I carry a few pieces of 10' lumber, pipe, pvc trim, etc. all the time, completely inside my T4R, dry and relatively secure, with the back window up, all the time.
And that's one of the reason I drive one of these, instead of a pickup truck. Mine wears a Yakima rack on top, for long stuff. I go mountain biking, kayaking, camping, carrying r/c airplanes, hauling dogs, etc., all the time. A pickup does not serve my needs for any of that, at all. I guess if all I every hauled was gravel or short lumber, a pickup might serve me. Until I had to go in a store and leave my stuff easily available for theft. Or until it rained. Or until I worried about airflow blowing my stuff out of the bed. Or until I worried about taking a corner too fast and bike or dogs going flying out.
And if I really need to haul something big or heavy, I hook up my 5x10 trailer. When that weighs 3-4k lbs, I can't even really tell it's back there, until I get to a long, steep hill, or until it's time to stop.
I love this thing. After I give her some TLC, I could swear she whispers to me, "GI numma one. I so hawny. I luv you long time". :biggrin2:
However, at the moment, I am hating her real badly. After finally solving a massive oil leak (that turned out to be my own fault), I am not battling a mysterious huge plume of smoke out the exhaust on startup (these are covered in another thread here). And my fuel gauge, yet again, went full retard on me yesterday. I've taken care of most of the other stupid quirks of this vehicle over the years, but I will have to live with the faulty fuel gauge sensor. It never reads correctly, and sometimes it shows "bone dry" right after I filled the tank. Good thing I know how many miles I get on a tank. Fuel economy is pretty dismal when driven normally, but we can get good economy when we baby them. 60 mph on the interstate is the magic number. I have gotten 23.5 mpg that way. Anything above 70 mph, and it's below 20 mpg.
There - I've rambled enough.