I am planning to take a road trip next week. I and two other people need to transport a bed frame. We have rented an extended-cab pickup truck, and the back seat of the pickup is… well… not everything we could wish it to be. Basically, for one person to sit comfortably back there, the person needs the whole seat. So, our suitcases (we will stay where we’re going for six days, then drive back) will have to go in the back of the pickup, with the bed frame and some other stuff. We are planning on covering it all with a waterproof tarp while we drive.
I do not come from the pickup truck culture, and neither do the other two people. Is this a recipe for disaster? We will have to drive on the interstate for several hours. It sounds to me like the tarp will blow up and away, and all the stuff in the back will be begging to be blown away also. Please, oh please, reassure me? We cannot find any other vehicle to rent that seats three people and can carry a 75-inch-long object (we have to transport a two-seater sofa on the way back. Joy!)
Get a tarp with grommets along the edges. Get the same amount of bungee cords as your tarp has grommets. Attach the tarp to the truck frame with the bungee cords.
The tarp should work with no problems if, and only if, it is snugged down tight against the goods you are covering and not, for example, attached directly to the tie-down points at the top of the bed. If the tarp is loose the reduced pressure as air flows over it will cause it to flap and it will either take off or eventually rip itself to shreds. The goods themselves are unlikely to blow out of the bed unless they are very light and/or stick up above cab level.
Rope or webbed strapping should do to hold everything down; wrap the tarp and the strapping material all the way underneath the goods so that it forms a single wrapped bundle (this assumes you won’t need to get at them until you reach your desitnation), and you should be fine.
Bungee cords, nylon tie-down line, and you’re all set. Stuff just doesn’t “fly out” of the back of a pickup. Not unless it is very light and catches the wind. Tarp it, strap it down, and keep on motoring.
That’s a good question. I’ve seen it done, but hadn’t paid huge amounts of attention. I always assumed they just hooked them over the edges of the body panels.
Then again, this is going to be a rental and you probably won’t want to risk scratching the paint.
You don’t want to hook your bungee cords to the body panels, no. My Ford Ranger (small pickup) has a hitch inside each corner of the bed for tiedown usage. Standard, I expect; larger pickups might have more, though I don’t know from experience.
I’ve been paranoid about losing stuff myself, but I’ve driven from Detroit to New Jersey with equipment cases and bags of lightweight soundproofing foam in the bed and have never lost anything. I once put a solo suitcase at the very front of the bed, right under the window, with no tiedown, and it never moved. Strap the tarp down like El Kabong and Silenus said, and you’ll be fine.
My own tarp experiences indicate the lightweight (usually blue) inexpensive ones from the big box stores will do OK for a short trip. Anything of length, and you’ve gotta lace them down, Gulliver style, or you’ll have shredded blue stuff shortly. For real tarp action, you go with the oiled canvas tarps, which are significantly more expensive.
The tarp must be tightly secured around the goods. Not just tied at the corners, but spiraled around the whole thing. The wind’s desire to inflate and tear at a tarp is tremendous. No, duct tape is not strong enough. All items must be secured with rope and/or bungee cords, lest a stray cross wind snatch it away. Normally, a pickup’s bed is a fairly stable place, but if you have things sticking up into the breeze, there will be all kinds of turbulence.
All these posts have been both helpful and reassuring. I am beginning to calm down about the whole thing (twelve hours in the back seat of a pickup, that is the thing to worry about).
Can you tell us what make and model of truck it is? I drive a '01 Toyota Tacoma, which has four steel rings inside the bed, one per corner. Some larger trucks have more.
Having driven long distances with stuff in the bed before, I can tell you it’s very rare for anything to simply “blow away.” And ignore the Toyota commercial with stuff falling out-- those are obviously all staged. That being said, get yourself a tarp and about 25’ of rope at a hardware store. Then just run the rope through the tarp’s eyelets and secure it to the tie-down wherever you can. It should be enough for a short trip.
Two time pick-up owner here. IMHO, without any scientific basis whatsoever, I’d be concerned about the tarp.
The bedframe and luggage aint going anywhere. I would still tie the stuff down for longer interstate trips, but that’s because I’m a sailor, and I tie everything down. But in reality, probably not needed. The closer objects in the bed of a truck are to the back window, the less wind they encounter.
Tarps are evil. Especially in the wind. If you must use a tarp, make sure it is a heavy one of good quality. And has been pointed out - make damned sure it is taut. Tied with good line that won’t chafe through in a breeze.
I’m sure I’m a little more paranoid about tarps than most, because I’ve seen lots of 'em shred in the wind on boats. But the risk is this: If a tarp gets away from you on the interstate, the consequences can be tragic.
Personally, I wouldn’t use a tarp at all if it wasn’t forecast to rain. (Is the bedframe some type of wood?)
And make sure that you have the proper permits for all of the weapons in the gun rack. You do not want to find out that Cousin Cletus never registered that 12-gauge when the state police pull you over for throwing empty Budweiser cans at highway workers
The bedframe is enameled metal, so water wouldn’t be tragic for it, but our luggage will have to be in plastic bags anyway… the tarp we really need for the trip back, with the damned sofa. This time of year, between Indiana and New York (who was it who mented a short trip? is twelve hours short?), it’s guaranteed to precipitate. Unfortunately.
I have it on good authority (read: personal experience) that even though a rather thick and heavy queen size mattress does not qualify as “light”, it will still quite readily blow out of the back of a truck, even if it fits snugly in the bed so wind cannot get under it. So I’d amend “only light stuff will blow out” to “only light stuff or stuff that is somewhat wing-like in nature will blow out.”
Also, seeing how suddenly a mattress can fly out of the back of a truck bed makes one feel pretty stupid for saying, “I’ll keep an eye on it and slow down if it starts to lift.” For future reference.
Reminds me of when I bought a queen size mattress in Miami - from a store that required expressway travel. I had it tied to the roof of my 1981 Ford Escort. If the cops wanted me to pull over, they were gonna have to wait until I landed.
