Hi,

 

Just bought a VRS estate, which I am loving! One of the reasons for getting it was the space to transport building materials from B&Q amongst other things.

 

Anyway, I just completed trip #1 from B&Q with about 10 bags of gravel in the boot. Just as I was going over the final (huge) speed bump as you exit the car park, I heard a loud noise and the distinctive toppling of bags in the boot. I had a feeling that this wasn't a 'normal' noise, and when I got home I realised that the boot liner / boot shelf had collapsed into the wheel well (no spare wheel yet!)

 

Is this normal? Or is this just because I don't have a spare tyre? Is there an option for a solid boot liner that could cope with sandbags / gravel bags etc. or do I just need to make one myself? 

 

I'm happy to lose a bit of boot space for something that can take the racket, but I will be getting a wheel soon so if that is enough then that'd be great. 

 

Thanks in advance

24 minutes ago, tdog said:

I just completed trip #1 from B&Q with about 10 bags of gravel in the boot.

You don't state what size bags of gravel you had. Maybe you overloaded the boot liner?

There should be either a spare wheel or a hard foam filler with a pump and other items under the boot floor. These do support the floor as it's only cloth covered hardboard. 

I recently replaced my hard foam filler with a space saver and toolkit but that leaves a 10cm gap to the floor and it sagged quite a bit. Found that a wheel well filler from a Peugeot 207 fills the gap exactly, just a big ring of the hard foam. Boot floor is now supported again. 

Do you mean the variable load floor? If you have that in your car it isn't very strong and does need reinforcing with wood to carry anything vaguely heavy.

10 'large' sacks from B&Q - so pretty heavy. Can only really move one bag at a time so probs 15-20kg each. So a not insignificant total weight of 150-200kg

 

Right, that makes sense - I don't have a wheel or the foam insert for the wheel so there is nothing supporting it in the well. Thanks for the tip re: 207 foam, I guess any hard polystyrene would work as long as it fits in height and width wise.

 

I don't know if I have a variable load floor or not - is there anything obvious that I can look out for to work that out? Good to know re: reinforcement, I've never had a car that doesn't have a spare in the boot so didn't think of this as an issue.

 

 

 

 

32 minutes ago, tdog said:

10 'large' sacks from B&Q

Yeah mate. That's actually about no help because I neither know you nor buy bagged gravel from B&Q (or anywhere else). I think the bags should state a mass on them, and under UK manual handling regulations, should weigh 20kg or less each.

36 minutes ago, KenONeill said:

Yeah mate. That's actually about no help because I neither know you nor buy bagged gravel from B&Q (or anywhere else). I think the bags should state a mass on them, and under UK manual handling regulations, should weigh 20kg or less each.

 

Plz see the end of my sentence 'mate', for estimated weight size - they are called 'large gravel sacks' so you can blame B&Q for that:

 

10 'large' sacks from B&Q - so pretty heavy. Can only really move one bag at a time so probs 15-20kg each. So a not insignificant total weight of 150-200kg

 

I don't know the actual weight of them and there is no weight on the B&Q site which is why I didn't give an exact weight, the bags are long gone and i'm not fishing them out of the bin.

 

This question is more about the boot shelf, options for making it stronger - because it's obviously not very strong under load. If these boot shelves can only handle 10kg unsupported then that's useful to know - being a brand new owner and not having had a car without a wheel before I'm just not sure on what the expectation is and whether I need to strengthen / build a new boot shelf for my needs.

Hi Tdog, I assume you have the estate - if you do have the variable boot floor, the max. loading is something around 80KG. you can check by seeing if it is possible to fold it down - in raised position there is very little 'lip' at the rear of the load bay. 

7 hours ago, tdog said:

10 'large' sacks from B&Q - so pretty heavy. Can only really move one bag at a time so probs 15-20kg each. So a not insignificant total weight of 150-200kg

 

Right, that makes sense - I don't have a wheel or the foam insert for the wheel so there is nothing supporting it in the well. Thanks for the tip re: 207 foam, I guess any hard polystyrene would work as long as it fits in height and width wise.

 

I don't know if I have a variable load floor or not - is there anything obvious that I can look out for to work that out? Good to know re: reinforcement, I've never had a car that doesn't have a spare in the boot so didn't think of this as an issue.

 

 

 

 

I have the boot foam for the Vrs Estate surplus to requirement (FOC) if its of any help, depending where you are. 

55 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

Hi Tdog, I assume you have the estate - if you do have the variable boot floor, the max. loading is something around 80KG. you can check by seeing if it is possible to fold it down - in raised position there is very little 'lip' at the rear of the load bay. 

 

Yes, have the estate, will check on the boot floor. Whatever type of boot floor it is it has a rubber / thick plastic boot liner on it (to be honest i've only opened the boot about 3 times since I bought it - have been more focused on driving!)

 

 

54 minutes ago, Liteboy said:

I have the boot foam for the Vrs Estate surplus to requirement (FOC) if its of any help, depending where you are. 

 

 

Ah that's really kind mate, I'm in Bristol and it looks like you are in Cams - might be a bit too far away unfortunately.

45 minutes ago, tdog said:

 

 

Ah that's really kind mate, I'm in Bristol and it looks like you are in Cams - might be a bit too far away unfortunately.

Yeah, I looked at your profile after I posted and thought the same. If you're stuck I can see how much it would cost to send it as is weighs nothing. 

When I bought my Octavia, it had the foam insert in the wheel well, along with that rubbish gunge you use if you have a puncture. So I took out the foam insert and replaced it with a space saver wheel. The space saver is of course, quite thin, so there is a space between the wheel and boot floor. If I then did load something heavy in the boot, it would bow down into the space between the wheel and boot floor covering. 

 I carry heavy loads regularly on dive trips, 4 full cylinders and dive gear in the boot, so I also need a strong floor. My easy remedy,  I bought a large sheet of 5 ply plywood. Cut it to the shape of the boot floor and laid it down covering the whole floor, with the carpet and a rubber boot liner over the top. It is now very strong and certainly would be strong enough for a few bags of gravel. Below is a photo of the plywood inside the boot. The light part of the photo is only a reflection of the sun, that shiny thing we sometimes see in this country.

On 03/06/2021 at 17:59, Liteboy said:

Yeah, I looked at your profile after I posted and thought the same. If you're stuck I can see how much it would cost to send it as is weighs nothing. 

 

 

Ok cool, thanks - will let you know how I get on!

On 03/06/2021 at 19:24, roaddetective said:

When I bought my Octavia, it had the foam insert in the wheel well, along with that rubbish gunge you use if you have a puncture. So I took out the foam insert and replaced it with a space saver wheel. The space saver is of course, quite thin, so there is a space between the wheel and boot floor. If I then did load something heavy in the boot, it would bow down into the space between the wheel and boot floor covering. 

 I carry heavy loads regularly on dive trips, 4 full cylinders and dive gear in the boot, so I also need a strong floor. My easy remedy,  I bought a large sheet of 5 ply plywood. Cut it to the shape of the boot floor and laid it down covering the whole floor, with the carpet and a rubber boot liner over the top. It is now very strong and certainly would be strong enough for a few bags of gravel. Below is a photo of the plywood inside the boot. The light part of the photo is only a reflection of the sun, that shiny thing we sometimes see in this country.

 

Ok so that's what I was thinking of making - I checked my boot today and it looks like it's just a very thin piece of folding hardboard with carpet on it. I can totally see why it couldn't take the racket. 

 

What thickness of ply is that?

1 minute ago, tdog said:

 

Ok so that's what I was thinking of making - I checked my boot today and it looks like it's just a very thin piece of folding hardboard with carpet on it. I can totally see why it couldn't take the racket. 

 

What thickness of ply is that?

As I said in my post, it's 5 ply. When you buy plywood you get it in a thickness not described in cm or inches. So with plywood you can buy 2 ply, 3 ply, etc. 5 ply just means 5 pieces of thin wood glued together, therefore 5 ply. Plywood is stronger than you would expect if you have never used it before. Without going out and measuring it, 5 ply is around half an inch thickness, or in modern language, around 12mm. Certainly strong enough for your needs. Just go into a builders merchant and ask for a large sheet of 5 ply and cut it to shape. 

12 minutes ago, tdog said:

 

 

Ok cool, thanks - will let you know how I get on!

This is mine with the space saver at the bottom and then the Peugeot hard foam ring sitting on top of it. The boot floor is support well. 

On 04/06/2021 at 19:26, tdog said:

 

Ok so that's what I was thinking of making - I checked my boot today and it looks like it's just a very thin piece of folding hardboard with carpet on it. I can totally see why it couldn't take the racket. 

 

What thickness of ply is that?

 

In other words you have the variable load floor. I've got that in my car and have carried extremely heavy items in it without any problems. However, that is with a large piece of old fence post on either side of the boot underneath the folding part. This gives it some extra support and strength where it needs it most. Didn't do this with an earlier Octavia 3 and the whole thing just folded in on itself the first time I put something heavy in the boot!

23 minutes ago, AllanDJ said:

 

In other words you have the variable load floor. I've got that in my car and have carried extremely heavy items in it without any problems. However, that is with a large piece of old fence post on either side of the boot underneath the folding part. This gives it some extra support and strength where it needs it most. Didn't do this with an earlier Octavia 3 and the whole thing just folded in on itself the first time I put something heavy in the boot!

What the OP described doesn’t sound like the variable boot floor to me. 

On 03/06/2021 at 09:21, KenONeill said:

........... and under UK manual handling regulations, should weigh 20kg or less each.

I think you'll find it's 25kg......cement certainly still comes in 25kg bags?

 

On 03/06/2021 at 19:24, roaddetective said:

When I bought my Octavia, it had the foam insert in the wheel well, along with that rubbish gunge you use if you have a puncture. So I took out the foam insert and replaced it with a space saver wheel. The space saver is of course, quite thin, so there is a space between the wheel and boot floor. If I then did load something heavy in the boot, it would bow down into the space between the wheel and boot floor covering. 

 I carry heavy loads regularly on dive trips, 4 full cylinders and dive gear in the boot, so I also need a strong floor. My easy remedy,  I bought a large sheet of 5 ply plywood. Cut it to the shape of the boot floor and laid it down covering the whole floor, with the carpet and a rubber boot liner over the top. It is now very strong and certainly would be strong enough for a few bags of gravel. Below is a photo of the plywood inside the boot. The light part of the photo is only a reflection of the sun, that shiny thing we sometimes see in this country.

 

 

Thanks for the tip - got myself a 2.4m 5 ply sheet from B&Q and got them to cut it into 2 x 1m x 1m sheets, then cut the excess using my jigsaw against a tracing of the boot liner. Works a treat - went to the tip with 20 buckets of hardcore and the boot held up!

10 hours ago, tdog said:

 

 

Thanks for the tip - got myself a 2.4m 5 ply sheet from B&Q and got them to cut it into 2 x 1m x 1m sheets, then cut the excess using my jigsaw against a tracing of the boot liner. Works a treat - went to the tip with 20 buckets of hardcore and the boot held up!

Glad the idea helped mate.