Ballast in trunk

[apl]

My 02 Lincoln has Firestone Winterforce tires p21560r16. To get the best traction how much weight in ballast should I have in the trunk? I live in Connecticut if that helps any. Thanks.
Tony L

 

[1LoudLS]

i usually go with 250-300 lbs

 

[04SCTLS]

I'd go with 50 lb bags of landscaping rocks over sand because of spillage.
I usually run 4 bags or 200 lb with snowtires all around.

 

[regiment1]

i have always used 100 pounds, with Michelin all-season tires.

Maybe I'll bump up the weight.

 

[pektel]

I used to use quikrete. But I don't like the idea of spilling+moisture happening in my trunk. I use spare bags of water softener salt. Four 60 pound bags, over the wheels (or against the back of the rear seat). Then, if for some reason I do get stuck, I have salt.

I also run Winterforce on the stock 17" wheels. I noticed a big difference after swapping the open diff for a limited slip unit out of an 05 Mustang GT.

 

[Upstairs Chris]

When I was driving the crown vic for work I had two 60lbs bags of salt in addition to whatever all my gear in the truck weighed. I'd say in total it was around 300 lbs, but like pektel said, I also has salt if I needed it.

That thing never got stuck.

 

[pragmatic]

I run good fairly new snows (not used in winter with more 15,000 miles on them) and no ballast and that works fine up all sorts of snow covered hills and mountains. Only problem I encounter is starting from a dead stop on ice or grade. Of course my V6 and manual has 48.7% of its weight on the rear tires and the V8 auto only has 47.6%.

 

[Telco]

If you're concerned about spillage, I used sand inside 4 inch diameter PCV tubing cut to fit my old S10 pickup when I needed ballast for it. One could certainly do the same thing for an LS, but you need to make sure to have a positive way to locate it inside the trunk. For the S10, I just used nylon strapping wrapped around the tubes and ratcheted down to the rear bumper under the tailgate edge to locate the tubes on the S10. You don't want 60 pound tubes rolling around in the trunk, but I don't know how you'd secure them in the trunk without perhaps welding some tiedown points in the trunk.

Now that I have a 4x4 I no longer need to worry about ass ballast. The LS just stays home on icy days now.