Picking up some used paving slabs at the weekend in an A6 estate – weight-wise what do you reckon the limit would be for axle-load?

I am sure someone has the answer…

Well if you had 3 fat buggers like me in the back that would be 300kgs .I reckon evenly spaced maybe a bit more than that would be ok ?

Google suggest 600kg to be the max load for an A6.

They’re your springs 😉

Off at a tangent… I once picked up a solid fuel stove in my father in law’s Escort van. The guy who loaded it parted with the following helpful words… “Careful on the brakes lads, if that thing comes forward it’ll f#####g kill you.”

A very tense hour long drive on the motorway followed.

I got mine in a 306 estate. The back end is a bit looser for it these days.

What size are the slabs?

Concrete is 2200kg per metre cubed.

If wwaswas’s googling is up to scratch, that’s 272,272 cubic centimetres of concrete.

I’ve got an estate and if carrying a big load the handbook says to increase tyre pressures so u might want to look at that too.

If these are the British Standard concrete ones probably a lot fewer than you imagine. Also make sure you put them on a sheet of ply or similar..

ditto above – not as many as you think – they is heavy bu88ers.. but assume each one is around 25-30kg’s each then you are looking at 20, exclude driver and i reckon maybe 17. but thne if i liked my car, probably 10 at most.

Hence my 300kg ish comment !!

Selling my pickup tomorrow – loved it for jobs like these.

Full size concrete slabs are seriously heavy. Perhaps take a bathroom scale and weigh one to get an indication of how many you might want to load.

Might be worth seeing what a half day rental on a transit type van would be if there’s a lot to shift?

You do need to know the size.

I was wrong about 2200kg/m^3, it’s more like 2400

200mm by 200mm by 40mm = 3.8kg

400mm by 400mm by 70mm = 26.9kg

600mm by 900mm by 50mm = 64.8kg

If you had roof bars it would be much easier.

I can see some Italian Job type cornering opportunities presenting themselves.

Be sure to catch the drive home on video.

Saw some guys delivering building supplies in te Lebanon. Plywood sheets held on the roof by the two rear passengers. Timber lengths sticking out the boot. Bags on cement on the bonnet.

Was not a unique sight.

OP- what size slabs? 2×2, 3×2?

If your looking at old Skool 3×2’s they come in about 70kg each, 2×2 around the 45kg mark. Some of the newer thinner patterned ones like from Whickes and B&q will be lighter, say maybe 30ks each

If it was my A6 then I wouldn’t put any more than 6 3×2’s spread out and lay flat in the back with the seats down. Isn’t there a ‘man with a van’ local to you?

My own technique load until the car body touches the tyres when you bounce on the bumper take a couple out . Spend the next year complaining your car feels funny .

Exact weights for 50 mm are
2×2 : 42kg
3×2 : 63kg

I wouldn’t put ten in my car if 3×2….

If the question is how many 65kg 3x2s that Ned mentions above, then the answer is; not bloody many. Honestly you’ll be cringing at three. Please take pics if you go for more 🙂

We filled the back of our Land Rover 90 with bricks. Luckily being ex-MOD it had heavy duty springs but the journey home was sedate and very smooth indeed thanks to the extra mass. Must have been around half a ton I guess.

jon you got enough answers yet? 🙂

some might be helpful

Answer = None.

Hire a rough looking van from Salford vanhire.

Even 3 is too much and no matter what you’ll shag your bottom hatch door rubber seal and/or your bumper unless you can levitate slabs.

It will **** your bushes etc

And no one wants their bush **** 😉

Collected a long (3m at least) length of kitchen worktop from local B&Q decades ago. Dragged my flatmate along to help. Assistant helped us carry the length out to car park, nearly fell over when he saw the car. A 205 (GTI)…

Rear seats folded, worktop still stuck out the back some way, flatmate counter-balanced that as we drove back home through Edinburgh traffic. Happy days.

Get a Citroen with self leveling suspension.

Top tip, never turn up at a quarry in a VW Caddy and say fill her up.

You may be careful but it’s only one slip and a damaged interior, shagged my freelancer sport boot up by shifting slabs

My dad fecked his mk1 caviler buildin a rockery with pilfered rocks.

Had boots ful and footwell on passenger side

All suspension needed changed shortly after.

Turned up in edinburgh to pick up a 3.5v8 and lt85 in my van that has a 600kg max payload

Slow drive home.

Hmm. They are 3x2s and it’s a brand new car.

I think I might rethink this one…

I had 16 fairly standard 45cm slabs in the back of my non estate mondeo and that had it running pretty low. I wouldn’t have fancied putting lots more of them in.

I had the same in my old Puma; seemed fine.

3×2’s are about 60 to 65kg each, if they’re the 55mm-ish thick ones. I got 5 at a time in my Mazda 323F, which already has lowered suspension.
A bit tentative drive, nice early braking, drove about 1.5 miles.

Not something I’d be happy doing with a nice new car right enough…..

My uncle bent the chassis is his car loading slabs onto the backseat.

Pump rear tyres up to max suggested in owners manual
Take set of scales and weigh one slab
Put in 300kg of slabs as per suggestion above
Make multiple trips

Top tip, don’t place them exactly on top of each other, rotate each one 45° makes it a lot easier to lift out.

We’ve just emptied our garden of slabs, all 2 by 2s, all patterned jobs – 30kg sounds about right. I took all the broken ones to the tip – the first load I took about 8 slabs, and didn’t do that many again.

With 3x2s, I’d be thinking about getting a van and spending a day going back & forward. Unless you’ve only got a few to collect.

I once wore the back tyres of a Mondeo Estate down to the fabric on the inside by carrying a 500kg injection mould tool from Derbyshire to South Wales. It made the handling interesting.

If you do hire a van- dont go to the likes of enterprise etc- they’ll expect a prestine rear load space back…