Fasten your load to your trailer!

[Robert_in_NY]

I don't think he meant we needed big, massive tie downs, just more of them. If you put a cross over tool box in you lose the front two tie downs. Since they push these trucks for work and tool boxes come in handy for work then why bury the front tie downs when they know a lot of these trucks will have toolboxes on them. Add a set just in front of the wheel well and it will help a lot.

 

[RobertN]

The OE tiedowns, while not particularly strong, have been suitable for what I wanted them for-- mainly to avoid load shifting of fairly light objects (something top heavy, fairly massive, and large would be a problem, but then I would use something else for transport or hire someone). They can't be too strong, the beds on modern pickups aren't all that strong-- put in a super strong looking tie points and some wanker would use grade 70 ratchet chains and complain about how the bed bent up. Well, make the bed stronger and heavier, but that costs more, and hardly anyone is willing to pay for it, not to speak of missing CAFE by a wider margin. You want good tiedown points, put on a nice flat bed, at which point you'll need good strong tie downs since there isn't a box to retain things.

I have used a buddies flatbed a few times, even worked with him for a while. A 12'x8' flatbed with hydraulic dump is VERY nice. So is having tie hooks every 12" all the way around the perimeter of the bed.

I have a couple beefs with most factory tie downs. I have an 8' bed, with the front tie downs actually in the front floor of the bed, and the rear hooks half way down the inside the bed('01 Ram2500). My wife's '04 Ram1500 is the same; many other trucks I have seen are similar.

When I threw a cross bed toolbox in the truck, there went the front tie downs.

When I toss a bunch of stuff in the bed, the first things that get covered are the tie-downs.

For too many things, 4 tie downs in a bed just is not sufficient to secure a load, especially in an 8' bed. Note above; that flatbed had hooks every 1'. Some of those old Datsun's and other brands of trucks, when they had hooks, were more than just one in each corner.

I see WAY too much stuff on the sides of the roads that have fallen off trucks. Now, that is not to say it is all the trucks fault; it depends on if the the driver made a good effort to tie the stuff down in the first place...

A good example, is hauling hay. How do you secure 15-20 3-wire bales of alfalfa... I see people load up, and have them wedged pretty good. No ropes, just gravity. I also see hay bales on the side of the road...

Trucks cost $25-50k or more these days. They come with an amazing variety and quantity of bells and whistles. But, they do not come with a way to secure anything but the most basic of loads.

Even the one is the commercial; I can't remember Tundra or Titan, compared to the Ford, with the dirt bike in the back where they invert the bed and the bike falls out of the Ford. Well, that's nice for the Tundra or Titan, until the stuff in the bed covers those snazzy, but limited use, rail.

 

[Defective]

I see WAY too much stuff on the sides of the roads that have fallen off trucks. Now, that is not to say it is all the trucks fault; it depends on if the the driver made a good effort to tie the stuff down in the first place...

On the other hand...

Sometimes it's nice to find stuff that's fallen overboard.

I have a very nice set of Mac tools in my shop that I picked up one day along the side of the highway. The box was pretty much toast, but the hour and a half it took to track down all the bits & pieces seemed to me quite profitable.

Fortunately, it must have happened at some point of low traffic. That cost would have been way too high.

 

[horse7]

...
I have a couple beefs with most factory tie downs. I have an 8' bed, with the front tie downs actually in the front floor of the bed, and the rear hooks half way down the inside the bed('01 Ram2500). My wife's '04 Ram1500 is the same; many other trucks I have seen are similar.

When I threw a cross bed toolbox in the truck, there went the front tie downs.

When I toss a bunch of stuff in the bed, the first things that get covered are the tie-downs.

For too many things, 4 tie downs in a bed just is not sufficient to secure a load, especially in an 8' bed. Note above; that flatbed had hooks every 1'. Some of those old Datsun's and other brands of trucks, when they had hooks, were more than just one in each corner.

I see WAY too much stuff on the sides of the roads that have fallen off trucks. Now, that is not to say it is all the trucks fault; it depends on if the the driver made a good effort to tie the stuff down in the first place...

A good example, is hauling hay. How do you secure 15-20 3-wire bales of alfalfa... I see people load up, and have them wedged pretty good. No ropes, just gravity. I also see hay bales on the side of the road...
....

I have a cheap net thing for loose cargo that isn't too heavy. My '01 F350 has 4 ties downs, which is 4 more than the 1985 F150 I had, or my old Blazer (which admittedly did not really need a tie down since it was enclosed-- although being a late 70's the top could be removed so maybe it would count too).

My opinion is that most people don't carry that much stuff that really needs a stout tie down in a PU bed, and the mfg has to make a choice as to what to spend money on. At some point people just aren't going to buy the truck due to cost. I'd rather a good set of brakes than a better tie down system-- I can change the tie downs a whole lot easier than brakes (similar story for shocks, the OE shocks aren't too good, but they are easy to replace. The correct design decision is to put the quality into things that that are hard to change/replace and let owners customize the cheaper stuff).

As for loose cargo... a friend bought a couple of Rubbermaid 150 gallon or thereabouts fiberglass horse troughs, tossed them into his Dodge 3500 bed, drove home... and one was missing! Drove back down the road, couldn't find it. Turns out it blew out across from the local large animal vet, they did not see it blow out, but they did see some soccer mom in a red minivan picking it up!

 

[Robert_in_NY]

My opinion is that most people don't carry that much stuff that really needs a stout tie down in a PU bed, and the mfg has to make a choice as to what to spend money on.

I still don't see where anything was mentioned about the tie downs not being strong enough, the problem is there are not enough. One tool box eliminates 2 tie downs then you only have one set of tie downs at the back of the box in the Ford trucks.

Go to a lumber yard sometime, you will see a line of trucks in front and those trucks usually drive around to the yard and load up doors, windows, siding, lumber, drywall and a lot of other materials. Dodge, Ford and Chevy/GMC all market these trucks to farmers, contractors and other tradesman. They don't push these trucks to people who let them sit in the driveway looking pretty. They design them to work, they brag about the work they can do and yet they only put 4 tie downs in them and you lose two of those as soon as you add a crossover toolbox. If all I cared about was a truck that could haul something on the weekend then it wouldn't matter as much but I would assume the majority of trucks sold are sold to people who use the box to haul cargo and not groceries. I doubt it will take a major feat of engineering to design these boxes to handle a tie down in front of the wheel well about 2' back from the front of the box. That way when a person adds the tool box they still have tie downs that will allow them to criss cross a load and properly secure it.