I think those short bed trucks are the absolute worst. If you genuinely need a truck, get one with a proper bed so you can use it for it’s utilitarian purpose. If you’ve got a short ass bed, you don’t need a truck.
People who buy these things don’t really want “a truck”
They want a vehicle which aesthetically resembles a truck, so their super manly male man ego can be satisfied, but which is actually just an SUV with extra steps.
Honestly, if these trucks weren’t bigger while hauling less than my mom with her old clio and trailer, I might be ok with calling em SUVs. These weird pickups are an insult to all other cars.
Short beds and unibody designs are the worst fucking things to happen to trucks
If you need a truck - and as a rural tradesperson, there are plenty of good reasons to need one - get something that’ll actually do the job.
Rural tradepeople in Europe rarely have trucks. Vans do the job in the vast majority of cases, a trailer can complement when needed.
I’ve got a work van (one of the smaller Ford Transits), but it’s just not capable of towing anything really. Trucks do a lot better on the muddy hillsides I find myself on frequently.
FWIW I’m not arguing against you, I’m just saying in my personal case, I would be able to put a reasonable truck to good use. I don’t need a King Ranch or anything stupid like that.
All wheel drive vans with higher towing capacity exist
And are generally rated as trucks because well, they basically are. Truck chassis and motor on them, mainly.
K
My dad had a micro van in NYC and got along fine
While my truck does have a short bed, it pulls my 24,000lbs/11,000Kg tandem axle tilt bed trailer just fine. Which is more important to me than hauling groceries or people with it.
Plus the 4-wheel drive matters a lot when the roads have 6+ in/15cm of snow and it’s only 2 miles/1.7 nautical miles to the nearest paved and perhaps plowed road or when I need to drive down a logging road.
***The metric and navel conversion of measurements was done for those people living in Lubbock Tx.
The one in ten that actually uses a truck for truck stuff and not a mallcruiser.
The nearest mall is a mere 50 miles away and I never go there. And yet I get painted with the same “fuck pickup trucks” brush right along with those that buy them as a mall cruiser.
Quick stats check and less than 30% of truck owners use their truck for truck things, more than 30% don’t at all, and the rest might once in a while. So 60%-ish plus basically use a truck as a daily driver and not for hauling, work, or towing.
You are in the minority.
If I am in that minority, 1/3 is a pretty large minority. That’s a pretty wide brush to paint with don’t you think?
Not my stats. I didn’t paint anything.
Ok. Explain the Lubbock joke. I grew up in Odessa, but Lubbock had Orlandos with their delicious rum cake and the science museum. That was really the only reason for me to go over there and deal with driving through fucking Andrews County with all the drunks on the road. The only thing I miss from Texas is the food and sky.
Lubbock is considered one of the most conservative cities in Texas. And the unit conversions from US Freedom Units are an indirect poke at their conservative values. I often do the same for smug metric system using liberals-- see the US miles to nautical miles conversion rather than kilometers.
Remember kiddies: All measurement systems are made up scales by some random dude that thought it was a good idea at the time. No one of them is better than another.
Depends, I can still load my motorcycles or a quad or a snowmobile in a short bed with the tailgate open and I can still tow more than in a unibody SUV.
It all depends on your needs.
To load up deer I shot after a hunt.
Or I would if I hunted. Or had a truck.
Seriously though, farmers and heavy machinery contractors legit need trucks.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that people who need a truck shouldn’t get a truck. But regular people with trucks is every bit as stupid as driving around in a tractor.
No problem with people who need them having one (my family used to be one of those people,) but its just wasteful if you don’t use it.
*8 foot beds
It’s partially the manufacturers’ fault. Good luck finding an 8’ bed without an extended cab.
That’s their only option if they’re limited to the footprint of a smaller truck in their parking spot.
I’m dying for a return to 80s style trucks but with hybrid/electric engines
Please just let me have a functional, strong truck that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to drive
and won’t require bags of sand, gravel, or litter in the bed every winter
8ft bed can be optioned on basically every truck. People buying trucks just prefer the crew cab because the vast majority of them are never hauling shit
You know you can order vehicles from the manufacturer ahead of when you need it, right? Yes, there are stupid laws/rules in place that require a dealership to be part of the process, but you can generally pick what you want in a vehicle.
Mine is a smaller truck so it also has a little baby bed on the back, but it has allowed me to pickup a load of gravel and mulch. As well as haul garbage to the dump.
But I’m not 10 feet off the ground with huge tires or blinding headlights, and nobody can hear me driving down the road.
Just a little old Nissan to do the occasional dirty work
Nissan hard body pickups were awesome. I had a 96 model, one of the last years they were made. If you’re going to own a truck, this would be one of the more responsible ones to own.
Small compact trucks are the way to go, I have a single cab 2000s Ranger and I love it.
Some warlock indeed, can’t even magic his wood in the right hole
Shoulda bought a bigger truck.
This person has sold me on a bigger truck.
To haul one gallon of cat litter and a La Croix /s
For all the money bags he has to haul around.
I saw a lifted truck the other day, and not only did it not have a trailer hitch, it didn’t even have a spot where one could be installed. I don’t know much, but it seems to me that if you’re not using your pickup truck for hauling, then you shouldn’t even have one.
Maybe they haul a bedful of bricks daily but never need to tow anything?
Who the hell wants to load bricks into a lifted truck? Even if using a forklift, its often better and safer to keep the load as low as possible. It also safer while traveling to have the load lower to keep the center of gravity lower, hauling bricks in a lifted truck is more dangerous than stock height. Lifts can also impact stopping distance, which isn’t something you want when you’re also ruining your sightlines with the lift.
This man bricks!
I dunno, I was just thinking extra springs to not bottom out with heavy load, also easier to pick up heavy items if they are already hip-high.
(Like, I lift my husband from bed to chair, and vice versa, but I would really struggle to lift him from the floor.)
Stoopid me.
But not stoopid enough to buy a truck like that! A wheelchair-modified minivan hauls anything I need, and keeps it dry.
No no no, you don’t get it, trucks bad!
I can almost guarantee the bed of that particular truck has never seen a brick, or any other building material.
Generally if it doesn’t have a hitch receiver you can put a ball hitch on the bumper in front of the license plate, but those are rated for less weight and are useless if the truck is lifted sooo
“didn’t have a spot where one could be installed”
The hitch is bolted to the frame, if you don’t have one installed there’s no visual cue that you can’t install one
Some people need a truck without needing to tow a trailer, I had a client that had a lifted one to go fill up machinery out in the woods, his bed was a huge diesel tank with a pump, would you have expected him to do that with a Yaris?
A lot of people call the draw bar/ball the “trailer hitch,” so I took the comment to mean that the truck in question didn’t have a hitch/receiver mounted.
He can do it on a fucking unicycle for all I care, that’s not at all what I’m saying.
and not only did it not have a trailer hitch, it didn’t even have a spot where one could be installed
Oh no?
The bit about you not knowing much was right though, I’ll give you that.
Not everyone needs a truck to tow is my point so judge all you want, you don’t know what that person is doing with the truck outside of the little glimpse you took at it.
Because I need a vehicle. And I want one.
Kayak.
get a van
Get a life, it’s a 6cyl and makes 28mpg. Go fuss at an Acura TL for all the emissions I create.
I just throw my kayak or canoe on the roof of my car. My fuel economy drops a bit with it on the roof, but overall its a way better option for me than constantly guzzling gas plus the upfront costs.
We aren’t just fussing over emissions, its also the bigger tires, the bumper height/pedestrian safety, the blind spots many trucks have, the increased space they take up in parking lots.
