Gen 3 Prius Max Cargo Capacity/Load Weight

you folks are lightweights

i never pay any attention, but i drive the speed limit and carefully, leaving plenty of braking room, and taking extra precautions in inclement weather

i'm more concerned with the rear springs and bottoming out. check your tires pressure

 

I wouldn't worry about it...just go. And keep the spare in there too. Take off a little slower and brake a little earlier.

 

I would trust the label on the door. Not what somebody says...

 

I wouldn't check tire pressure, I would inflate them to door jab specs. Checking would just be only a visual snapshot.

 

If he wanted to just trust the label on the door he probably wouldn't bother to ask the board if anyone has ever gone over the recommended limit. I have many times and had no problems.

 

Besides the predictable longer braking distances, did you notice any degradation of the handling?
The few times I have been over the 800 pound limit, I felt that our 2012 hatchback was starting to “roll like a log wagon”, to use a very old metaphor. The distribution of the excess weight may also affect whether front or rear tires will tend to lose traction in hard corning—not sure as I did not test this.
Due to bad experiences with overloaded cars and under inflated tires, I would be tempted to compensate by running tires at a slightly higher psi, but I would not go over the 40 psi I routinely use.
I should mention that IIRC, I overloaded one vehicle to the extent that I slightly bent the rear axle, and either that or simply the excess load may have contributed to early wheel bearing failures on that axle.

 

If you play with fire, you're going to get burnt!
And when you do, who else will you burn?

 

The psi posted on the label correlates to max load lbs so I trust the label also.

 

I've transported tile before, in a different car, and yes, it is kind of amazing how dense and heavy they are. In addition to the other things you're thinking about, I'd recommend to put all the tile (if you can) equally on left and right sides, in the rear seat floor area (where the rear-seat passengers would put their feet). Or additionally in the front passenger footwell, if you need to even things out more so the passengers can put their feet on top of the tile.

Putting it in the footwell areas keeps it as low to the ground as possible, helping with stability and handling.

Putting it all in the back (in addition to your other concerns) would affect the spin-stability and handling of the car. It would be prone to oversteering, which could be dangerous.

It could be that with such a heavy load, the struts will be constantly bumping against the bump stops, and maybe even tires rubbing. You could load things up, see how it looks (how slammed to the ground it looks - post some pics here) and you may find your decision easier to make at that point.

 

It's a little heavy but you'll be fine.

Put at least some of the tile down in the footwells, including front pass footwell to help distribute the load and keep it low to the ground.

Keep the tires pumped up near or at maximum for heavy hauling.

 

I am sure there has been much worse

expect lower mpg

 

Well roughly 8 years on the struts/shocks already (if original)
so that is a good reason to be concerned.

Not sure how they are currently

 

I'd see how it looks once loaded up. If your suspension is compressed to the point where your struts are almost hitting on the bump stops (hard plastic bumpers hidden by the bellows), they may hit them enough along the way to destroy them. Or not. But you'll know better once it is loaded.

 

You purposely are going to overload your car with equipment, and 3 other people.
Do you NOT care about the 3 people, and their safety? Clearly you are not concerned with your safety.
And what about anyone else on the road that may be effected should you lose control of your car????
Just to save a few dollars?
And if you do cause an accident, you risk several law suits, that you will surely lose.

Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do it!

 

Steel rims?