How Much Snow Can a Tonneau Cover Hold?

Snow covered truckIf you are watching the snow accumulate on the back of your truck and wondering how much your tonneau cover hold or support before ripping or bending, you are not alone. It is a very common question. The good thing about snows weight effect on a tonneau cover is that it is generally evenly spread out of the entire surface of the tonneau cover. Except for the occasional snow drift forming on top of your tonneau cover, the weight is spread over the entire cover. That helps. Here we will break down the math for four popular tonneau covers. Two hard tri-fold covers, a soft tri-fold cover, and a soft roll up cover.
An average size for a tonneau cover for a full sized pickup truck is 6 feet long by 5 feet wide. That gives us 30 square feet. If your truck is a mid-sized pickup or a mini truck, then the same weight specs are spread over a smaller area and therefore increase the resistance to snow weight.

We will be using an average of 6 pounds per cubic foot of normal snow fall and 20 pounds per cubic foot of heavy wet snow.

Tonneau Cover Model Cover Type Max Snow Average Max Snow Wet
BakFlip G2
Tri-Fold Hard
18 inches
6 inches
BakFlip MX4
Tri-Fold Hard
25 inches
8 inches
Gator ETX
Tri-Fold Soft
12 inches
4 inches
TruXedo Lo Pro
Soft roll up
10 inches
3 inches

 

Don’t let these numbers scare you. When the manufacturers give us the weight limits that their tonneau covers can support they are talking about the maximum evenly distributed weight. I have seen over 24” of heavy snow on my G2 Bakflip and experienced no damage to the cover. I would be more concerned about soft covers with heavy snow. Aside from the weight of the snow, the cold can make the vinyl cover more brittle and more susceptible to cracking or ripping due to the weight. If you need to park your truck outside in the winter months and live in an area with heavy snow fall, we recommend that you purchase some sort of hard cover to avoid any problems or extra costs.

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