Bags of ballast in back of car.

[richardrich79]

I have been transporting bags of ballast from B&Q which is approx 1 mile from the house.
I've happily been purchasing 10 at a time ( to get the discount) and loading 5 either side through the passenger door . My car is a Citroen C3 Picasso, the rear seats fold flat and covered with a tailor-made rubber mats mack a superb loading space.
Whilst the helpful B&Q staff were kindly loading the car I was accosted by an irate person telling me I was overloading my vehicle. I retorted that it is no worse than transporting a couple of fat people in the back.
Now I should mention that I am disabled and my car was parked in the disabled parking section. I did not have my wheelchair or any other items in the back.
I rather suspect this may be the fact the reason the chap was so incensed. The B&Q lad agreed with me as did my neighbour who is my unloader along with my kids.
What do you guys think?

 

[TheVictorian]

Those bags are 25kg each so 10 bags would be 250kg in total assuming you are no more than 100kg that would be a total load of max 350kg.

The GVW of a C3 Picasso is approx 1800Kg and the kerb weight is up to 1400Kg depending on model. Therefore you are pretty close to the max weight using these guestimates but you should check the owners manual of your exact model to be sure. Don't forget to add the weight of any fuel in the tank too....

 

[ntb]

I think that whoever it was is an interfering to55er and should do one.

You're fine with 10 bags btw.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I bought a load of paving slabs from B&Q once, using a borrowed Volvo estate to transport them. I bought some, loaded them in, and checked that I still had rear suspension travel left.

Went back and bought more, ditto loading and checking.

Fortunately I ran out of need before I ran out of travel. Apart from the car wanting to swap ends when I went at more than 50mph the journey home was fine.

If you aren't going far, and you take it easy, I'd say that as long as the car isn't sitting on it's bump-stops you'll be OK.


For future reference (or for other folks reference) Hertz have rental vans at some B&Qs, and a half-day in the middle of the week is pretty cheap. I don't know what the load capacity of a LWB Transit is, but I do know it's probably more than your neighbour would want to shift for you.

 

[richardrich79]

Thanks for the replies, as I mentioned the trip is only about a mile and even though its uphill the performance isn't affected at all. Back at the store today having a chat with the guy who helped load up I didn't realise that the comment I made about a 'couple of lardys' in the back struck home as his wife and daughter are both on the obese side.