Winter Weight

A good set of snow tires and run it. These trucks are tanks in the snow

 

Adequate maybe. But at -30 they're pretty useless.

But like others have said... Depends on your brand of winter.

 

I carry a couple of bags of cat litter (the 50 lb bags). the larger grains can double for additional traction by sprinkling it on the ground if you find yourself unable to move even with the extra weight of the sandbags or whatever you use. But as others have said, get a good set of tires for dealing with snow. Not uncommon for some people to own two sets of wheels. One with all seasons and the other dedicated snow tires.

 

Don't use sand if it breaks it is a mess get the cheapest gravel or some rusty old 45lb plates

 

The posters in this thread posting pictures of large heavy items in the truck bed while expect gravity to hold them in place may want to review Newton's laws.

Way back in the 80s my father put a nice square body on it's side one winter when the 3/4" metal plate weights in the back shifted. It donned a flat bed after that incident.

 

On the flip side.. an advantage of sand is you can throw it down on ice for traction. I travel "as is" with a shovel in case I need to fill the bed with snow but VA doesn't seem to get snow anymore (yeah.. i'm attempting to jinx we Virginians.)

 

My flatlands of northwest Indiana experience is needing weight for traction on 2 wheel drive only. My 60 pound sandbags got wet and froze solid. Glad I never got in an accident. My current 4 wheel drive doesn't need more traction in snow.

 

Here in Southern Indiana I run about 400 lbs of tube sand. We get deep snow drifts in my rural area and I need all the help I can get. Lockers front/rear and 35's help too. 3 ft of snow is easily doable with my setup.

 

400lbs?!!

In deep and drifted snow you don't need that much extra weight.... It will just bury you to the chassis quicker.

 

Tires! Tires! Tires! All terrain tires use hard rubber compound in their treads to extend wear characteristics. Hockey pucks use a similar compound and we all know how they react on ice.

 

I put the wife back there as she’s gained a good amount of weight through the year. I let her back up front once’s she’s lost the weight. Good motivation.

 

True, you can’t get stuck in the snow if you’ve already been stabbed to death in your sleep.....

 

I don't drive in snow any more - but while I still lived and worked in Wyoming - 40 pound bags of softener salt, back against the tailgate. Easy to come by when you need it - cheap to throw away if you need the bed space.

 

my brother works at a dealership. many of the truck trades they get over the winter season end up coming with sandbags, so the entire family gets an unlimited amount of free sandbags.

early on, we had a 2wd single cab ranger that we all drove as needed. being that we're cheap, and the sandbags were free, we loaded it down. at one point, we had 10 sandbags in it.

i can definitely say that while it drove better with it's butt on the ground, it stopped like a freight train. but that truck was a horribly tail-happy truck that was desperate to swap ends if you winked and sneezed at the speedo.

we ended up averaging out to 3 sandbags, which was enough to tame down the end-swapping characteristics, and still allowed the truck to stop in a reasonable distance.

i owned a 4x4 extended cab ranger later on after that, and the extended wheelbase was enough to dampen the end-swapping character. i never ran sandbags in that truck.

in my current dclb, this truck has none of those qualities, and i would expect a dcsb to have even better handling characteristics.
i've only been through 1 winter, but didn't run sandbags that year, and have no desire to run bags this year. despite them being unlimited, and free.

if the weather gets hairy, i turn on 4x4. it helps me to start and stop better, though i always turn it off for turning. if the weather gets so hairy that 4x4 doesn't work, they've already shut the roads down and proclaimed doomsday because the fwd cars are already stuck, and i can't go anywhere anyways without legal repercussions.

 

Shell and the misc winter adventure crap I keep in the bed is enough weight tbh.

 

I run 4 50lbs bags of sand and/or gravel (depending on availability) over the rear axal, not tied off the bed mat keeps them from sliding
But I only see 1 or 2 snow events a season of only a few inches
If I saw more snow I would get dedicated snow tires

 

The instruction manual said: Needs to be under 55 WHEN "SHIFTING" between 2WD <> 4WD. I think many people misunderstand you MUST DRIVE UNDER 55 ALL THE TIME with 4WD. However, in snow condition, it is safer to drive under 55...

 

I can’t read and got defensive. Leaving my post up in its original format for the speed correction. Sorry for being an unnecessary ass.
As a side note; page 327 pictured above actually states to keep it below 75 on snow tires, which is something I must continually choose to skim over while reading.
Interesting that Toyotas recommended snow speed is so high!
No. Just… No. It says to reduce speed to less than 62 mph:

Your driving style and preferences aside, speed doesn’t have any negative affects on the drive system. If you aren’t confident going faster than 55 in the snow that’s fine, everyone should stay at a speed where they are in control, but don’t spread misinformation.
The manual is FULL of warnings and “Do not”s. If driving above a certain speed in 4wd wasn’t recommended or caused damage to the system, there would be a warning on page 302.