My friend wanted to move some seed yesterday. After talking to him a bit we decided to use my new SD, instead of his half ton Chevy. We show up at the seed dealer and I ask my buddy how much seed he wants. Dealer says he's got 2 pallets of seed, total weight about 3500 lbs. I tell my buddy we can take them both if he wants to. He doesn't believe me, as he only takes 800-1000 lbs in his Chevy (and he's on his 3rd tranny) and so he thinks all trucks are the same. I even pull out tow and payload weight ratings and show him (ok 3280 lbs-but close enough, so I figure we're fine). Even the forklift guy loading the truck is trying to tell him that the "SD guys" come in here all the time and take 2 pallets at a time to save time.

Long story short we only take one pallet (1500 lbs). The whole time my buddy is freaking out the truck is gonna break (sigh). Can't believe that I can barely feel the weight on the truck. The ride height is now level instead of higher in back. All the way out to the first farm I'm telling him about weight ratings and capacities. I'm not sure he's getting it though...

We get out to first farm and he freaks out (again) when I just pull into the first field to drop seed. The snow is only about a foot deep and I don't even think about it. Flip the dash switch into 4H, pull in, turn around, we drop about 500 lbs of seed and pull out. Apparently the last time he was out there he buried his truck and had to dig it out. "Huh" I said.

Second drop we have to go about 1000 yards into a field and he says to stop at the road and we'll carry them in... I just look at him like he's stupid and drive all the way back to the drop, back into a big ditch and drop seed. Snow is about a foot and a half to 2 feet deep in the ditch. He's freaking out (again) "We're stuck now", etc... Even called me an idiot (we harass each other all the time). Drop another 500 lbs of seed and I just pull right on out. He absolutely cannot believe we're not stuck. All the way back out to the road he's saying "No way, no way"...

Last drop is easy, just pull straight in, foot of snow, drop seed and we go. He doesn't say much (finally).

All the way back to town I'm trying to tell him about tires, tread patterns, weight ratings, etc. Not sure he's getting it. We get back to my house where he left his truck and we start talking about his truck. He needs better tires, driving around on all season radials, I think they're Firestones (not that it matters). He says my truck is too high (stock height), it's about 5 or 6" higher than his stock height Chevy. Talk about ground clearance, etc.

I told him if he got some good off road tires on his truck and some ground clearance he could have gone everywhere that I went today with no problems. Not sure he "got it", but as he turned around in my street to leave, he got stuck trying to go up the snow bank and had to back out and turn around.

Next week we need to haul some more seed. I told him we're taking at least a ton or I'm not helping him. Waste of time to take so little at a time. We drove right past the next delivery stop yesterday. We wasted time, and gas by not just loading it all up at once.

It was good to get the SD "working" for once. It was also good to razz my friend the "Chevy Lover" on what a REAL truck can do.

 

Heh, gotta love it.

Do you have the locking rear diff? Makes it even harder to get stuck.

 

gotta love it when you show up a GM guy with a Ford, they always get flustered!
My two cousins are GM guys and ever time my 5.4 F350 outdoes their 1500 and 2500HD they get all red faced and give me excuses. Like i have 4.30 gears, Fords sit so high, and my favorite you were just lucky and WE all know its just cuz i own a Ford

 

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

 

The guy is afraid to put more than 1k in the back of his half ton? Is it like 20 years old with the springs rotted through?

Hell when I needed salt for plowing my 08 F-150 was all I had. It was much cheaper to buy the entire 2500lb pallet of salt all at once then to buy it a little at a time. Since I was already going to have to hand unload it I didn't want to make more than one trip nor did I want to hand load it off the pallet. It was a little sketchy at first when the fork lift driver set it down and bottomed out the springs, But it got better once we grabbed another pallet and pushed it to the front of the bed and moved some weight to the front axle.



Then there was the 7k lbs of rock my dad needed to put a pond in his back yard. We did it in 3 trips. 2800 lbs for 1 trip, 1500 for another, and about 2500 for the last one.

Modern Half-tons are more than capable of holding 1ton of stuff in the bed if it's only for short times and not really often.

 

I put about 4700 pounds of brick in the back of mine. 525 bricks at 9 pounds a brick.

My rear suspension squatted 1 3/4 inches.

 

Firekite,

No I don't have a locking rear diff. But I do have BFG A/T KO's on my truck. Makes all the difference in the world when you compare it to all season radial tires. I told him his tires belong on a car, not on a 4wd.

It was fun to drive through several spots like they were nothing and have him point out all the places he got stuck last time he was out. He also told me he always keeps a shovel in the back of his truck for all the times he has to dig himself out. I told him if I need to use a shovel, I've already made some bad mistakes. And, just to needle him some more, I told him "shovels are for Chevy's".

But in all honesty, most of it was the tires, some of it was ground clearance.

He still thinks "half ton truck" means you can only put 1000 lbs, "three quarter ton truck" means 1500 lbs, etc, etc. I tried to tell him it hasn't been that way for decades. I told him he's not breaking his truck from the weight (1000 lbs), he's breaking his truck because it's a Chevy...



He's a good guy, and fun to harass, but he's not very technically minded (which is why I think he keeps buying Chevys).

 

Tires make all the difference.I thought my 01 diesel would be better in snow than my 99 5.4 but they put the straight tread design on it when I bought it and they suck! But I'll deal with it till they are shot.as for weight I had 4400 lbs. Of pavers in the back of my 99 f250 it squatted But it handled it.

 

I have a friend at work with a chebby hd...he is always either asking if I drove the truck today or leaning on it.

 

First, I love Fords, however, I had 3 yards of mulch in my 06 F250 Ext Cab 4x4 5.4 and that thing was nose high bouncing off the bump stops. Mulch is maybe 1000lbs per yard soaking wet so ~3000lbs, more likely less. My current dually had roughly 2500lbs of steel in it and it squatted more than that and was sitting on the overloads. I realize the 08 may have softer springs but only dropping an 1 3/4"? Not until I put airbags on the 06 was that possible. My trailer, half loaded, would drop that F250 more than that (yes the tongue weight is loaded much further past the axle). Again I love my Ford trucks but wonder why my trucks squat like they do with less weight?

 

All of my buddies I know are either Dodge or Chevy guys except one which owns a Ford crew cab. My nieghbor loves Chevys plane out there is a couple of times we took our truck out to haul somethings for him and us at once save time and money for both of us and he always freaks out over the smallest loads and we are using our superduty. My dodge buddy has an old 1 ton 3500 4x4 diesel dodge and we were around his lot hauling things we had our 86 F150 4x4 302 (his dodge is a 90s) we are out there hooking up to everything we can dragging whatever and he is worried we are gonna ruin our truck he littearly made us sign a waiver saying he isn't responsable if we break our truck. Both of those people I love teasing and I know they can haul more I think they are just scared to do it.
Trav

 

Show that Chebby lover what's up

I have a few buddies with Chebs and Dodges, they all think they have the best truck on the planet (I do too haha) but the Dodge is the only truck that has actually semi impressed me with the 5.7 hemi

 

Damn, my truck sits very very slightly higher in the rear, and it drops about 1" maybe with my 550lb snowmobile, or about 1.5" with a short bed full of firewood

 

Same ones I have, 315/75r16, awesome tires.

 

sounds like ur buddy should trade his chevy in for a impala..

they are really low to the ground. hahahaah