96 F250 4x4 longbed. First spring with this truck. I have a few loads of top soil to pick up and a few loads of mulch. Landscape supply is about 15 miles away. What's the max I can haul? I'm weighed before and after they put the product in the bed.

 

My 97 weighs in at 6,000 lbs with my toolbox full of tools and two full tanks of gas. So with the GVW being at 8,600 lbs, technically I shouldn't put more then 2,600 lbs in the bed.
But I've hauled over 3,000 lbs several times with no trouble at all.

 

Thank you for the quick reply.

 

GVWR should be 8800 lbs for an HD F250.

 

Do you have an F-250 or an F-250HD? The HDs were probably more common, but both existed. Check the tag inside the driver's door for your GVWR. Or look to see if you have a full-floating rear axle (HD) or semi-floating (F-250)

 

You should be good to 3000lb+

FWIW I've hauled near that in my half ton. The most important thing is having enough spring to keep it from being all over the bump stops.

 

Mine is a 97 F-250HD but the door tag says 8,600 lbs

 

Well, that's the correct GVW. 2WD trucks were 8,800 for some reason.

I think the 351 trucks were lower in towing capacity (lower CGVW) but the bed load capacity was the same as the 4WD. In all actuality, the 250HD and 350 share the same springs, rear axles and chassis. In theory, you could carry around 4,000 lbs but heaven help you if the man pulls you over and he knows a bit about reading the door tag.

@RJL1 - we need to know what the GVW on the door tag says. That's the tag the lawman will go by if he doesn't like the way your load looks. Sometimes, the d00d at the home improvement center will want to look at the tag for his own peace of mind.

 

Well, here's the thing. I hauled 5980 lbs of wet top soil home today. It was a horror show, but I did it. Not happy about it. We had some rain and I needed top soil. The guy put a bucket of top in the bed and I said it's all good, maybe another. Well, when he put another on it looked...interesting. I didn't even look at the weigh slip but I knew it was a nightmare. Cruised home at 35 with my new Lab pup, the rig swayed all over the road above 35. Made it, spread half today and truth be told I was embarrassed to claim what I had loaded up, weight wise, so I needed to know what I could haul, reasonably.

 

Wow that's heavy. Glad you made it without incident. Something about bucket operators...they like to load pickup trucks down big time. I had 2k lbs on my f150 last spring, also top soil (a "honey do" item), and the operator wanted to put more on, I stopped him (gotta be careful with the little 8.8" rear). Didn't look like much visually but scales don't lie.

 

I would be very wary of loading 6000 lbs in the bed, because the axle is only rated for 6084 lbs; at least on my truck. Your truck should have the same rear axle under it.

I have no problem going over the 8800 lb gross, but I don't think I'll ever want to go over the axle ratings.

 

I carry pallets of concrete in both my 89 (rubber frame) and my 97, both handle with ease although I wouldn't do it everyday.

Most I carried was 4800# of hardwood flooring, and I won't do that again. I'm worried about tires, not the truck, but there is always a possibility of bent frames (reveal between bed and cab) when overloading.

 

Legally? Safely? Or physically?

legal about 1500-2000

safely 2000-2500

physically. As much as will fit till something fails


here is my 04 ranger w 2 yards of topsoil. Pretty sure that bent the axle that day. But that was 2 years and about 60k ago

 

Ha, thats exactly how my rig looked yesterday with the nearly 6000 pounds of wet top. As a matter of fact when I backed into the driveway the trailer hitch scraped going up, lol. Today was much more reasonable. I brought home 2 loads of 2 yards each of black mulch. The first was roughly 1700 pds and the second a bit over 2000 pounds. Much better.

 

My 95's gvw is 8800. Truck generally weighs between 6k and 6200#. So theoretically, I have 2600-2800# to play with, but that's without getting jnto axle weights. I've only ever had it on a single scale, I don't know what axle weights currently sit at.

I will say I used to regularly have 2500# in the bed (tile demo jobs) and it really didn't care that it was there, besides braking performance. I agree with the others I'd be more worried about tire capacity than anything.