How much dirt in the truck bed?

Hey guys, long time reader but first time posting haha. Have a question for all you Tacoma experts, how much dirt can you put in your truck bed? I was moving dirt out of my back yard over to my moms and got thinking how much weight I was putting in (after the fact of course). Now If I am calculating this right, I doubled my trucks payload without knowing it.

So here are all the details,

-2017 Double cab w/ 6' box
-Dry loose garden dirt, if it being for a garden makes a difference
- about a 13 km drive (or 8 miles)
- loaded the dirt to just under the bed rails in the box
- max speed was 70 km/hr (43 mph) for about 2 km (1.2 miles), rest was 60 km/hr (37 mph)

I had the truck in ECT mode and didn't notice the engine working really that hard. So as I stated above, did I overfill my truck or am I just out with my math?

 

How much weight? It's your suspension and frame you need to worry about when dealing with payload. I haul 900 lbs of feeder grain somewhat regularly, makes my rear end sag to where I'm 1.5 to 2 inches from bump stops. That's my max, and it's on par with what the manual says.

 

It's roughly a cubic yard or 103 square feet

 

If the bump stops on the rear axle were touching the frame you overloaded it. Normally one cubic yard of dirt 3ft. by 3ft. by 3ft. weighs 2000lbs.

 

So my math was as follows: 72.5" long x 53.4" wide x 19" depth (based off some numbers I googled) to get cubic inches. Google converts it to 43 cubic feet and if dirt on average weighs 75 pounds per cubic foot, that means I put in 3 100 pounds of dirt. Now this math does not deduct for going under the bed rails and the wheel wells, but even then I am still way over double.

Now as for bump stops, this is my first time hearing about these (first truck ever) so I never looked at them. My truck also comes with a tow package so I don't know if that changes anything either.

 

1/2 cubic yard of 3/4 minus

 

3100 lbs would break your truck.

 

Like I said in my post, dirt was filled to the bottom of the bed rails. Nothing was packed down and it was extremely dry dirt. I know for sure now I was overloaded but I think I lucked out and didn't damage anything. It drove fine minus the ride being a bit stiff but will have to pay more attention to my weight limits.

 

this sounds about right to me. waaaay overloaded. you're probably fine though. biggest problem with overloading is stopping distance. your brakes aren't rated to stop that kind of weight. your tires prob aren't rated for the weight either, so you could pop a tire. if you do it on the regular you will see other problems. so don't do it too much.

 

Thanks Ranger, the tires I lucked out on not blowing up but I drove like a grandma for the entire trip and gave myself extra room for stopping because I know the basics of extra weight. Just kinda shocked myself with the math, I am sure once I deduct for wheel wells and not filling to the top the number is lower. Even then I was still at least double and with doing two trips like that I was very lucky.

However, the sticker on the side of my truck door with the tire rating says to never load it over 950 kg (2094 pounds). That seem right to you guys?

 

You are probably fine OP. I wouldn't do it regularly though. Most of the time, what's printed can be exceeded. Remember, manufacturers put the rating on there that the vehicle can safely do regularly to give you a reference but ultimately cover their asses incase someone like you overloads the truck and decides to take the off ramp at the last second, no offense.

 

What he said^.
I put 1500 pounds of gravel in the back of mine just a couple of weeks ago (30 bags at 50 pounds each) and it was sitting level.

 

It is pretty easy to overload a truck bed. Having the dirt be dry is a good thing in your case.

As CXY mentioned above, if you can place the load properly, the truck will still be pretty close to level, just a bit lower.

There is a lot to be said for WHERE you put the load in your truck. Any weight put in front of the rear axle is shared by the front suspension also. The further forward, the more of the weight is carried by the front.

More importantly, any weight placed behind the read axle, REMOVES weight from the front and transfers it to the rear. For example you can easily 1000lbs of load to your rear springs, by adding only 800lbs of load to your bed. The extra 200lbs, would come off the front suspension.

I am guessing that your dirt load was pretty much filling the whole bed, which placed some of the load on the front. But if you load bags of heavy stuff, like gravel or sand, people tend to keep it all toward the back so it is easier to unload. That increases the risk of unloading the front to the point of affecting braking and steering.

 

That is about right 950lbs, is about 1/2 ton.

 

You need to take another look at the load rating sticker, Sparky.
It says 430 KG / 950 LBS.

 

Yea I took a look a second look at the picture, didn't see the 430 kgs. It was late at night and I was just worried because I might have had to learn the hard way about overloading a truck.

 

When I had my '92, I decided to build one of those wooden swingsets with the fort on one end for my daughter. Loaded all the treated lumber for it in one trip. I could barely steer, had to pull over and call my wife to bring the 4Runner and split the load. I was probably still overloaded. Truck was fine after, but I only did that once, lol. Older and wiser now -- I calculate weights beforehand and make sure I'm not overloading, and I wouldn't use treated lumber for stuff that kids are going to climb around on (they seem to be OK, but that stuff is nasty).

If you were at 3000 lbs. you probably would have been sitting on the bump stops and noticed, so with the dry dirt you were probably a lot lighter than that. You probably didn't hurt anything, just don't do it all the time and do smaller loads.

 

I don't think you was at near 3100 pounds . These trucks are loaded heavy around 1500 to 1800 pounds .