Whoa, that's surprising!

[The Seventh]

Okay, today we were getting lots of soil.  First time around, we were conservative, not knowing how much we really needed, and loaded 10 40lb. bags of soil in the Durango (a measely 400 lbs, boo...).

Eh, we needed more.  Much more.  We went back, and got 40 (yes, 40) of 40lb. soil bags.  Total weight: 1600 pounds not counting the 290 or so lbs. added by me and dad being in the car.

Here's how much rear sag there was:

Here's the rear wheel:

Now for the front wheel, as a comparison:


Now, when I look up the load rating, based on www.mopardodge.com stats:
for year 1998-2003 WITH the weight distributing equipment (read optional dealer tow package) is only.... drum roll....




750 lbs  It turns out it the tounge load rating, which is usually less.

I read further and found out that the max rating is 1670.  um...

Best of all, it was with the lesser of the V-8's, the 4.7L, and it hardly noticed it.

However, the ride was very smooth (oh, yes), and we sagged a good 3 inches.  And nothing was hurt either...

As an interesting side note: we have this old, plastic little tykes wagon that we managed to haul 7 bags of the soil (280 lbs.) and it still holding up.  THen again, we've hauled lots of things it SHOULDN'T be able to haul, either...

In conclusion: 2 things have astounded today in terms of durability, and people like to be REALLY conservative in their load ratings...

[Lotos]

My dad likes to buy soil to get the yard even.  We always end up buying more though :|

[HTA!]

No such thing as soil down here.
Only pine straw.

My cousin purposely lowered the suspension on his truck...
It was so low he scraped the bottom driving onto the raised driveway.

[The Seventh]

No such thing as soil down here.
Only pine straw.

My cousin purposely lowered the suspension on his truck...
It was so low he scraped the bottom driving onto the raised driveway.

I can't exactly understand the point of lowering a trucks suspension other than making it look "cool"...

I mean, you can't haul as much, because you have to have some height to make up for the load, and it's stock height makes it more useful offroad.

Oh, well.

My dad likes to buy soil to get the yard even.  We always end up buying more though :|

We actually bought 3 bags too many, it turns out.