Nooteboom MCOS

Overview and generations

The MCOS is the hydraulically steered half of Nooteboom’s SMART programme. The other half is the OSDS, the same three- and four-axle semi low loader with self-tracking axles, and Nooteboom’s brochure introduces the MCOS as hydraulic steering added to that entire programme. In Nooteboom’s February 2015 account, switching from self-steering axles to hydraulic steering had until then “required considerably more investment”, and within the SMART programme Nooteboom said it had made the switch “a much more attractive proposition”. That same news item, in a paragraph about one customer’s MCOS built for KWS Infra’s road-building machinery, says the steering on that trailer had been upgraded to reach a larger, 45 degree angle “without using a steering quickener”; neither the brochure nor the current product page repeats that phrasing, so it is read here as a single 2015 account of that steering angle rather than a programme-wide claim. That February 2015 item already calls its subject “the latest generation MCOS semi low-loaders” and says the market share for the vehicle “has increased significantly” since its introduction, so the earliest dated maker evidence this page has already post-dates the launch; no document cited here gives an introduction year, so none is entered.

Nooteboom’s own description, from that same February 2015 item, frames the MCOS as “the optimal transport solution for the transport of medium-weight machinery (up to 47 tonnes)”. Its brochure printed six named types with a weight table against each — fifth-wheel load, rear axle rating, gross vehicle weight, deadweight and payload; the brochure does not state the coupling height in words. That brochure is no longer on Nooteboom’s site; this page reads the copy the Internet Archive captured on 9 June 2026, and Nooteboom’s current product page, which now covers the MCO and the MCOS together, carries the option list but none of the weight tables. The current page describes the MCOS as making hydraulic steering available to a broad group of operators. The made-to-order MCO, which that page offers with hydraulic steering across 2 to 8 axles rather than three or four, gets an option list with technical axle loads of 8, 10 or 12 t per axle at 80 km/h and no other weight: no deadweight, no gross weight, no payload, no fifth-wheel load. Among the documents cited here, MCO weights appear only in Nooteboom’s archived OptiCAT brochure, for four-axle MCO-73-04 versions built for machinery transport in France; they describe that market-specific version rather than the MCO at large, so no MCO capacity is quoted here.

Six named types and their weights

Three-axle first. The brochure gave the MCOS-41-03(EB) a fifth-wheel load of 14.0T, rear axles of 3x9.0T, 41.0T gross, 9.1T deadweight and 31.9T payload. The MCOS-48-03(EB) — the type this page’s table is anchored on — read 18.0T, 3x10.0T, 48.0T, 9.5T and 38.5T. The Access Platform version of the MCOS-48-03(EB) carried the identical ratings against a 12.7T deadweight and a 35.3T payload, and the single-extendible MCOS-48-03V against 11.0T and 37.0T.

Four-axle next. The MCOS-58-04(EB) read 18.0T at the fifth wheel, 4x10.0T on the rear axles, 58.0T gross, 11.5T deadweight and 46.5T payload; the extendible MCOS-58-04V, 12.5T and 45.5T against the same ratings.

Two qualifiers are Nooteboom’s own. Every table had a row headed 80km/h and a second row headed §70 that repeated the figures unchanged; the brochure does not expand §70, and reading it as a German exemption provision would be ours. And every table was footed Weights depending on version, without saying which of its five weight columns that covers or which fittings change them; the only statement of that kind in the brochure is that aluminium hook-on ramps reduce the dead weight.

Dimensions and weights

Four weights

The deadweight is what the trailer weighs empty, and it moves with the specification the trailer was built to. The gross vehicle weight is the loaded weight the maker rates it for. The rear axle figure is Nooteboom’s technical rating per axle, which its current page calls a technical axle load. The fifth-wheel figure is the share of the rated gross weight that the brochure puts on the gooseneck, so it is what the trailer hands the tractor when loaded to its rating. How the four figures differ is set out in gross vehicle and gross combination weight.

On the MCOS-48-03(EB) they reconcile exactly, and the arithmetic is ours rather than a line in the brochure: 18.0 at the fifth wheel plus 3x10.0 on the rear axles is the 48.0T gross, and 48.0 less the 9.5T deadweight is the 38.5T payload the brochure printed. Summed, the rear axles come to 30.0 t on the bogie, and that addition is ours too: the brochure printed 3x10.0T and no bogie total, so the spec table above leaves the axle-load row blank. The equivalent sums are 27.0 t on the -41-03(EB) and 40.0 t on the two four-axle types.

A 48.0T gross vehicle weight is Nooteboom’s rating for the trailer, not what may be run: the road limit applies to a combination that also contains a tractor unit, and 48 tonnes on the trailer alone is already above the 40 tonnes Annex I point 2.2.2 of Council Directive 96/53/EC allows an articulated vehicle with five or six axles in international traffic, in the text legislation.gov.uk holds as it stood on 31 December 2020. The same point adds the weight of alternative-fuel or zero-emission technology, up to 1 tonne and 2 tonnes respectively, and allows 42 or 44 tonnes for containers or swap bodies up to 45 feet in intermodal transport; none of that reaches 48 tonnes. Against that same 40-tonne figure, even the lightest tabulated type’s 9.1T deadweight — the MCOS-41-03(EB) — leaves 30.9 t for tractor and load together, still below its own 31.9T rated payload; that subtraction is ours. The axle count is part of that limit: a three-axle MCOS behind a two- or three-axle tractor is exactly the vehicle point 2.2.2 describes, while a four-axle MCOS-58-04 makes six axles behind a two-axle tractor and seven behind a three-axle one, and neither is one of the cases that point lists. The axle rating meets the same kind of limit: at the 1360 mm axle distance on Nooteboom’s current page, point 3.3.2 of the same Annex, in the same text, sets 24 tonnes for a tri-axle of a trailer or semi-trailer in international traffic, against the 30.0 t that is our sum of the 3x10.0T rating. Whether such a movement can be made at all, and on what authorisation, is answered nationally.

In the brochure, the extendible V types cost deadweight against their fixed-floor equivalents — the MCOS-48-03V’s 11.0T against the standard MCOS-48-03(EB)’s 9.5T is 1.5 tonnes more, and the MCOS-58-04V’s 12.5T against the MCOS-58-04(EB)’s 11.5T is 1.0 tonne more; both comparisons are ours from the brochure’s own figures. The brochure also tabulated the Access Platform version of the MCOS-48-03(EB) at a 12.7T deadweight against the standard type’s 9.5T, on identical fifth-wheel, axle and gross-weight ratings.

The highest payload the brochure tabulated was 46.5T, on the MCOS-58-04(EB) at 80 km/h; the 58.0T against that type is its gross weight and not its payload. Every tabulated payload is a rating figure, the gross rating less the deadweight, and they all assume the trailer runs at its gross rating. Nooteboom’s current page states the MCOS’s payload room as “within legal limits and for permit-based transport”.

Kingpin load

On every type the brochure tabulated except the MCOS-41-03(EB), at 14.0T, the fifth-wheel figure was 18.0T. How a fifth-wheel load is matched to a tractor is set out in the kingpin and the fifth wheel. On the tractor side it meets two separate limits: the U value of the coupling itself, and the tractor’s own plating on the axle underneath it.

The fifth-wheel load lands on the tractor’s own plating; tractor axle layouts are set out in axle configuration.

Deck

The brochure gave the MCOS load floor as adjustable from 810 to 1030 mm, and Nooteboom’s current page gives a loaded floor height of approximately 860 mm in drive position. The brochure put the width at 2520 mm as standard, widening to 3020 mm on sliding outriggers integrated into both side raves, with hardwood bolsters that can be fitted between them; the current page still lists the 2520 mm floor and sliding width enlargers, without the 3020 mm figure. The brochure’s icon caption gives the load floor as galvanised grid, “also available with hardwood floor”; the current product page repeats the choice as “load floor from hardwood or galvanised steel grate”. Axle distance is 1360 mm, on SAF axles at a technical 9 t or 10 t per axle at 80 km/h, on 235/75R17.5 or 245/70R17.5 tyres.

The 2520 mm is the width of the load floor, not the vehicle’s overall width; the difference between a deck dimension and a vehicle dimension is set out in semi-trailer dimensions.

Axles, suspension and brakes

The hydraulic steering runs to a maximum 45 degrees, on the rearmost axles. Nooteboom’s current page offers the rearmost two, three or four axles hydraulically steered. Its July 2017 SMART-programme page gave three hydraulically steered axles on the MCOS-48-03V and MCOS-58-04 and four on the MCOS-58-04V; for the MCOS-41-03 and MCOS-48-03 the French version of that page gives two or three, printing “2 ou3 x hydr.” (the English version prints “2 of 3 x hydr.”). The brochure’s own weight tables carry no steering column. The current product page also lists manual steering with remote control as an MCOS option, alongside the hydraulic steering.

The brochure describes a central control unit, located under the load floor, that groups the trailer’s hydraulic and electric functions together: the air suspension’s raise and lower function, the parking brake and the axle-load pressure gauge.

The brochure listed Weweler air suspension with a raise and lower function and 220 mm of total vertical travel, and a Wabco EBS with ALR, ABS and RSS; the regulation that governs such a system is traced in trailer brakes and EBS. Nooteboom’s current page names SAF axles and air suspension with a raise/lower function, and no suspension or brake brand; it gives the axle distance as 1360 mm and the technical rating as 9 t or 10 t per axle at 80 km/h, on 235/75R17.5 or 245/70R17.5 tyres.

Equipment and options

The brochure listed a 3 m hydraulic ramp at approximately 15 degrees, automatic hydraulic folding ramps in 4 m at approximately 11 degrees and 5 m at “just 9 degrees”, and 2400 mm aluminium hook-on ramps at approximately 18 degrees. The brochure presented the 5 m ramp as the easiest to drive a load on and off, and said the aluminium hook-ons, an alternative where the ramps are used only occasionally, reduce the dead weight; it gave no weight for any ramp. It also named a hydraulic gooseneck ramp, storage boxes and toolboxes, a detachable boom carrier and hardwood bolsters that can be fitted between the sliding width enlargers, and gave a weight for none of them. The current page no longer lists the ramps individually, only “a wide range of ramps”. The brochure described the lashing rings as TÜV-certified; the current page does not mention lashing rings at all. How a rated lashing point is used is the subject of load securing on trailers. The brochure also names an electric winch, stowed in the toolbox; the current product page lists a winch “with remote control and accessories”. Both documents state that the chassis is finished as standard with a hot-dip zinc spray, which the brochure calls a hot metal zinc spray applied as standard and the current page calls a fully hot zinc-sprayed chassis.

Nooteboom’s February 2015 news item describes the MCOS programme as having various versions built to the requirements of specific sectors, and its example is one customer’s MCOS built for the transport of road-building machinery, with a load floor specially strengthened for machines with a highly concentrated load, such as road planers. The brochure’s own Access Platform version, described above under weights, is a second named example of a version built to a specific use.

Source notes

The weights above are the MCOS-48-03(EB), the three-axle fixed-floor type, at 80 km/h, from Nooteboom’s English MCOS brochure, which is no longer on Nooteboom’s site and is read here as the Internet Archive capture of 9 June 2026; it prints no edition date, and its PDF file was created in January 2022. The brochure repeats the identical row under a heading “§70”, which it does not expand, and foots all six of its tables “Weights depending on version” without saying which of the five weight columns that covers, so no weight here is given as a fixed property of the model. The 48 000 kg total above is the brochure’s gross vehicle weight rating for this type, not a permitted road weight. The brochure’s payload for this type is 38.5T, that rating less the deadweight, not what can be carried without an exemption or permit. Nooteboom’s current MCO(S) product page publishes no weight table for any type. Across the range the brochure gives gross vehicle weights of 41.0T, 48.0T and 58.0T, a fifth-wheel figure of 14.0T on the -41-03(EB) and 18.0T on every other type (the share of the gross rating on the gooseneck, so what the trailer hands the tractor when loaded to its rating), and deadweights of 9.1T, 9.5T, 11.0T, 11.5T, 12.5T and 12.7T. The rear axle figure the brochure prints is a technical rating per axle — “3x10.0T” on this type — and it prints no bogie total, so the axle-load row is blank. Summed, that rating is 30.0 t (27.0 t on the -41-03(EB), 40.0 t on the four-axle types): a technical rating sum of ours, not a permitted axle load. Council Directive 96/53/EC Annex I point 3.3.2, in the text as it stood on 31 December 2020, sets 24 tonnes for a semi-trailer tri-axle at this 1360 mm axle distance in international traffic. Nooteboom names no year of introduction for the MCOS in any document cited here; a February 2015 news item already calls these “the latest generation”, so the production row is blank. The brochure gave the load floor height as adjustable from 810 to 1030 mm, a standard floor width of 2520 mm widening to 3020 mm on sliding outriggers, hydraulic steering to a maximum 45 degrees, Weweler air suspension with 220 mm of total vertical travel and a Wabco EBS with ALR, ABS and RSS. The current product page gives a loaded floor height of approximately 860 mm in drive position, SAF axles at a technical 9 t or 10 t per axle at 80 km/h, 1360 mm axle distance, tyres 235/75R17.5 or 245/70R17.5, a 2520 mm load floor, 45 degrees of steering, the rearmost 2, 3 or 4 axles hydraulically steered and air suspension with a raise/lower function, and names no suspension or brake brand. The brochure’s ramp programme runs a 3 m hydraulic ramp at approximately 15 degrees, 4 m and 5 m automatic hydraulic folding ramps at approximately 11 and “just 9” degrees, and 2400 mm aluminium hook-on ramps at approximately 18 degrees; no ramp weight is given. The brochure’s drawings carry unlabelled dimension lines — a 13050 line on each fixed-floor drawing (on the Access Platform drawing a further ~5000 line runs past it to the ramp tip) and 12800+6800=19600 on the two V types — but Nooteboom states no loading-floor length, coupling height or overall vehicle dimension for any MCOS type in words in any of the documents cited here, so those rows are blank.