This paper describes the development and verification of a new method for identifying and investigating the complex interactions between the powertrain, chassis and vehicle body to describe the operating loads under laboratory conditions reproducibly. First, the significant topics regarding drivability, ride comfort and durability for the development of vehicle characteristics are researched and studied in detail, whereby the significant scenarios are summarized in the form of an extensive maneuver catalog. Subsequently, in order to advance the development efficiency, the significant scenarios are analyzed with multi-body simulation (MBS) using the validated bmw vehicle model in the virtual environment Adams/Car-AT (advanced technology at BMW). Furthermore, a newly developed specific test rig is designed and profoundly modeled and integrated in the entire virtual testing environment. Through complex multi-body simulations with addressed significant maneuvers on the virtual test rig, the interactions (operating loads) and the exact working points of the vehicle components in various vehicle subsystems (powertrain, chassis and vehicle body) could be identified and determined. As a limitation of this study, the local stiffness of the vehicle body could not be reproduced, given that because the vehicle body used in this paper is not considered as a flexible body but rather a rigid one. Therefore, the influence of local stiffness and deformation of the vehicle body are not taken into consideration in this paper. The main finding in this study is that the complex interactions and the exact working points of vehicle components can be identified through the new testing method, which is validated through virtual verification by using multi-body simulations in the Adams/Car-AT virtual environment. This new method will be implemented in reality and significantly improve accuracy and efficiency for the development of vehicle subsystems with new development strategies and technologies.