The biggest loads I’ve ever carried in one of my personal vehicles have been an entire Willys Jeep frame and an entire car. Ok, that second one is stretching the definition of “car” (it was a Changli), but that thing weighed over 700 pounds! Here’s how I typically tie down my cargo in my pickup trucks, and I’d love to hear how you tie down yours.
I recently wrote a story about how pickup trucks here in LA often drive around with sketchily-secured loads. It’s honestly frightening sometimes, and hugely different from how things are in Australia (where the rules on securing loads are strict).
Anyway, today I started moving from my condo to my new house in the LA ‘burbs, and to prepare my 1989 Chevy K1500, I bought a dual-layer net and some eye-bolts/washers/nuts. The truck is set up pretty much exactly the same way as my Jeep J10 (shown below) in that it’s got eye bolts fastened to the truck bed stake pockets.
Here’s a look:
I’ve basically got the elastic two-layer netting hooked to an eye bolt on each corner of the bed, plus I’ve got the netting secured in the middle at both the front and rear (a bungie cord is holding the front-middle to a zip-tie threaded through two already existing holes at the front of the box):
For large, heavy loads, I’d still want to add some ratchet straps since this netting isn’t really going to handle lots of force, but for just general stuff that I have piled up in the bed, it should be fine.
I’m curious what your tie-down strategy is. Do you secure loads in your SUV/sedan as well, or only in your open truck bed? What tips do you have to share?
I use wratchet straps for most things. I also have an X-Cover by TRPx, for keeping stuff dry when it gets a little soggy out there. Its only for light stuff on top of the heavy stuff. Then i also use a bed divider with a rubber mat for the odds and ends under the tonneau for most small things. So yeah, lots of options but i agree with some other folks, heavy stuff secured to hold light stuff. One challenge with wratchet straps is the amoubt of stretch they have after a few minutes. If possible, after a couple miles, pull over and check if anything got loose.
Nowadays you can pick up a good selection of V boards (edge guards) in a variety of neon colors for free from the shoulder of the freeway.
Use those with ratchet straps to tie down boxes.
Ratchet straps.
But also, I wanna know how many garages are at this house in the burbs.
100ft driveway, a 2-car garage that I’m either going to use for cars or turn into a little toolshop (since the weather is nice enough to wrench in the driveway anyway). We’ll see!
You have to identify the cargo. Netting is great for light weight stuff that can easily be blown out but it is shit for heavy loads. Now for heavy furniture ratchet straps are best make sure you secure for the 3 dimensions. Eyebolts are okay for the light loads but on older vehicles heavy shifts of the load will pull them out. Like old rivers they look secure but aren’t. For a mix use the heavy stuff to secure the light stuff and cover with the netting then ratchet over the netting. Trust me I have moved 27 times around the country so far. Never lost a load but movers did lose my Best Foreign Car Award from a Laughlin NV car show. I do admit there weren’t many foreign cars entered but mine pulled a bigger crowd than the Detroit steel crowd and that was the main thing for the shows.
Agree 100%.
Mixed loads: Ratchet + netting.
You’ve had eye bolts actually pull through the stake pockets?
Ever since I had an unsecured bed slide off the roof in college (going 15 mph a short distance, but still dumb), ratchet straps for junk on the roof. Or a person sitting on top holding things down. For inside the vehicle, I figure a bunch of large rocks on top of anything should hold it in place, right?
Stick it in the front corner past the wheel well, rock it around a little, and loudly state that it’s not going anywhere, then hope for the best?
I thought the loud statement about the load not going anywhere was to be used after tightening the ratchet straps?
I wish the cargo area of my Juke had some D-rings or other anchoring points.
Somehow I don’t think epoxying some hardware to the plastic interior panels is going to accomplish anything but tearing the plastic off.
Ratchet straps are my go to, I have about 6 in a tote in the bed.
I carry a shopping bag/tote full of light-to-medium grade (300-1000# rated) ratchet straps when hauling, be it with a pickup, in/on a rental trailer, on roof bars or in the back of my wagon. Last big haul was a tire changer machine bolted to a pallet, then dropped onto an open rental trailer, which had five or six ratchet straps holding the 750+ pounds of machine and pallet securely in place over a 200-mile ride at interstate speeds. I’d rather not any of the stuff become a flying projectile for myself or anyone else, be it inside or outside my vehicle. Other stuff hauled in the last year? A front subframe strapped to roof bars on a sedan, that was schlepped 300 miles, a Dodge Caravan driver’s door, hauled a couple hundred miles on the same bars, an engine hoist hauled in the back of the wagon for several hundred miles…
I use a set of anchors that are designed to go into the stake pockets. If you insist on using eye bolts, though, please consider getting a set with forged eyes instead of bent eyes before trying to secure a load in a way that would put much stress on them.
I’m pretty sure the zip tie looped through those holes isn’t doing anything more than providing a false sense of security, both figuratively and literally.
The ziptie is stretching the netting towards the front of the truck, so it offers more coverage. But it’s only a 75 pound ziptie, so yeah.
I have made, and continue to make, my own share of sketchy automotive decisions but I feel compelled to point out that if you really think you need the netting to provide this extra coverage for the load, then it is only a cosmetic solution to have it secured at that point by something that’s not much better than a piece of dental floss.
Especially since the netting is elastic (i.e. no shock loads) and the load is being shared by the eye bolts, I’m not really worried about the ziptie. 75 pounds is probably just fine to keep things from flying out from under the front of the netting.
That tiny screw in the back holding the center of the netting is also not very strong, if we’re honest. But again, it’s just gotta keep things from floating away.
The netting setup in general is really just there to push things down against the bed floor (increase the Normal force and thus force due to friction) and to catch things if, say, some wind wants to float them up and out of my bed.
For heavy loads, I ratchet strap to the eye bolts.
DT we know you are an engineer which should make you an expert but these comments on good enough and probably make me wonder where you got your degree and if you might be due a refund on your tuition? Jk
LOL nobody is saying a ziptie can hold more than its rated load!
It’s 75 pounds. It’s there to stretch the fabric a bit, and that’s pretty much it!
I’ve got similar cargo nets for the hatch of both my Kia Niro EV and my i3.
The i3 net is actually more functional since the area is smaller, so when only loading a few things it keeps them held in place better.
On the Niro the net is a bit too large to hold things down unless I’ve got a lot of stuff back there. For example, when I have tools like a contractor bag and a couple socket sets the stuff still slides back and forth in an irritating fashion.
Our old Hyundai Elantra GT had a cargo net that stretched across the back hatch rather than four points on the hatch floor. That one was perfect for a few small bags of groceries or things like basketballs.
The MR2 Spyder has so little storage it’s almost always snug, no net required.
Tie down stuff? Piff – I leave it loose and aim for the potholes so I can bounce it out into traffic for maximum chaos behind me. <cue maniacal laughter>
“Objects in rear view mirror are in the past”
Right on!
I once stuffed most of a Kawasaki KZ440 into the back of the Jaaag (crossover). Surprisingly there wasn’t a lot of room for anything to move around, so I just employed gravity and a highly complex process known as “wedging” to keep things in place. A large (4’x6′?) commercial doormat protected the area not covered by the Weathertech in the cargo area, and not driving like a knob ensured nothing really moved.
When the @#$%^& weather starts to improve, I’ll be assembling a 4’x8′ Harbor Freight flat utility trailer. The plan is not to install the stake-body brackets, but to use all the bracket mounting holes around the perimeter to attach 1/4″ thick mild steel tabs with 3/8″ holes above deck height; that way I can attach ratchet straps just about anywhere. The bracket holes are in pairs, so I may use one large piece with two strap-holes per bracket location. Either way there will be a corresponding piece of mild steel inside the frame, sandwiching the bits together and providing additional strength. (The inside pieces may be angle stock to increase rigidity.)
The intended use of the trailer is to haul up to three small motorcycles, so there will be 1-3 wheel chocks on it at any given time. With three there will be two at the front and one at the back, so one bike will be facing backwards. Basically it will be chock full of chocks and everything will be ratchet strapped to within an inch of its life.
Reminds me of the time I moved a Vespa in the back seat of a NUMMI-era Chevy Nova.
This is one of the reasons why I prefer sedans to wagons. Toss shit in the trunk and fugetaboutit. I do have a trunk organizer in the Volvo’s trunk to keep the always there shit from scattering about. Groceries and such just get placed outside of the organizer.
I more often drive my Mini Cooper, though. Securing loads in it is simply a matter of squeezing said cargo into the ~3 sq ft of cargo area behind the seats. It also has a nice false floor in the cargo area, so the always there shit just gets stuffed in the sub-floor area.
For the few times I need more space than the Volvo’s trunk affords, I use the wife’s CX-5, and then whatever needs carrying (most recently a new water softener) is usually big enough to not require further restraining.
Anything beyond what the CX-5 can carry gets delivered and someone else gets to worry about securing the load in the box truck.
Better wagons have built in cargo covers and restraint nets that clip to the ceiling. Two things my BMW and Mercedes both have. My V70 had the cover, but not the net without paying extra. 240s and 7/9s had neither stock, but I had one for my 9s.
Sedans are useless, particularly modern ones with tiny letterslot trunk openings that really should just be fastback hatches. The few I have owned I have regretted.
I hear this complaint frequently, but neither my current S60 nor previous Infiniti G35 sedan had what I would call a “letterslot” trunk opening. Both the S60 and G35 have an L-shaped trunk lid which opens both the top and back of the trunk for access. We have taken both those sedans on road trips and fit full-size luggage for three plus beach gear in the trunks no problem. Bonus points for being able to park at restaurants and tourist attractions with potential thieves having no clue whether there is anything in the trunk worth their effort to break in.
I have put a snowblower on a pallet in the back of my previous Mercedes wagon. And a full-size dryer in the back of my current one. Good luck with that with a sedan.
You can no more see what’s in the back of my wagon with the cargo cover in place than you can in a sedan’s trunk. Not that I have ever had a car broken into, given I don’t live in the ‘hood. If I had to worry about my car being broken into, I would *move*.
With the trunk since aerodynamics doesn’t play into it, depends on the vehicle but it’s tolerant of a lot more. Generally I try to put the heaviest shit as close to or on top of the rear axle whenever possible.
With a Truck Bed I put the heaviest stuff on top of the lightest stuff aka the stuff most likely to fly away.
My 92 F-250 has a big pipe rack the length of the bed that extends over the cab. I bolted boards to the side so it’s like a stake side bed. Yeah it’s pretty ugly but it keeps stuff contained and provides plenty of tie down points. I use nothing, rope, straps or ratchet straps depending on the load 🙂
Depends on the cargo. Bags of groceries in the back of the sedan get a bungee cargo net over them. A load of dirt in the bed of the truck gets a tarp. A load of railroad ties gets ratchet straps. Mother-in-law gets a warm beer and a wave goodbye
Elastic cargo nets aren’t worth a damn in my experience. I use ratchet straps for larger items and weight-rated cargo webbing nets with ratchet straps for a bunch of smaller items.
Gravity, baby! Jk. Washington State had PSAs that weight and gravity are not valid methods for securing a load.
Moving blankets to avoid scratching anything and ratchet straps.
Cardboard going to the recycling center is what is in my truck bed the most. It all gets broken down, with the biggest piece going on top and then I throw the couple of cinder blocks I keep in the bed on top to keep it from blowing away.
My truck lacks explicit tie down spots. For stuff that really needs to be secured, I just use a ratchet strap or two hooked to the underside of the bed side, sometimes with a blanket to protect whatever is getting strapped down.
Large cardboard pieces are basically a sail, even a moderate gust can impart a lot of force – way more than a cinderblock could hold down. This sounds like a great way to yeet a cinderblock into traffic; it might be time to consider adding tie down points.
In the sedan, I rarely secure anything in the trunk. If it’s breakable or if it’s going to beat the crap out of the car I usually use an elastic net to hold things. I try to keep most things out of the interior of the car because it’s harder to secure them and they can become projectiles in a crash. In the pickup, it depends on what I’m hauling, but usually a couple ratchet straps are adequate. If I was hauling loose material, such as mulch, I would put a tarp over the bed and secure it with bungee cords.
I do it just like dad always did: I throw a rope over the top of the load, tie it to something with some kind of knot I invented on the spot, push on the load with one hand a couple of times, then I say confidently, “ehh, that’s not going anywhere.”
“That ought to hold it.”
Ah the ancient incantation! I was also taught these mystical words!
Also ratchet straps.
Australian here. Depending on the load, it’s either double braided rope, ratchet straps or a load rated cargo net. Both of our pick-ups/utes are drop side flat beds (I would never own a pick-up with a tub) with tie down rails so this type of load securing is easy.
Biggest thing I’ve ever carried on the ute was an approximately 10 foot diameter and 6 foot high roto moulded plastic water tank.
My last truck was a 2015 Nissan Frontier and they had that wonderful slide-in tie down system which I used when carrying loads. I had this bin I kept behind the seat (extended cab, not crew) with an assortment of ratchet straps, some rope, couple of bungee cords and a tarp. I used what the situation called for, but something I learned from my dad is to secure that damn cargo.
In my sedan and hatchbacks, I would bungee things to shop them from shifting and slamming forward/back/into windows. In the truck, I will bungee or ratchet strap things down to stop shifting. I havent needed a tarp over top, since usually light things end up inside a car.
Congrats on the house- whats the garage/driveway situation? Any HOA to upset?