How much weight can a pickup truck carry?

[DSchmitt]

It is rated at at least 1/2 ton (1000 lbs)

A friend familar with pick-up trucks informs me that it should be able to carry 1-ton (2000 lbs) safely as long as most of the load is kept forward so the rear axel is not overloaded. He once drove from Caifornia to Michigan with more than that in an older model Toyota 1/2 ton (not a Tacoma).

Good advice from SPFAN

[SPFan]

Dave, You need to subtract the curb weight of your vehicle (usually stated on the registration from the Gross Vehicle Weight (~4500). It should be about 1200 lbs.
Do you have a bed liner? Do you care about the paint around the bed? The gravel pit will take a front end loader and drop the gravel in your bed. It ain't neat. A better bet would be to rent an open trailer.

Pete (speaking from experience)

[FJ and G]

I've got a dinky little 4X2 Toyota Tacoma and I need to visit my local quarry to pick up $17 worth of crusher fines (which they call "crush and run"). Weight is one ton for $17.

I tried to determine how much weight my pickup can haul but when I went to the specs page, I found a whole variety of weights such as curbweight, torque weight etc etc.

Here's the site.

http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/2006/tacoma/specs.html

BTW, I'm using the crushed rock for ballasting my toy train track outside (to a depth of about 6 inches).

Thanks in advance b/c shortly have to catch my VRE train home and may not get to see any replies until tomorrow morning.