How Much Wood Can An NCV3 Sprinter Hold?

I found a great source of cut and seasoned eucalyptus over the weekend and decided to stock up on wood for the "bitter cold" San Diego winter that's coming.

Of course, since our winters are every one else's late summer/early fall temps, we only use the fire really for decoration and ambiance...but it's still nice to get a good deal on some wood.

I was able to fit, by my calculations, just about a cord and a half of loosely stacked eucalyptus in the van. I'd estimate the total weight to be in the 4200lbs range. Definitely a bit overloaded, but it was only 9 miles back to my house from the wood yard.

The real fun was 4 hours of unloading and stacking, all by my lonesome!



 

HowardB

New member
I will never forget the uhaul truck I saw stacked full of wood with a broken leaf spring and axel. I think the rule of thumb for any "non truck" which includes Sprinters, Transits, Promasters, Dodge Caravans, Honda Odyssey's, Toyota "what evers" VW Van a things and everything else that's not designed to carry it's physical interior capacity in "solids" such as pallet's of bricks, pellets, bags of cement, rocks, firewood, sand, cinder blocks etc is to only load solids 1/4 of the interior volume if you are unsure of the weight.
Just a suggestion, and I know another member talked about a VW full of bricks.
Just because you can get it in there does not mean it's aways smart to do it. A blow out would have rolled that mess.
 
I will never forget the uhaul truck I saw stacked full of wood with a broken leaf spring and axel. I think the rule of thumb for any "non truck" which includes Sprinters, Transits, Promasters, Dodge Caravans, Honda Odyssey's, Toyota "what evers" VW Van a things and everything else that's not designed to carry it's physical interior capacity in "solids" such as pallet's of bricks, pellets, bags of cement, rocks, firewood, sand, cinder blocks etc is to only load solids 1/4 of the interior volume if you are unsure of the weight.
Just a suggestion, and I know another member talked about a VW full of bricks.
Just because you can get it in there does not mean it's aways smart to do it. A blow out would have rolled that mess.
I totally get what you're saying. However, I wasn't highly overloading the van. The stated max payload is 3614lb. I would estimate that I had about 4200lb. of wood -- possibly a bit less. I have brand new Bilstein shocks and brand new factory Kumho tires...I felt fairly safe for the duration of the drive.

Keep in mind, wood isn't exactly solid. A cord of wood is 128sqft of volume, but it's only about 80sqft. of solid.
 

Buss

New member
That's a great photo! Load it up! It doesn't even look like its sagging that much considering.
 

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