Well, they’ve been there for…I think four years now. No mess, no fuss. By now the humidity has gotten to them, so they’re 90lb concrete-bag shaped rocks and they haven’t budged an inch.
OK. Just a warning on my part. I would not like to scrape what could happen to a bag or two of concrete out of my truck after a few months of running on rough roads and a bit of rain or snow.
Good point, though. Maybe because Michigan is more humid than Colorado (used to live there) concrete sort of glumps together instead of disseminating all over the truck bed.
Up in Saskatchewan, we mostly learned to drive in the snow and ice: “Go slow and never stop!” Those with pickups usually put weight in the back, most often one or another method mentioned above.
The one I really liked was the farmer I knew who filled the whole bed with hay bales and ran in enough water to soak it thoroughly, then left it to freeze. That weight was there until spring for sure.
Because I know you were all dying for an update…
Went with 400 lbs of sand from Home Depot today. I did notice a big difference in handling on the way home. I wasn’t able to spin the tires (I tried). I looked at a few things for wieght, and buying 400 lbs of pulverized limestone would have saved me about 3 bucks but I seem to remember something about pure limestone mixing water being bad news. Corrosive? I don’t remember. In any case, I figured the extra 3 bucks was ok.
Pea gravel was a tiny bit more expensive, and for about the same price / weight ratio, I could have had some large patio stones, but I figure the sand would come in handy if I got stuck than a 2 foot square 45 lb stone.
Thanks for the info!
Had plenty of fun with this stuff. Back in '97, I was working at Ft. Carson when a late-season blizzard blew through. The jerk-of-a-boss we had didn’t want to let us go until the post commander announced he was shutting Carson down in 30 minutes or so. So I back my Jeep (2WD version) up to our building and toss a few cases of manuals into the back. Jerk Boss tries to get all huffy about my taking company property until I point out his POS Olds Achieva, currently buried up to its roof, wasn’t going to make it out of the parking lot, much less home, and that unless he wanted to spend the next three days in a barely heated POS pre-fab building with no food, it was either me and my Jeep or the Heel-and-Toe Express.
At which point he suggests maybe we need a few more cases of manuals in back just be to sure.
My cousin Mark also had his Ford Ranger buried in snow pretty good, so he and I headed out with shovels and filled the bed of his truck with most of the snow in his driveway (the rest we just tossed into the neighbor’s driveway). Nothing like several cubic yards of frozen water on your back axel to help you tool about town.
When it started to melt, we just went to the nearest shopping center, dropped the tailgate, put 'er in reverse, got up a good turn of speed, and jammed on the brakes.
It was kinda like having a giant Slushee cannon.
ROFL, you just made my night of insomnia worth it.
Watch out for oversteer still, because while adding weight over the back axle will increase the grip of the rear tyres, if you do happen to start fishtailing then it’ll be much harder to correct.
IIRC, in some states it’s illegal to go around with an unsecured load, as people would weigh down their pickups with stacked bricks, which would then be catapulted everywhere in the event of an accident. Make sure whatever you put in the bed doesn’t wind up in the back of your head if you have to stop sharpish.
I was snowcamping by the Peter Grubb hut in the Sierras and came back to find that my pickup was under 3 feet of snow. After digging out enough to (a) put snowchains on and (b)clear the driver’s door and windshield I found that all the snow in the bed made a dandy weight. Drove back to the Bay Area and that snow stayed there for about a week. I went over to a friend’s place, knocked on his door and met him and his daughter with a barrage of snowballs 
I was just about to suggest that: When you need the weight, snow is usually available at zero cost, and exactly where you need it. Also not genrally a problem to dispose of when thaw comes. Not useful for spreading under tires to increase traction however.
Snow blowing out of the bed can become extremely annoying to those driving behind you, however. Better to use sand or gravel.