Bed material durability

New owner of a 2011 Tacoma. I know the bed is a composite material of plastic and fiberglass; how durable is it to continuous abrasion from shoveling (as in removing dumped material from the bed) and impact resistance (such as a dropped cinderblock)? Mine will be a working truck as well as my daily driver. I've moved down a bit from my last truck, which was a one-ton crew dually; didn't need such a behemoth any more but still need to haul stuff, albeit on a smaller scale. It's going to be difficult to adjust from a 5x8 foot bed to a 4x5 foot one

 

Tacoma bed is meant for light duty. Dropping cinderblocks and the such is going to tear up that bed in a hurry.

 

Kind of what I thought. I've been considering putting a hard tonneau on it, looks like that will be the plan and a trailer will get the "hard hauling" duties.

 

Probably the smartest thing

 

I used the bed mat as pattern for cutting plywood to lay down in the bed before hauling sand , gravel and mulch. Makes for clean, easy shoveling back off. I used 1/4" plywood, since I had it handy. Just make sure that the piece in the back overlaps the front piece by a couple inches ,so it doesn't catch your shovel, when shoveling off loose materials

 

Mine has held up to a lot of thrown firewood and heavy loads, but cinder block is asking a lot. I'm frankly very impressed with how tough it has been, and completely rust free

 

Sign of the times, I guess, moving to lightweight, non metal material, but a good spray-in bedliner will take care of rust issues, at least from the inside. had one in the dually, was great.

This truck looks so nice, I don't want to mess it up by getting it dirty. Gotta stop being a wuss and use the thing for what it's designed for........FUN.

 

It’s ok to be a wuss until you get your first scratch.......then it’s game on after that !

 

It's tougher than you think. Mine is going on 11 years old without any issues. No more weight than these little trucks can handle won't hurt the plastic bed. Probably tougher than Fords aluminum .

Of course I also use a trailer. I figured out real quick after coming from a 1/2 ton that the beds are so small on these trucks, and the payload so low that I'd need a trailer for any real hauling. I can put twice as much weight on my 8X10 trailer as I could carry in an 8' bed in a 3/4 ton truck and it is a lot easier to load and unload.

 

Why throw cinder blocks, even into a steel bed. It would still cause severe wear and tear. I always protected steel beds with plywood, even for firewood - I've dented steel beds. I use my truck as a truck, but I still try to take care of it.

 

It's not that I'd throw cinder blocks in any truck bed, but sometimes heavy stuff gets dropped, or falls over. Just wondered how much the composite could take. I wouldn't dream of putting this truck through what I did with the dually. I once went to a quarry for some crusher-run gravel, told the guy to fill the bed about half full, he dumps gravel in with a huge bucket, the load is above the inner fender humps. When I cross the scales, I had 3100 pounds of gravel on board, and the truck was sitting on the bump stops in back. Luckily I only had about 5 miles to drive.

 

I has a similar experience picking up a load of manure. They guy did me a favor and gave me a little extra. Like 3 yards instead of 1. I rode home on the bump stops. All the flower beds, fruit trees, garden, etc got more fertilizer than I really wanted to put on. This was in a one ton, not the Taco.

 

I did the same as well still figuring it out but I have the 6ft bed. I wouldn't toss cinder blocks in it or be as rough as you were with the steel bud but they are pretty darn tough and can take a moderate amt. of abuse. They don't dent where my old truck dented from things I use to do. I have had some pretty heavy stuff slide around or fall over and nothing has happened.

 

This is another thing; I had a sprayed-in bedliner on my last truck, you could leave the tailgate down and not worry about stuff sliding out; this one is like the plastic drop-in's, slick as ice. I do like the sliding tie down clamps at the top of the bed and the tie-down rings at the back corners.

 

A bed mat will give more grip than you can imagine. As well as a great amount of protection against abrasion.

In fact it has so much grip that I remove it to haul mulch, because the shovel doesn't slide very well.

I also remove it to haul shipping boxes that I have to slide in because they are too heavy to lift in place.

I have an OE mat, but some folks make theirs out of horse stall mats and like them a lot.

 

You'd be surprised at how durable the SMC bed is. I've had gravel, rocks, mulch, and dirt in the back of mine. When picking up wood chunks I've tossed them carelessly back there with no problems. I've hauled a small upright piano in the back without issue as well. By all means don't throw cinderblocks back there, or back in any truck for that matter, but don't feel like you have to baby it.

 

I did the same, had gaps enough to take a hose into the bed and flush out any material that got underneath the plywood. And no rust drilling into the composite.

I put a Home Depot 4x6 outdoor rubber mat on top of the plywood to defeat the sliding.

 

I haul between 500 and 1000lbs of bricks and mine does fine. Once had 1800lbs of bricks and was on the bump stops. Put a bed mat in it to keep it from sliding around and cut down on the scratches.

 

The truck bed will look horrible after a lot of use.

Should hold together fine, but won't look good.

If you are going to use your truck as a work truck I would worry more about your leaf springs. You'll probably be looking for a new set after a few heavy loads. So just budget those and you should be OK.

 

Can you get a set of overload springs you can add, and longer U bolts? You're saying the stock springs will lose their shape if you overload them?

I've pretty much decided that if it's heavy, sharp or dirty, it'll go in a trailer behind me. I bought a hard tonneau cover today for it, one that folds back in thirds. It's a top mount, the flush fit rails take up too much space for me. I'll post pics later, it looks pretty good.