

This is where the double cab catches people out. A 3.5 tonne double cab tipper can weigh well over 2,300kg empty. If you then put four crew in the cab at roughly 85kg each, then you have used another 340kg. Add a full tank of fuel and a few heavy tools and you might be left with 800 to 900kg of legal payload. That is well under a tonne of muck or six or seven barrow loads, before you are overweight.

So it pays to be realistic about how often you truly need the extra seats. Plenty of operators buy a double cab for the handful of days a full group travels together and then run it half empty and payload short for the rest of the year.

On Vangoo's platform the condition is shown upfront, so you know exactly what you are getting.