Too much weight?

Heyo

Going camping with some friends this weekend and hoping to get some advice. I know very little about these trucks and their capacity. I have a '12 TRD Sport DCLB w/ 206k kms (~128k miles). The truck is fully stock and the suspension is starting to show its age (frowny leaf springs, squeaky shocks). Sticker on the door says not to exceed 1050lbs...

Truck will have the following:

• ARE canopy (~180lbs)
• Custom built wood platform/drawer system (no idea weight, guessing its ~150lbs)
• Yakima Skybox (~50-60lbs)
• Gear (~200-300lbs)
• 4 adults including myself (~700lbs)
• Total: ~1,400lbs (before factoring in gas & small items here & there)

How bad is it to be 400lbs over weight? Am I at risk of breaking something over a weekend trip, 2.5hrs each way, going on some rough FSRs?

 

Iv done a similar thing, I don’t thing you are going to break anything (unless you have rust issues) BUT you are setting yourself up for poor handling and ride quality.

be very careful to go slow and no sudden turns!

 

You will risk bottoming out going over bumps. This depends on the current state of the leaf springs. Look into upgraded bump stops. I have Timbren. There are other options e.g., air bags, Sumosprings. The final solution is upgraded leaf springs.

 

If you have factory suspension that thing is going to riding on the bump stops the whole way. The factory leafs suck on 2nd gens when new, after 12 years they will be like wet noodles. Also ARE canopies are closer to 400lbs, so you're around 600lbs over. I personally wouldn't attempt this with my truck.

At best, it's going to ride like complete shit. The factory bump stops are basically solid with no give. You will feel every single bump. You likely won't break anything, but there's a non-0 chance you'll bend the rear shackle hangers. And a 100% chance those leaf springs will be completely shot after the trip. Those 2 things alone are ~$2500CAD plus labour to fix.

I'd say rent a trailer but even with all the gear in the trailer you'll still be well above payload. Might wanna just look into renting a different vehicle all together.

 

Don't look at it as 400 lbs over. Look at it as a percentage.

It's nearly 40% over the max. Will you have immediate damage? Not likely, but you're stressing stuff beyond the limits laid out by the designers.

Google the ram that broke his frame in half with a slide in camper. He was about 50% overloaded, and everything was "fine" for 20K miles. Then he had a sudden catastrophic failure.

Use the info as you wish, but keep in mind the payload rating isn't just about weight. It's handling, braking, cooling, etc. and if you can't stop or make a turn then it might be more than just you and your passengers that suffer the consequences.

 

I'm with @Saskabush, your rear leaf springs aren't going to be able to handle that and it's gonna be a bad ride.

Highly recommend getting airbags at the minimum, or just bite the bullet and replace the leaf springs with something more heavy duty. It's definitely time to change them anyhow if you plan to haul anything regularly.

And I just reread your post and you say this weekend... just be careful and be prepared for a really rough ride. OEM bump stops don't feel good when you hit them.

 

Gotcha...

I would love to upgrade my suspension & leaf springs but every shop here in Vancouver Canada is quoting $5000-6000+ for new suspension (OME or bilstein) & HD leaf springs and I just can't swing that right now...

Are there HD leaf springs that keep the vehicle at stock height so that I can just put in new leafs until I can afford to upgrade the rest?

 

No... But you don't need to keep stock height. You can go a little taller while still using the factory shocks (although rear shocks are cheap compared to leafs). Call Overland Outfitters in Surrey. @WormSquirts is the owner and active here. Great shop and knowledgeable guys.

 

You might be able to get away with that much overload on stock suspension but only if you keep to 10mph or less on FSRs, slowing to walking speed or even crawling speed to get through/over any obstacles. It'll be an unpleasant, slow picking-your-way-through.

With a total suspension upgrade (say FOX 2.0 or better, all 4 corners, plus new leaf springs) it'll be completely different, where you can confidently run FSRs in good condition at 35mph+, slowing down to 15-20mph for bumpy sections.

 

Something like the Deaver Stage 1 or 2 might be good for you. Can run your oem shocks until you save up for others. And with an extra set of hands, swapping leaf springs is like 12 bolts and pretty easy (4 on each side for the u-bolts, and 2 more for each side, one front, one rear at the ends of the springs).

I've been running 5160s in the back with my stage 3 and they've been great.

Deavers are rated at ~3" lift with the below weights. (2" on a 3rd gen). I run the Stage 3, but as I'm well past 1000 pounds I run pretty close to stock height. I'd think Stage 2 at your weight would get you relatively close to stock height.

 

Tacoma has laughably low payloads. Most Tacoma's pretty much max out with 2 adult passengers, a driver and a couple of hundred pounds of gear. Honda Ridgeline and Ford Ranger are around 1500-1600 lbs.

The 1st thing I did after downsizing to a Tacoma was buy a 10X6 utility trailer for carrying loads.

 

tacomas are built to handle far beyond their max payloads, so dont get to down with all the doom & gloom whenever people start talking about tacomas and their payloads

but their rear springs from the factory suuuuuuck. Do yourself a favor and get a new leaf pack. Do it yourself and save thousands. Get yourself a Haynes for the truck and watch several youtube videos:

https://us.haynes.com/products/toyota-tacoma-05-18-haynes-repair-manual?variant=46926557118714

 

With upgraded suspension, it'll handle it fine. Just drive like you're overloaded, because you are.

Without upgraded suspension I wouldn't do this.

 

Hey man, I'm with Overland Outfitters, and we can definitely help.

It looks like most of your concerns have been answered already, but we get this question all the time, so I'll tell you what we tell most people:

Your truck will obviously be over weight. The stock leafs from factory are terrible, and you'll be pretty squatted out, ride will be rough, and the stock bumps are quite jarring. I think upgraded rear bumps are a very under-rated upgrade!
I wouldn't worry about damage over the short term, but like others said, it won't handle well or be comfortable.

To answer your other question, YES, you can get stock height leafs that are built to handle more weight. We've ordered custom leafs like this for customers before. I wouldn't go that route if I were you though.

The cheapest option would be to just do a good

$190 Add-A-Leaf kit for 1995-2023 Toyota Tacoma - 21.5" Short AAL Set with Isolator Pads and Square Bend U-Bolts

Add-A-Leaf kit, such as the deaver or icon (we usually stock these). They are designed to lift your truck and handle a bit more weight. However, in this case, they will probably settle out to be around level or slight rake with your weight. That would get you back to a kind of "factory" geometry, with the added weight. Though, with your truck being a 2012, it would be a shame to try and beef up your likely already clapped out stock leafs.

The best solution is to get a full leaf pack. They will handle the weight better, perform better, be stronger, and give lift as well. Obviously at a higher cost. We do stock Deaver and Icon though.

Finally, for suspension, if you're on a budget, but want some better performance, I would go with the bilstein 5100s. Don't even look at the OME nitrochargers or their leaf springs. They are terrible. I've had two sets personally, plus we did back to back blind testing with those shocks, plus many others, and the nitrochargers were really bad. We shot videos of this on youtube called Shock Value if you're interested! Their leaf springs also have so many issues we stopped selling them because they kept coming back.

finally as far as cost. I've done a quick quote for you:

5100s front/rear
new top hats
Icon RXT leaf springs
Install Labour
Alignment
Taxes

Total would be $4376 all in (assuming no other worn/seized components that need to be replaced)

That said, since your truck is a 2012, it (unfortunately) likely has seized LCA's, which would need to be cut out and have the cam bolts and arms replaced. You CAN save money and just replace the bushings. However, to get a shop to do it, the labour ends up nearly equalling the amount you'd spend on new arms that also have new outer ball joints at the same time. The extra parts and labour will certainly bring you into the $5k range.

Hopefully that's helpful. If you just want to do an AAL and carry on hoping for the best, we can also do that for you, and it would be around $1000 parts and labour roughly.

give us a shout if you want! 778-547-2444

 

I was thinking about this a bit more... you could also get the Icon RXT leafs, which have 3 options that they can be adjusted to. You could get those leafs, and set them up for lighter weight, which will end up sitting level accounting for the weight and lift etc. Then in the future if you want to do the rest of the suspension and lift the truck, your leafs could have the extra leafs added in at that time to lift the rear, without spending more money on leafs, just the labour to switch them up. I think just doing that would probably cost around $1800 parts and labour, just off the top of my head. Ideally you would get an alignment as well, but if you don't want to deal with the seized arms, and the ride height ends up similar to stock, you could get away with not doing it.

 

sorry for the triple post lol, all of that said, we wouldn't be able to do it before this weekend. I'd say just go on your trip, and drive cautiously, then give us a call when you're back and we can get you set up for all the future good times camping with buddies. The Spring has only just started!

 

Hey man, I spoke with one of your guys last week about lift options.

I ended up taking out the wood drawers, and having one of my buddies go in the other vehicle - handled the trip no problem.

I think I'm going to go with 5100s all around and Icon RXT leafs as you recommended... With 5100s set to a 2" lift, what option on the RXT leaf pack would you recommend I go with, to support the weight of all my gear + people and not have a ton of rake?

 

Awesome! Glad you got out there and had a good time!

I assume you're putting the drawers back in, so basically the list you posted before? If that's the case, I would go with option 3. If we are doing the install, we would typically set it up with option 3 for your weight, and then match it with the front 5100s to get the rake/height you want based on the rear. If we don't nail it first try, we will pull the coilovers out and do it again to get the height dialled nice. We don't charge extra time for that.