GUIDES & INSIGHTS
Practical guides for operators buying or specifying heavy-duty semi-trailers: how to match axle count to payload, when an extendable lowbed pays for itself, what European abnormal load rules require, and which steel grade decides your usable capacity. Written by the STU Trailers engineering team.
FeaturedAxle count is decided by the road, not by the trailer. Structural capacity tells you what a chassis can carry; national axle load limits tell you what you can legally put on it. Here is how to work out which number you actually need.
The right tipper volume is not the biggest one. Divide your legal payload by the bulk density of what you haul and you get the body size you actually need — anything beyond that is carrying air and costing you tare weight.
A 14.7 m³ drum does not mean 14.7 m³ of concrete on every route. Concrete weighs roughly 2.4 tonnes per cubic metre, so the weight limit in your country decides how much of the drum you can legally fill. Here is how to work it out before you buy.
A six-car trailer only carries six cars if the vehicles cooperate. Deck geometry, adjustable levels and loading time decide your real capacity — and cost per vehicle moved is the number that should drive the specification.
Flatbeds look interchangeable until you load them. Deck type, coil provision, steering and securing arrangement are what separate a trailer that runs profitably from one that damages cargo. Here is how to specify around your actual freight.
Three numbers decide whether your excavator moves legally: machine weight, transport height and trailer deck height. Here is how the EU limits work, when you cross into abnormal load territory, and how to specify around it.
Lowbed and low loader describe the same trailer family in most European markets. Here are the five specifications that actually decide which unit you need, and how to write an enquiry that gets it.