Slippery roads, weight in rear

[obbop]

2004 Chevy long bed pick-em-up. 4x4. 1500 series with heavy duty suspension and towing package. Snow tires ready to go on.

Placed 350 pounds of sand bags at rear of bed. Barricaded to prevent movement to the front.

Weight did appear to lower the rear stance much. From your experience or guesstimation is that enuff weight or should I add more???

 

[sbc350gearhead]

350 is okay for light snow. I use 600 pounds in my truck when the weather gets bad, and I can go just about anywhere.

 

[andrews]

Well, I would say that 350lbs. would be enough. I suppose it would matter what type of weather you get in winter though. In deep snow and slush the truck should work great, but if it's slick hard ice and compact solid snow you may have problems without 4-wheel drive or studs. My little Ford pickup was TERRIBLE on any type of slick road. I put 100lbs. in the back and got four Kumho snow tires..... now I'm ready for nearly anything.

 

[Pablo]

350 should be enough over the axle. Don't put it in the way far back.....sorta doesn't help on corners with momentum. It doesn't take as much weight to help as you may think. SNOW Tires should be on and make the difference with the perfect amount of weight.

I hate trucks on slick stuff, 4x4 or not. Braking distance is terrible enough on dry....

 

[Matt_S]

I second Pablo on the recommendation to move them up over the axle. Putting them at the far back gives you more of a tendency to fishtail.

 

[1sttruck]

I'll guess that equal weight distribution on the front and rear axle is a good starting point, even though optimum might be different for AWD, FWD and RWD. Good tires make more of a difference than 4wd, especially for things like cornering and braking. Decent chains aren't cheap, but they're usually cheaper than getting towed, wrinkled fenders, or worse.

Also, don't confuse snow, hard (cold) ice, and soft (close to freezing) ice, as what works on one doesn't mean that it will work on the other.

 

[tweeker43]

i used to put 500 pounds over my axle in a 2wd toyota tacoma. all i got was rear end squat.

finally decided to ditch the still-new oem tires and go with some quality rubber. that helped a bit.

then i totally fixed the problem with a subaru.

 

[1sttruck]

I sold some sand tubes to a neighbor last year as he was having problems with his Tacoma, having dinged some rims. He said that for some reason it did a lot worse than the Ranger that he traded in.

 

[Doug]

"Good tires make more of a difference than 4wd,"

That's a fact jack! If you have a 4x4 with bald tires, it'll be like 4 ice skates instead of 2. Also agree with putting the sand right over the rear axle. I bought 5 80lb bags from Home Depot for $2ish each.

 

[MNgopher]

I ran 280lbs over the rear axle of my '97 2wd F150 Supercab Flareside when I had it. The weight did help significantly, though as others have pointed out, tires make the biggest difference.

Also, as far as why over the rear axle and not at the back of the bed, it felt like the extra weight that far back also tended to make the truck feel like it wanted to "skate" on the front end when trying to make a corner. Transferring more weight to the rear was reducing the weight enough over the fronts enough that it was noticable. Or maybe it was all in my head, but over the rear axle itself worked best.

I avoid all that now with my '99 F150 4x4, but I sure long for the fuel mileage that 2wd got!

 

[TallPaul]

I put 4 sandbags at the rear of the bed to leverage the weight. It is not enought to make the truck skittish and light enough to not affect mileage or springs much. If you get stuck you can throw some sand under the tires too. In fact, if you do nothing else, one sand bag for that purpose may be the best deal.

Once filled the back of my pickup with snow. Figure had over 1500 lbs as the rear was squatting. Wow did I ever have traction and it was a 2wd one legger.

 

[twb]

I'm a firm believer in putting all your extra weight in the front of the box. Over the wheels is barely exceptable. Weight in the back will give you lots of tail wag and just takes weight off the wheels that steer and do most of the braking.

 

[John D]

I used to just carry a plastic snow shovel in the back of my 2wd Dakota Sport. That way, in good conditions, I could have the box empty for better gas mileage & less weight & momentum when braking. Then, if (when) I got stuck or road conditions got bad, I could just shovel a load of snow out from around the tires & under the axles into the box & could go wherever I wanted

. I did have big, luggy tires as well, which I'm sure helped!

 

[FL-400S]

quote:

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Originally posted by twb:
I'm a firm believer in putting all your extra weight in the front of the box. Over the wheels is barely exceptable. Weight in the back will give you lots of tail wag and just takes weight off the wheels that steer and do most of the braking.

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You're not getting the full advantage of the weight over the back wheels then. Some of the weight is distributed to the front. I put 350lbs in my 4x2 over the axle. The force is straight down to the back tires. My owners manual says if you have a truck bed camper that the majority of the weight must be over the back axle.

 

[williar]

Somethine else you'll want to do is to air-down your rear tires a bit, especially if running empty. On load range E tires (80 psi max) I run 55 front & 45 rear in the winter, with about 300 pounds in the bed.

 

[JustinH]

I run about 480 pounds of sandbags in the rear of my 98 f150 2wd.

I live in the tundra and it works fine, just gotta be careful with it. OEM tires are a nightmare, I upgraded to some good Firestone all seasons this year and they should do much better than the goodyears.

The f150 is really nose heavy and the weight in the back really helps it out.

I have an open diff which sucks, but i get from point A to B with not too much trouble.

JH