What is the point of that truck if ain’t even able to use it for it’s intended purpose?
I was never into trucks, but a cascade of circumstances put me in one. I hate to admit it, but I love that damn thing. I’m always throwing shit in the back, taking more camping trips, more wilderness trips, fishing low pressure spots, hauling trailers of shit, it does everything. The only thing that could come close utility wise would be a minivan, though I’d lose the offroad capability. I don’t love the gas mileage, but I’m looking at a possible ethanol conversion.
All that to say, if you have a truck, use it like a truck.
If you use the truck as a truck, it’s fine. I’ve got a cousin that has a giant truck… to haul his camping trailer that fits him, his wife, and their FIVE kids. The daily driver is a hybrid SUV, again, for five kids.
My wife and I, just the two of us, have a little Ford Fiesta. It’s perfect for us, and honestly we could deal with something smaller if we had the money for it, but the Fiesta was the right price at the right time.
That’s the thing, it’s not the trucks themselves that are the problem. It’s the size of them these days and their perception as a do-it-all vehicle. Theres just no reason the average truck user needs to sit 5 feet off the ground unless they’re hauling something in the ballpark of a 75-foot luxury camper on a regular basis. Not to mention the height of the hood and headlights, the ubiquitous extended cabs which kinda defeat the purpose by shortening the bed (Hauling the family and their stuff is what mini vans and station wagons always were for), those trucks with permanent covered beds parading as SUVs… Regular consumer vehicles and work vehicles alike seemed to get by without those things before the 2010s and not much has changed since then, unless you count the need to compete with the size of what everyone else is driving.
But good luck finding a light duty low-to-normal-rise truck with a full size bed that does just what you need for occasional use without the compromise on efficiency for daily driving if that’s what you so choose. I’m beginning to think that all this marketing around trucks isn’t actually about selling them to people who need trucks to use them as trucks 🤔
Last thing is there aren’t any real incentives to reach better fuel efficiency on truck platforms. It doesn’t cost nearly as much more to develop and manufacture them as customers are willing to pay for them- trucks make up to 90% of profit for a company like Ford. Plus they’re a loophole in US emissions policy. So more thought and funding could be put into making them more efficient, but that’s not what the buyers are buying them for and that’s not what the government is incentivising for, so the industry just goes “meh, just make 'em bigger, add some tech gimmies, and then go heavy on the marketing so we can squeeze more out of the customers this year than we did last year”.
Whew sorry that was a bit of a rant… I just have a permanent bug on my shoulder when it comes to what capitalism has done to transportation in the US.
Amen. I grew up in rural Ontario where everyone and their kid has either a pickup truck or a beat up old Cutlass. I yearn to have a pickup because of how awesome they are. Challenge is I live in suburbia. It doesn’t make sense and I can’t justify it. People really need to think critically more about their purchases.
Same here, and the added benefit that you can throw whatever shit on the back without a real care of damaging it, and then just hosing it down. On an SUV or Minivan I would be making sure that everything was clean or carefully covered so not to spill on the carpet and shit.
Pavement princess
I have been in that exact position before. The hard cover was locked and the keys for it disappeared somewhere on the job site. We needed the piece of crown moulding to finish a job we were working on so we did exactly what you see in the photo.
Should the keys not be on the fob with the key to operate the vehicle?
Aftermarket hard top that locked into the top of the tailgate. You could unlock the tailgate but wouldn’t be able to pull it down.
If memory serves me the hardtop keys were given to someone to get a tool and never returned to the driver.
This is why vans are superior to trucks.
Unless you are carrying chemicals constantly and don’t want to be smelling the fumes all day.
My renault came with a solid steel cargo barrier and small glass window. You could carry a lion in the back and probably be fine.
You would trust your lungs to vehicle manufacturers getting every van air-tight with seals to last for many years?
because they eliminate the margin case of losing your aftermarket hardtop keys?
Both have their use cases. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other
Millions upon millions of contractors in every country except the US would disagree
Of course they would because they don’t need one for what they do. But I also imagine another few million around the world do. What you choose depends on what you need
Except they can’t do the one other key function of a truck.
Tow
Vans can tow too. Many full sized Vans are a truck chassis and drivetrain with the body of a Van.
vans always have a much lower tow rating, the chassis and drivetrain are almost always different in some critical way
There are vans that can tow 3500kg trailers. With a payload in the van.
Apples to apples, those vans are more expensive and larger. At what point does it become ok to have an open bed? There are valid pros and cons in every choice being talked about, here.
At what point does it become ok to have an open bed?
When the distance from the back of the truck to the front of the bed is longer than the distance from the back of the cab to the front of the truck, it turns from a Sport Utility Truck into a Pickup Truck. Typically that’s around when the bed gets big enough to haul a sheet of plywood or drywall safely.
Of course it’s OK to have an SUT instead of a pickup truck, just not as useful for construction work.
They mean that the key should be on the same keychain as the ignition key.
Nah, those guys are truck jousters, on the way to face off with their arch enemies
btw
You giving them way too much credit
His friend only shares the cab but not the bed
He brought the hard wood for nothing.
Shocking that that is not a Ram.
Silverados are just as bad
I like the look of these new long bed minivans.
Short bed, watcha gonna do??
What did he say dear?
He said…
DIAGONALLY
Hang it out the back unsecured and then lose it and shatter it into a million pieces all along the highway like my old boss did to a fiberglass ladder.
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