I'll try to answer your points in sequence.
1. Just because SOME people use them as everyday transportation doesn't mean that they never use them for cargo, or that no one does. I can afford multiple vehicles, so I use my pickup truck for heavy work and my little compact for most commuting. But some people can't afford multiple vehicles, and they use a pickup truck frequently. Or some people live somewhere where a compact car just won't cut it; for instance, I know a lot of people in south dakota and montana that wouldn't be able to drive for many months out of the year if they had a honda civic, or chevy spark.
2. A trailer still needs a haul vehicle. And while an audi can tow an appreciable amount, it can't touch what a lot of trucks can tow, and the audi is pretty expensive. I bought my truck and car for less than I would have paid for a new audi. A trailer can certainly be a good option for some situations. And in others, a pickup truck is best.
3. Again, you seem to think that juts because another vehicle is better in SOME cases, it's better in all. A van is better for moving things like cakes, or prisoners, or weather sensitive stuff, sure. But is it better for moving a round haybale? Won't fit. A fridge? It's better to be able to stand the fridge up. A load of topsoil? Much, much, much easier to load and unload in a pickup.
4. Sure, europe was primarily farmers at one point; so was america. And yes, tractors can be used for a lot of agricultural stuff. And, yet again, they're not the best answer for everything. It's best to use a tractor over a truck to pull a plow, for instance, but likewise it's better to use a truck over a tractor to pull a horse trailer over the highways.
5. Yet again, you seem to be under the impression that just because MOST people aren't using their pickup most of the time, it's inherently a ridiculous vehicle. Of course some people have trucks they aren't using. The same can be said of lots of things, from treadmills to bread machines. But plenty of people have them and use them because they're the best option for them. I don't use my truck every day, but I've still saved money having it over renting one for all the things I've done with it.
It seems odd to hear you complain about how these things are an expensive fashion statement when I spent less on both my truck and my car (a LOT less) than an audi, which you pose as a reasonable alternative to a pickup (and then you go on to recommend a porsche, specifically saying they're much better looking and cooler; who wants an expensive fashion statement now?) If you want to talk about things like roads and so forth, I'm pretty sure our roads aren't getting narrower if we gave up pickup trucks; semi trailers and so forth need the roads to be wider yet.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of trucks that are surprisingly fuel efficient, especially compared with a car trying to tow heavy things. But consider also people such as myself; I drive my car unless I need a lot of power or hauling capacity, in which case the truck gets used. Both, together, were cheaper than the audi the OP thinks I should be using, and both gets its specific task done better. My car gets better mileage than an audi, and my truck can haul way more.
Just for demonstration's sake:
Starting MSRP for a Ford F-150: $25,025 (from Ford's website)
Starting MSRP for an Audi A3 sedan: $29,000 (from Audi's website)
Average price of gasoline in the US: $3.52/gallon ([Consumer Report](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/11/average-gas-prices/index.htm))
It would take 1,129 additional gallons of gas before the F-150 started to be more expensive than the A3.
> It would take 1,129 additional gallons of gas before the F-150 started to be more expensive than the A3.
So only about 17,000 extra miles then?
* Audi A3 = 30 mpg
* Ford F-150 = 15mpg
To drive 34,000 miles the A3 would use 1,129 gallons, and the F-150 would use 2,258.
Uhm... I get ~22 in my Expedition and it weighs more than an f150 and has the same engine and tranny combinations. 16-17 city and I get 22 highway. I also don't drive it efficiently (I can get 25-26 but I have a lead foot).
In the 20% where an Audi doesn't make sense it *really* doesn't make sense though. A pickup might not be the 100% optimal choice for daily commutes but it's still going to get the job done with only a minor increase in cost. When it comes to hauling stuff the Audi is going to have a lot of issues with bigger loads.
A full cost analysis...let's see.
First we need the cost per mile driven, which will be $3.52 x MPG^-1 (dollars/gallon x gallons/mile = dollars/mile).
The F-150 gets 17 city and 23 highway. The Audi A3 quattro gets 24 city and 33 highway. So then we want to set the equalities:
City: 25,025 + (3.52/17)x = 29,000 + (3.52/24)x
x = **65,819.8 miles** before the F-150 starts to be more expensive than the Audi A-3 (based solely on differing costs of fuel).
Highway: 25,025 + (3.52/23)x = 29,000 + (3.52/33)x
x = **85,710.9 miles** before the F-150 starts to be more expensive than the Audi A-3 (based solely on differing costs of fuel).
Except the only Audis that are capable of pulling a decently sized trailer, like for example a boat, are the SUVs/crossovers, which have an MSRP closer to 50 grand and gas mileage barely better than an f150.
From my experience trucks and SUV's usually have the same mpg. My brother had an old 96 chevy stick shift and it got bout 16 mpg, his wife had a somewhat new small SUV and it got 16 mpg.
The small SUV's have gotten much better lately. I have a 2003 Subaru Forester and I get about 17mpg city, but the new ones will get 24. Ford Escape will get 22, CX-5 will get 26, 24 for the RAV-4, 23 for the CRV, etc etc. That's all just city mileage, most can do low to mid 30's on the highway.
Not groundbreaking but definitely better than most trucks. Although small trucks are getting up there, a Tacoma with the base engine should get in the lower 20's. The problem is, no one really wants the truck with the base engine because you're probably getting a truck for it's hauling potential and you want a bigger engine for that...
Base engine as in what it comes with when you buy it? I've always heard that as stock, but I've never met anyone that's gotten an engine for their truck.
Pretty much every truck in the US (except the ridgeline which is only kind of a truck) offers multiple engines. base engine = the engine that comes on the base model of the truck with no upgrades. The tacoma and frontier come standard with a 4cyl but you can upgrade to a v6 which hits the mileage fairly hard. Same thing with full size trucks, base engine is usually a v6 and you can upgrade to various v8 or diesel engines.
Thank you for that, I've never bought a vehicle, still using my first car(got it in a will).
I'm not a truck guy, I understand they burn a lot of gas and I don't need one for work so I don't have one. But I know a lot of people that need one for work, a lot of times a v6 can't cut it. While I'm sure the owner of the truck would prefer to have the gas mileage of a prius that's just not an option. There's a difference in mileage of course, but it's worth it in what you can do with it.
What I mean is if you have a work truck you can tow/pull more than if you have an audi. It's more practical and helps more. However if you're just a douche that has a truck but no scratches in the bed then yeah you need a car.
How about we go back to the mid 80s 6.2 diesel suburban, stock they get 24 mpg highway. My 04 expedition 4.6 gets 22 highway at about 80 mph. Let's not kid ourselves here, oversized doesn't always mean completely lacking in other areas. I prefer what I drive over a car, I tow things often, 6 people fit comfortably, 8 in all, and enough power to put a massive smile on my face like an ass. It's great. However, I just noticed what you drive, I'm now jealous.
Edit:just noticed you used city figures, due to the lack of power in the burban it gets 19 city, my expo gets 17-19 (unless I'm having a bad day, when my foot gets heavy I get 13)
Yeah, if only it were that easy here. My buddy found out the hard way that if he towed his camper and his boat behind his camper he had to still have current plates on both trailers.
1) If you regularly need to transport something large then I can see a need for it. But commuting in a pickup is ridiculous. Your option is reasonable, the people driving to work on a monday morning in a pickup are not reasonable.
2) What type of stuff are you regularly hauling that is so heavy that a normal car can't tow it? A volvo or audi can tow a boat/all my furniture in a trailer or a camper. They are probably more expensive in the US because they are foreign cars, here they are cheaper.
3) You can easily move a fridge or a bale of hay in a van. Also if you are moving soil or hay you should buy farm equipment. Also there aren't many people that haul large amounts of farm supplies regularly.
4) There are loads of horses where I live and no pickup trucks, a car can easily pull a horse.
5) If you have a lawnmowing service a pickuptruck can make sense. However the vast majority of people have no major use for it.
I don't think buying a porsche is rational either, however if I was to spend a fortune on a toy car I would much rather have a porsche than a pickup.
1. And a lot of people need one. Just because some people don't is no reason to condemn everyone.
2. I bought a compact car AND my truck for a lot less than an audi. And I've used my truck to haul everything from a fifth wheel trailer to hay bales to machinery.
3. Moving a fridge in a van requires you to lay it down, which isn't as good as standing it up. And when I say bale of hay, I don't mean the square kind a man can lift. I mean a round bale, from a forklift. Move that in a van. And even though there aren't a lot of people who move a lot of farm supplies regularly, A. There are a lot of things to move besides farm supplies and B. again, condemning everyone for the actions of some is flawed.
4. Yes, some cars can pull a horse. But price out a car that can pull a horse trailer with five horses. I'm pretty sure my truck costs a lot less.
5. Again, yes, some (some!) people don't need one. And some do.
If you want to spend your fantasy fortune on a porsche, fine. And I want to spend my much, much smaller chunk of cash on a vehicle I actually use.
It is odd that all those people live on the same continent. Americans need them but finish people have no need for them. I seriously doubt many people regularly need a pickup truck.
Moving a fridge is easier in a van because no wind. I don't see why it has to lay down. The farmers where I live use trailers with a lot higher capacity than a pickup.
Most cars can pull two horses. There are loads of horses where I live and no pickup trucks. I saw a lot of pickup trucks in the US, I don't think those people regularly drive with 5 horses. If they are doing that they use a truck designed for horse transport.
I never said they all live in the same continent (after all, north america is hardly the only place pickup trucks are manufactured, bought, or sold), and I've said many times that not everyone that has a truck needs it. But that's totally different than saying they're all impractical clown cars.
Transporting a fridge standing up is better for the fridge; it prevents you having to wait 24 hours for the refrigerant to drain back to its proper position. And there absolutely are trailers with bigger capacities than a truck; they're usually towed by tractors. Try driving a tractor towing five horses halfway across montana. See where that gets you. Alternatively, show me an even remotely economical car that can do the same.
And, yet again, I never said that everyone that has a truck pulls 5 horses regularly. I freely admit that plenty of people that have trucks don't need them. You just seem to be unable to grasp that some people do need them.
So stand it up in the van instead of laying it down. Also 30 dollar home delivery is cheaper than a pickup truck. There are loads of horses where I live. 2-3 horses can easily be pulled by a car, with 5 horses you rent an animal transport. How often do you drive far with 5 horses?
According to [this](http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-parts/towing/towing-capacity/vehicle/towing-capacity-chart.htm), If your friends are towing horses or boats with their Audi or Volvo, not only are they fools, but would be breaking highway safety laws in the US.
From what I could read from that a Volvo or audi can haul over 2 tonnes, that is about 3 horses with a wagon. I have never weighed my friends boat but according to google [this boat](http://www.batmassan.se/PageFiles/31818/Seascape%2027.jpg) weighs less than 1200 kg. It can be pulled by a sedan.
1500 kg for the v40
http://www.volvocars.com/au/all-cars/volvo-v40/specifications/pages/technical-spec.aspx
2100 kg for xc70
http://www.volvocars.com/au/all-cars/volvo-xc70/specifications/pages/technical-spec.aspx
If your car can pull two horses and a trailer it has an enormous engine, and gets crappy mileage and cost a lot of money even it it's not a pickup. The vast majority of passenger cars cannot pull anything like this kind of load.
You don't seem to have thought this through very much. I think you just don't like the way pickup trucks look, or that something about people coming to different decisions than your countrymen do bothers you, or something along those lines. The majority of people who own pickups have them for practical reasons, not for fashion statements. If you saw more than you expected in Boston I can understand your confusion, but that's a carryover from places where they're practical and useful.
I use a tractor a couple times a year, yet I would never buy one myself and I wouldn't commute to work with it. I really can't see that a large portion of the US population regularly moves several tonnes of cargo.
I'm not sure what your point is here. A pickup is not a tractor. My pickup, for example, is essentially a van with an open back. It doesn't drive like a tractor, it doesn't get poor mileage. I can get in it and go eight hours down the highway just as though I were in a car.
In my area and for my uses this is better than a van with a closed back. I can carry more stuff, it's more useful for recreation, it's easier to clean out after a dirty load. We're not making these things up, this is the reality of what we do with our vehicles. I understand that you don't move sod or dirt or tools every other weekend, but I do, and many other people do. I have a boat. A utility trailer is no use if I'm already towing a boat. I help people move into tight urban areas. In many of those places a trailer is impractical. If I had to rent or borrow a trailer every time I wanted to move something or haul something or get a load of gravel or whatever I'd incur a large opportunity cost.
Also, I just texted a Swedish engineer about this. He thinks you're crazy, and says a lot of Swedish farmers use pickup trucks.
Possibly a Daimler/ Mercedes sprinter or Nissan n3500 in a high top configuration but that isn't the point. At this point op and co are arguing that prospective truck buyers really need a 28 foot long van that is 12 feet tall AND gets worse fuel economy on more expensive fuel in addition to costing more than 100k dollars. Also you can't use a tarp and water hose to swim in the back of the van.
There are plenty of fridges too tall to stand up in most of the vans I've seen. And this is just a specific case. Try loading and unloading topsoil in a van compared with a truck. Try hauling a round haybale. Try loading and unloading a lot of firewood. A truck is better for all these tasks. 30 dollar home delivery is cheaper than a truck, once or twice or even several times. But the number of times I've used my truck? I've saved a lot over renting. I know a lot of people that can say the same. As to how often I drive far with 5 horses, never. But I know plenty of people who do. Not that I think it matters; I've already said a truck is the best vehicle for what I use mine for, and you refuse to believe me, so I could say i drive 5 horses around every day, and you'd probably just dismiss me.
> Most cars can pull two horses. There are loads of horses where I live and no pickup trucks
I honestly cannot think of any car that can pull two horses and a trailer. The best I've seen for a non truck or truck based SUV is around 3,500 lbs. Two horses plus a trailer and gear is going to be close to 3,000 lbs which is really pushing it, especially given that those vehicles have lower tongue weight limits than trucks. And I don't care what the vehicle is rated for, towing 3,000 pounds without an upgraded transmission cooler and active brake package is pretty dumb.
The only non truck vehicle I can think of that would be usable for serious towing in the US would be the Chevy Traverse. But it's pretty big and expensive, but will get a little better fuel economy than a truck. With the tow package it can handle 5,200 lbs which makes it pretty reasonable.
I'd still get a truck though. I can say, having grown up hauling horses around, you want a truck. It's a really dirty hobby and the last thing I want is getting my nice SUV messed up because I toss hay and dusty grain sacks and moldy blankets in the boot.
>If they are doing that they use a truck designed for horse transport.
Trucks *are designed for hauling stuff*! Cars, decidedly, are not. Using your car to haul loads it wasn't designed to pull is, by definition, impractical. It's bad for the car and unsafe on the road.
> Most cars can pull two horses.
You "can" pull quite a bit of stuff with a car, but it is not safe. Get over 35MPH with a trailer and horses that weigh 2x what the cars does and tell me what happens if you have to get on the brake in an emergency. Not pretty.
I have spent a good portion of my life in rural Canada. Good luck commuting through 2' of fresh snow many kilometres down a gravel road in anything but a pickup truck. You may succeed in an SUV most of the time, but if that is what you do, I guarantee a neighbour with a pickup will be towing you out of the snow eventually.
And try doing this in an Audi while pulling a horse trailer as OP suggests. I'm wondering how much of North America he actually saw and how much culture he actually experienced to come to his broad conclusion.
I come from an area that is a lot less populated, a lot more agricultural, a lot snowier and has a lot of dirt roads. New England had a lot of pickup trucks. Even in Boston.
Ok, so you're really saying that you think pickup trucks are silly in downtown Boston, then, right? If you've only experienced New England you're not in a good position to think that pickup trucks are largely unnecessary for our whole country, the Rockies, for instance.
You need to remember that the gulf stream warms up Europe considerably, so even though I live in Canada around the latitude of Copenhagen, winter that are -30 to -40 are common.
My SO's parents live in a small community (~50 people) that's 6 hours from a city of 70,000. The closet grocery store is an hour and a half away. They need to use unplowed logging roads in the winter that are literally covered in 2/3 metre of snow. Even going through this in a truck, you aren't able to stop or else you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. A van is not able to plow through this.
You have only seen New England, and from your trip you've decided that pick up trucks are unnecessary for the entire North American continent. That's like me saying that heaters are unnecessary for Europe because I went to Sicily in November. The North American continent is extremely environmentally diverse, and a small section of Northeastern USA doesn't fully represent the continent.
Well, it is a lot "worse". We actually have mountains with long, steep inclines and people actually live there and have to transport stuff often at speeds over 10 mph while not worrying about the drive train in their Audi or their general safety (such as plummeting thousands of feet down a ravine.) Audis are great for carrying skis and bikes where I live, not horses and boats. You wouldn't get 10 miles without being impounded for that.
> a lot snowier
Can you define how snowy where you live is? Last year my state (in New England) had a storm that dumped about 80 cm of snow over a 36 hour period and our average snowfall in my area is 150 to 230 cm. It's not uncommon to have storms dump 20-40 cm of snow at a time on a near weekly basis.
So now to get out of my long driveway, I need to hire someone to come and plow it. And then I need to wait for both my driveway to be plowed and the road to be plowed before I go to work. And if another dump happens during the day, I need to wait for both plows to come through again before I can go home.
How is that more practical than just having a vehicle that lets me get through the snow?
A volvo can handle a lot of snow and I hardly believe that all those people I saw in Rhode Island get snowed in very often. Where I live there is a person on every road who plows it with his tractor every morning.
So, what is your average snowfall?
Based on [this]( http://www.weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-precipitation-Rainfall,Stockholm,Sweden), Stockholm gets under 60mm of snow on average in its heaviest month. How does that compare to where you are?
No, you don't need a truck to get through 6cm. However, where I am, out average snowfall in December of 54cm. Last year we got 143cm in December, including 40cm in a single day. You need a truck to get through that.
And with heavy snowfall like that, it isn't enough to plow it every morning. If you want a non-truck to get through anytime of day, you need to plow it several times daily. Also, I am willing it bet that our driveways are longer and our roads are longer per capita than yours: I could be wrong, but plowing a the time is likely less practical for us.
I have personally pulled Volvo out of the snow with a truck. So no, they don't handle the snow like a truck.
No doubt there are people that have trucks and don't need them. That doesn't mean trucks are impractical. There are people who virtually need them.
1) Driving to work on a Monday morning in a pickup truck is not reasonable.
Well, it really depends. If you have the money for it, and can pay for the gas, it's entirely reasonable. It may be a status symbol, they may like the versatility of a truck, or it's also a cultural thing as well (from Texas, it just is.) O I think some of them are ridiculously oversized and overpowered? Sure, but I'm not buying those trucks, other people who value that are.
Also, working on an older model truck verses working on a new car, you have room under the hood, as opposed to newer cars where everything is crammed in. (Though most of the newer trucks are pretty tight under the hood now too.)
For context, currently drive a sedan, but shortly looking at a truck when I get property north of where I am. They are really useful for Home Depot runs, which I will new to make often.
Also, point 5, about the vast majority of people having no use for it. What difference would it make to you if I bought a truck, and used it 1 time a year for hauling something? I determine it's value to me, anyone else's opinion doesn't matter for that (though you are certainly welcome to buy whatever vehicle you prefer.)
Ill add to this that in Australia alot of tradespeople also work from their pickups. Usually they'll have several side access tool boxes integrated into the tray and provision for a ladder on top. It provides much easier access to tools and equipment than a van or suv.
Have alook through some of the solutions available for various trades here: http://www.csmtransportequipment.com.au/application
/u/incruente already answered, but I also have a big truck. An '02 Ford F-250 with a utility bed to be exact.
1) I don't commute in my truck. I do my current commute on a [50cc motorcycle](http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=derbi+gpr+50+nude&go=&qs=bs&form=QBIL). when I had a longer commute, I used a full size motorcycle.
2) I haul motorcycles and cars on a regular basis. Motorcycles don't fit in most vans. A car won't pull my 28 foot (8.5 meter) enclosed car hauler. Back when I just had my Subaru Forester, I'd have to find someone with a truck whenever I needed to tow a car and most 1/2 ton trucks won't safely tow a car long distances. It puts too much stress on their transmissions.
3) NA
4) I don't have horses, but I'm reminded of the last time I went hiking. There was a group of 9 riders on the same trail. What about when you are pulling 3 or more horses? Should they all have driven different cars so that each could tow a single horse? Families that ride on a regular basis should have a big truck to pull their horses.
5) That's why most people don't drive trucks.
1) I drive 6 miles to work each way. It's not worth the cost for me to buy a car just for commuting.
2) Manure, rocks, gravel, lumber and anything else that will fit in the bed. I can drive my truck through deep mud or over rough terrain to drop it off. You can't do that in any Audi I've ever seen, especially with a trailer on the back.
3) Do you have any data to back that up?
4) My truck can and does regularly pull three horses. Would I be better off making three trips with a car?
5) Again, where's your data to back that up? Even if you had any, in this country, we believe that if an individual wants to buy a truck and is willing to take on the associated costs, they should be allowed to.
I'm no expert on sports cars, but from what I've seen, many of them don't have fuel economy that's much better than a truck and they're almost useless from a utilitarian perspective to boot.
>2) What type of stuff are you regularly hauling that is so heavy that a normal car can't tow it? A volvo or audi can tow a boat/all my furniture in a trailer or a camper.
It might be able to pull a caravan type camper, but it cannot pull most of these. http://www.palominorv.com/Puma/default.aspx?RVType=TT and they are a pretty typical size for campers in the US.
>3) You can easily move a fridge or a bale of hay in a van. Also if you are moving soil or hay you should buy farm equipment. Also there aren't many people that haul large amounts of farm supplies regularly.
A lot of the time people arent moving 1 bale of hay, they are moving an entire rack. Sometimes more than 20 miles. First if all your car couldn't tow the hayrack. A tractor would not be practical here because a truck can go twice or even three times as fast.
>4) There are loads of horses where I live and no pickup trucks, a car can easily pull a horse.
Most people that do horse shows in the US will use something like this with a large diesel truck.
http://www.imgur.com/Wj6nxoT.jpeg
>I don't think buying a porsche is rational either, however if I was to spend a fortune on a toy car I would much rather have a porsche than a pickup.
Most people are not buying trucks as a "toy". Some do absolutely but most buy them for utility purposes.
When was the last time you haulled a 1500+ kg camper? I use a tractor a couple times a year yet that doesn't mean that I want to buy one and use it to get around.
> You can easily move a fridge or a bale of hay in a van.
lol, have you ever even seen a round bale before?
> Also if you are moving soil or hay you should buy farm equipment.
What if I'm not a farmer, and I just do some landscaping on the weekends? You have some strange ideas about cost effectiveness.
In response to your first point, gas in the US is much much cheaper than anywhere in Europe. So while gas mileage is important, its not nearly important to us as it is to you.
According to OP that's part of the problem. You owning a truck in Montano or Texas is the reason they pay 3x for fuel. It just isn't fair. Get your finger out of his eye.
I have a 2011 F-150 Crew cab 4x4 truck. I live outside of Washington DC. My truck is used primarily for commuting to work. I have had the truck for three years and it has 25,000 miles on it.
The truck gets 16MPG in the city and 20 on the highway. Yes, it is not the most fuel efficient vehicle out there but I like it.
Love it for driving in the snow we get 3-4 times each winter. I love it when I have to run to the hardware store for a large of assortment of things I might need to buy for the home I own.
American here. I can't believe this conversation is still ongoing. Comparing towing capacity between cars and trucks is not much of a comparison at all. I'm on mobile so I just grabbed what I could find quickly. An a4 has a towing capacity of less than 1500 lbs (with no additional cargo/ passengers) unless the trailer has an active braking system.
I have never seen any car outside of Ford Crown Victoria (read large wheelbase and 4.2 l V8) with a a trailer brake package / controller. I also can't imagine it being remotely "good" for the car.
A base model Ford F-150 which are ABUNDANT (read can be had used and in great shape for well under 10k dollars) can tow 6500 lbs and I wouldn't hesitate to pull 4000+ without trailer brakes. From there they can go as high as 10k lbs plus with proper equipment.
I certainly appreciate some of your whys, ifs, and situational commentary but this isn't even really debatable from a utility standpoint.
http://i.imgur.com/osT6Ql1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/PDwkh02.jpg
Quick edit: for those not in the states the F series Is the truck. The E series are vans. As you can see the e series can tow a ton and have a large internal cargo capacity but are suited for a different type of hauling if you will.
A Volvo v40 can drag 1400 kg which is a massive load. When did you last drag more than 1400 kg? Where I live you need a special license to pull a trailer heavier than 2 tonnes meaning that most people can't haul much more anyways.
Boats. 5th wheels/ campers Landscaping and earthwork equipment, it goes on and on. Where I live you do not need any additional licenses or permits so long as your trailer is not wider than 8 ft. Said licenses can be gotten by any citizen.
Edit: also outside of the unarguable towing angle, the standard reasoning for most is the plywood / Sheetrock analog. 8' x 4' in dimensions. Also furniture and such.
I am sure there are people who haul 2 tonne items regularly and these people would probably be better off buying a real truck. But I probably saw 20% pick up trucks in the US. I hardly believe that 20% of americans have to haul things massively bigger than what people where I live do.
I agree with your ballpark estimate. Though there will certainly be geographic variance 20% doesn't seem out of line. So, accounting for the 20% that "need" a truck (for business or employment purposes) there is still the segment that will argue what the definition of "need" is.
If I can get by with carrying 4 or fewer passengers (plus myself) an extended cab truck can accommodate this.
If I can afford to pay for the fuel at 3.09 per gallon( current price in south east usa) at 13- 14 mpg in the city while not hauling anything (and up to 20 mph on highways with some of the newer engine tech)an extended cab truck may be fiscally reasonable
If I need to "use" the truck for any sort of transport, ie cargo, building materials, appliances, furniture, and of course trailering once a month in aggregate an extended can truck satisfies this and is of significant convenience.
All of this is outside of the fact that I may just like to own and drive a truck while providing readily available utility to others who do not have that capability because they went with a Volvo. (People really appreciate that. Like really, really.)
And of course It's really none of anyone's business what one decides to do with their income regarding transportation "needs".
A Volvo V40 is rated to safely haul [nothing beyond regular passenger payload](http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-parts/towing/towing-capacity/vehicle/towing-capacity-chart38.htm). They also run 50k. How does it make sense to you to pull a trailer with one?
V70 is rated for 1600 kg which is a large boat, or a camping trailer. https://www.media.volvocars.com/se/sv-se/models/v70/2014/specifications
V40 is rated at 1300 kg which is a lot. In Sweden they start at 30 000 dollars and we have much higher taxes than in the US. I couldn't find a car dealer that sells pickup trucks here but a guy has a website and imports and sells them, his cheapest truck was a Dodge Ram 1500 for 70 000 dollars.
> I couldn't find a car dealer that sells pickup trucks here but a guy has a website and imports and sells them, his cheapest truck was a Dodge Ram 1500 for 70 000 dollars.
And how is that remotely comparable to buying a truck in the US...?
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They run from [37k to 53k](http://www.caradvice.com.au/volvo/v40/) in the US. The cheapest truck you can find that pulls 1300kg is $70k in the US?? And, please, show me the manufacturer spec that says it's safe to pull that kind of weight with an A4 or a V40. Please.
I would like to add that those prices are for a 2014/2015 New truck. The f150 is the best selling vehicle in the United States for decades at this point. Add to that the offerings from Chevy/gmc, dodge, and Nissan and you have a used market that is flush with inventory. A quick look at auto trader reveals a 2009 full size truck with low miles and decent equipment can be had for around 10k.
US specs do actually allow 1300 kg, which is less than a mid-sized ski boat and way less than a trailer with a couple horses, and, even if you decided to risk pulling that much up a mountain (and risk the resulting ticket and impound fees,) where do you put all your gear? And how slow do you plan on driving as you assent to 6000 ft altitude up a winding pass?
Here in the U.S., a basic Ram truck with a V8 can be had for as little as $25,000. Much less than a V40.
I'm not saying I'd rather have a Ram. I'd rather have a V40. My Jetta TDI Sportwagen is much nicer to drive than a pickup and has an available manual transmission, which is something I like. But you can't argue that a pickup is much more versatile and until gas prices in the U.S. make them prohibitively expensive, people will continue to purchase them.
> A car with trailer is just a pick up with a detachable bed.
Incorrect. The truck often has a much higher towing capacity, can also tow a trailer (thus giving it vastly superior capacity over the car), can often handle much worse road conditions, and (at least for my truck) is a lot easier to work on than most cars. You also complain that a truck is hard to park. I would pose that a car with a trailer is harder to park than a truck without.
I agree that you can get an audi a4 for less than a hilux. And there are many, many, MANY trucks out there besides the hilux, many of which are a lot less expensive. You keep finding one example of someone doing something poorly, or for the wrong reasons, or spending a lot of money, and applying that example to everyone doing even a similar thing.
Then you're changing your point. You're going from "pickups are expensive and ridiculous and no farmer in europe has ever used a pickup truck why would you use one" to "some people who have pickups would be better off getting a car and a trailer".
I've spent very little time in europe, mostly greece, and I saw a couple in the olive picking areas. Seems like an SUV is, in many ways, just a pickup with a topper. It could be better for moving more people, but it's worse for anything that won't fit inside or for moving bulk material. I can see people in different situations needing either one.
Where do you store the trailer?how much does that storage cost? How much can the car haul on a trailer? My audi allroad had one of the highest tow ratings for a sedan and that was 6k lbs,figure 1k for trailer and that's capacity. Meanwhile my large truck can haul 12k and laugh it off. I can put a 30 ft car trailer behind my truck and a 12 camper on it and go anywhere. You can't do that with a car
> If you really need the added capacity then you would buy a pick up as an extra vehicle.
What if you can't afford or do not have room for two vehicles?
> Most people that own a pick up don't really need that.
Most people don't need an A4 either, they'd be just fine with a Fit/Jazz or Versa, or even just public transportation. Why is it ok to buy a car you don't really need but not a truck?
You can still remove the bed of a pickup truck and turn it into a chassis cab, on which you can put anything you want.
And while you can get an Audi for less than a Hilux, I would take the truck. It will require a lot less maintenance and be cheaper to run in the long term (and possibly insure in some places).
> I personally would prefer the comfort and driving experience of the Audi.
I don't know why we're still talking about Audi's here. I know OP is the one who first brought it up, but it seems ridiculous to me to say "trucks are an unnecessary, expensive luxury" and then suggest a luxury car as a reasonable alternative. An Audi has roughly double the MSRP of my truck. A car could save me up to $1200/year in gas, so I would have to drive it 20 years to make the truck the more expensive option.
In the meantime, I get more utility out of my truck. I have a canvas topper that keeps my stuff in the back dry and provides a shelter when I go camping, and it folds out of the way when I need to haul dirt or mulch or something tall. And I have 4wd with high clearance for the winter weather we get around here.
And before anyone jumps into say how Audi's aren't that expensive comparatively in Scandinavia or Europe, they are a fairly expensive luxury brand here in the US, which is the specific place OP is arguing against truck ownership.
As if an Audi would make it 20 years hauling a trailer and everything you move around with your truck.. I'd give it one to five years and have a completely depreciated trade in value- if it could even still limp as far as the lot.
Your average 4X4 half ton is going to be rated to tow around 10,000 pounds, an Audi A4 with a trailer would be lucky to haul a third of that.
Also you can get a truck equipped to handle this for well under $30K. Not sure how much a new A4 costs but I doubt its much cheaper if it even is cheaper.
Let's go through this list:
1) Yes pick ups are larger than most sedans (not necessarily SUV's). Yes they are harder to park. Do they serve no purpose? Uh...no. I find a use for my truck probably once a week in one way or another. Hauling lumber? Awesome, did that last week. Home Depot run? Sweet, got that shit on lock. Need to help literally anyone move? Don't need to spent cash on a U-Haul. Need to hop a curb without destroying the front of your car? Fan-fucking-tastic. No purpose my ass.
2) I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how trailers work. They do not "hold a lot more weight". Technically they can hold more volume than most truck beds can. The limiting factor on weight is still the car itself. Also "an audi with a large trailer". I assume you mean the big ass audi SUVs, because I would not recommend trying moving anything more than a bass boat with a luxury sedan. Sure...it probably *can* tow the boat, but honestly it really shouldn't. That's an easy way to break a nice car and also fucking kill yourself on the road. Furthermore, if you're already dropping all that money on one of those luxury SUV's, money isn't really a problem, and neither is gas mileage or size.
3). "Vans are much better for moving stuff than a pickup truck. Your stuff doesn't get rained on or blown away and you can stock things vertically." Two words...**bed cover**. On top of that fucking obvious solution, trucks are built to handle far heavier working loads than vans are.
4). I've actually never heard of farming culture as a reason. I mean sure, the offroading capabilities of most trucks makes them an obvious solution, but that's never just been a go-to for truck use. But simply as an aside, where do you think most of the world's food comes from? "Europe has a lot stronger farming culture than the USA." Like, that's actually just entirely false. I...I can't tell if you're kidding at this point.
5). All the time. I run into a situation at least once a month that calls for the use of my truck that a normal sedan or otherwise hefty SUV would not be good for. Seriously though, I take it you've never been to Home Depot or Lowes'. All this jargon aside, it seriously is a great place to check out. Tons of neat stuff. One day there and you'll understand why there is, while maybe not for you, a use for these vehicles.
I don't think OP has ever actually used a pickup and only saw people hauling improperly. If you're being a responsible hauler there is no need to worry about shit flying away or whatever. If you load is too big for a bed cover then a tarp, moving straps, and tiny bit of know how can get any load secured easily. Also most pickups I see are hauling things you don't want in a van. I use mine for runs to the dump all the time, sometimes it's yard waste, sometimes it's straight garbage - either way it's not something I want crammed in an enclosed vehicle with me
You make a good point, but I think OP is hating on pickups for much less reasonable reasons than that. But your comment reminded me of a story about the dangers of unsecured loads...
Where I live there was a truck pulling a trailer down the highway piled high with junk and scrap metal. The speed limit is 65 but at this particular spot it slows down to 50 as you get to an overpass and the road starts to curve. Where the overpass starts there was this bump that runs the width of the road, almost like a mini speed bump, that hits your suspension pretty hard if you don't slow down. Well this truck driving down the highway with an unsecured load, hits the bump, and a large bolt about the size of a fist is launched into the air at 65 mph, goes through the windshield of an oncoming car and kills the passenger instantly.
Freak accident, but it could've been prevented with nothing more than a tarp. Really fucked with my head since I drove down that road not more than 15 minutes before it happened. Can you imagine what it must've been like to have your passenger sitting there talking to you one minute, and then BAM they're dead.
**TL;DR: unsecured loads are just as dangerous on a trailer!**
Seen a video of something like this happen in russia, truck was driving down with an unsecured load of bricks and hits a bump, a single brick falls off and goes right through the windshield of a car going in the other direction. Dash cam in the car captured the whole thing including audio of the poor drivers reaction after seeing his mom killed by the brick.
> where do you think most of the world's food comes from?
China.
Also: European Union has smaller, but not significantly smaller overall agricultural production than USA.
You could make the exact same argument about sports cars. Sure, they have they have their uses and are fun but very few people who buy them really need them or take them to the track. Most people just sit around in traffic in them.
The difference with pickup trucks is that many pickup truck owners, unlike sports car owners, will not readily admit that part of reason they bought it was to be seen in it. But that's because admitting it would conflict with exactly that "no-nonsense hard-working blue-collar man's-man" image they are attempting to project by owning a pickup truck. There is no similar conflict with "hot-shot show-off risk-taker" image of a sports car owner. But ask a pickup truck owner to show up at his favorite bar in a VW Bug and it will quickly become apparent they do care about what they are seen driving.
In summary, fashion often looks ridiculous to outsiders. Pickup trucks are no more or less ridiculous than sports cars.
This is a part of it. Porsche owners don't claim that they need to drive at 380 km/h. I think sports cars are a bit ridiculous as well but they do seem fun to drive. I see most people driving to work alone in their pickup truck on perfect Rhode Island roads like people driving a tractor saying my ride can handle any terrain and can carry a 20 tonnes!
You keep claiming that pickups are no fun to drive, presumably because they're not small and zippy. I love driving a truck and with the exception of parking at times it's no more hassle to drive than any other vehicle.
I am not saying no one needs a pickup truck, I am saying the vast majority of people don't need one. I highly doubt that most people in the south regularly do things that a normal car can't. Most people go to work and go grocery shopping.
Let's see what I did last week, as a person living in the south.
Transported my dirt bike 5 hours. Could have used a trailer, but driving a truck for five hours is far easier than a trailer.
Transported a load of gravel across town. Using the truck bed saved us about an hour over what using the trailer would have taken.
Transported ten people. 5 in cab, 5 in bed. Very illegal with a trailer.
That's three uses in seven days.
Very legal here in Texas! Where you have to where a seatbelt in the backseat of a car but not if you're in the bed of a pickup! Makes perfect sense, right?
>New England for two weeks.
Lol wut. I'm willing to bet you mostly stuck to the city and urban areas, too?
Here in Texas, many of us who own trucks use them because they're extremely practical economically. You have a load of topsoil for your yardwork? Throw it in the bed. You have an 8ft stud for home repairs? Throw it diagonally in the bed. Got a washer and drier, but don't want to shell out the extra $100 for delivery? Throw them in the bed.
You need to pull your buddy out of a ditch because he's a dumbass? Grab a chain and hop in your truck.
You need to get 4 cows and a steer to Navasota from Cypress? Hook up that trailer and kick it into towing gear.
You gotta pull your buddy out of a flooded area? Grab your chain, put it in 4 wheel drive.
Look, there are tons of practical reasons to own a truck, and a great many people use their trucks for them. Can an SUV do some of those jobs too? Absolutely. Are they necessarily any better at it? No, not without spending a ridiculous amount of money to get an equal or better result, at which point you're making a poor investment. A truck is a vehicle designed for work, that some people use as a commuter car or for fun. An SUV or hatchback is a car designed for comfort and commuting that can also occasionally do work, unless it's specifically designed to do heavy lifting, in which case it's generally more expensive than a truck.
Truck beds are easier to clean, easy to use, parts are cheaper, and they're more stable for towing, and the only SUV's that are comparable are generally more expensive, so not as great an investment if you're looking for a work vehicle. If you want to see what is more practical, look at what our workmen and construction companies buy for their vehicle fleets. I'll give you a hint: it ain't Audi's.
I'm currently in the outback of australia, als they almost solely use pickups here. You know why? Because they move a lot of shit. And because they need to drive over rough terrain. Now any better options?
In fairness though, most 'pickups' in Australia; The Hilux, Patrol, and Landcruisers, (Which in my knowledge, are the go-to farm vehicles) are only marginally larger then SUV's, and I assume OP is primarily taking issue with 'American style' trucks, like the F350, and Dodge Ram.
You also have to take into account the additional factor that isn't so much present in the US or Europe, which is that very few roads in proper outback are paved, so offroading capabilities are essential for farmers, and contributes to the need for utes in Australia
Well yeah, we've mostly all ascertained that he is talking about a small percentage of pickup owners who have massive vehicles and dont use them for an appropriate purpose.
>a small percentage of pickup owners who have massive vehicles and dont use them for an appropriate purpose.
You would have to make the assumption that those people don't have a boat, horse trailer, desert toys, fifth wheel, etc, to haul when they aren't commuting to the office.
My friends go camping, own boats, go skiing, live on dirt roads, own atvs etc yet we don't need pickups. I saw a lot of them in the US. There can't be a lot of people that need an f 350 regularly.
> My friends go camping, own boats, go skiing, live on dirt roads, own atvs etc yet we don't need pickups.
Alot of people who do those things in many places dont own a pickup (or at least they might, but its because they already have it for another reason).
>In fairness though, most 'pickups' in Australia; The Hilux, Patrol, and Landcruisers, (Which in my knowledge, are the go-to farm vehicles) are only marginally larger then SUV's
You lucky bastards.
-An American who likes smaller trucks and SUVs.
Nah, you can just get an Audi for that, and tow a boat too. Fuck I know that the best thing in the Prairies of Canada are our Audis. I rarely see any pickups here as Audi's and Porsches are far more economical and cheaper. Need to move a horse or a ton of hay? Get a $1000 trailer and slap that horse on sideways. Dirt? Well that can get heavy and you might need an even more economical vehicle with more power and torque like a Bently. But don't worry, it'll be fine offroad and you just know that you can find the parts down the road when your in-dash cappuccino machine breaks down.
Farmers in Europe move a lot of stuff as well, no pickup trucks. If you wanted to move stuff you would buy a van. You don't even have winter roads but if roads are that bad buy a Jeep.
See also... http://letsgotravelaustralia.com/about-us/tow-vehicle/ (esp. last picture!) Ute (Australian term for a pickup truck) AND trailer. Van aint gonna cut in on those roads.
Of course there are plenty of other reasons you might want a Ute over a van or other vehicle type.
You have a funny idea of what a pickup is like. Some pickups are huge and gas guzzling, sure, but many are like mine: A ten year old Toyota 6 cyl. I don't have kids, so I don't need a back seat. It gets fine mileage, about as good as a small car around town, which is where I use it. It cost the same as a car.
Perhaps most importantly, I live in the southern US, so it's usually sunny and warm here. I'm not driving it on snow. As someone who drove on snow for a long time, I think that's why you don't see them much. Rear wheel drive pickups suck on snow and ice.
But in nice weather they're great. I can pick up (HA!) something on the spur of the moment. I can haul sod or a load of dirt for my yard. I can pile a huge amount of coolers, tools, sails, chairs, tents, etc. and haul my boat to the lake for a weekend. A van sucks for that, you have to unload everything to get at it, it's hot in the van once you've stopped, it's just not very good.
So in general, a small pickup is a great vehicle for general light yard work, carrying tools, and recreation, if you live in a place where it doesn't snow and the weather is usually nice.
Regarding farming, I lived in Germany for two years. European farms are very different from US farms. A European farm will often have been a farm for hundreds of years. All the stumps are pulled, the fields are set, the walls are in place, the barns are older than the US. A Texas farm is even now often still being created. A Texas farmer is moving fences, hauling large stumps and other trash, lots of stuff a European farmer never has to think about. And more stuff; for example, Texas farmers have hogs to deal with. I think on a German farm if you do have to move a several hundred pound hog carcass you'd use an ATV with a trailer? Or a tractor, maybe. But on a large Texas farm, if you spend the day (or night) shooting at invasive wild hogs, you might have a ton of hog carcass to move twenty miles to a processing plant. A pickup will do it at 70 mph on the road; a tractor is a lot slower.
The biggest thing, though, is the climate. You don't see pickups as much in the northern US either, and when you do many of your objections are correct. But in the south they're really useful. I had to have a car for a few years, and I hated it. Couldn't stop to buy a compressor I saw on sale once, didn't have a truck. Couldn't help someone move, didn't have a truck. Couldn't move my own damn table saw across town, didn't have a truck. And forget hauling a boat out for the weekend. Where would I put all my stuff? Arrgh, that was a terrible two years. I love my truck.
> You don't see pickups as much in the northern US either, and when you do many of your objections are correct
he was specifically talking about new england.
whatever, your response made sense to me. it's still sort of like "it comes in handy here and there" (which is about as satisfying as "because i can"), but yeah, makes sense -- at least for guys in the rural(-ish) parts of the country, who haul sod and load dirt ;).
> he was specifically talking about new england.
Yeah, I think if he had made a more focused objection he'd have had a better case. He seems to think the whole US is like Boston or Rhode Island. "F350s are a stupid thing to drive in Boston" is a pretty reasonable claim. Not totally, people in Boston can still have a weekend reason to own an F350, but a lot better than his blanket condemnation, when he's never even been to the part of the country that uses them the most, and pretty clearly doesn't know much about how cars and trucks actually, you know. Work.
I kind of miss the old small trucks, my first vehicle was a early 90's hardbody. Nowadays they still have smaller trucks (tacoma, frontier and the new colorado) but they're still a lot bigger than the old rangers and hardbodys were. They should bring back the Subaru Baja :)
Have you actually ever pulled a trailer? Ever tried backing a trailer? Can you imagine people with no experience hauling trailers trying to drive through town, much less through a city? Parking is 10x harder with a car+trailer as opposed to just a truck. My mom can easily drive the pickup (crew cab,long bed) park it, go get garden supplies etc. She definitely not pull a trailer without getting stuck (not stuck in the mud, but stuck when the trailer gets in a position. Where it is very difficult to get out of without detaching the trailer.
Furthermore, my mom drives a sedan normally and she has ruined more than one car by getting soil and all sorts of stuff rubbed into the upholstery and floorboard an everything else. In a truck you just throw it in the bed. No worries.
One more thing, America is a hell of a lot bigger than Europe. I live in North Carolina (an average sized state) and my dad has work trucks for his whole fleet. They also use trailers when the load is really long or oversized, but when the trailer is loaded, usually the bed of the pickup is too. But when the load can fit in the bed of the truck, there is no need for a trailer, but certainly would not fit in a van or car for that matter. Plus when you're out on a job, it is very inefficient to hook up a trailer anytime you need to haul something across the job or across town or across the state. Let's say we just need to get a crew to a site we can use the van, but when on the site and they need to haul something, they have to go all the way back to the shop, come back to the site, haul, then return the trailer and take it back to the shop. This is even more true when the job is 300 miles (~500 km) from the shop.
On top of all that, the work crews absolutely destroy any vehicles they drive. Pickups can take a massive beating before they start to show it. And when they do die, the people at the shop can just throw a new part on the truck or even jerry rig it so it still works. trucks (at least base models) don't really have any complex parts that an unskilled worker can't fix with some wrenches, and they're made very heavy duty.
Plus, I drive a full size SUV (Chevy Tahoe 4wd), and when I'm at work and boss needs me to run something up to a job site, it normally doesn't fit in my SUV so I have to either borrow a truck from someone who might need it, or pull a trailer carrying like 2 25 foot aluminum beams, for example. Just throw it in the truck, no time wasted.
Tl;Dr: trucks save massive amounts of time, save your car's interior from getting ruined, and eliminate the trouble of inexperienced (even experienced drivers too) drivers trying to pull a trailer. Also, if you load a trailer the wrong way (too much weight behind the axles) there's a good chance you'll lose control and have a wreck, I've seen it happen multiple times.
A lot of your argument seems to be that you *can* just rent a trailer and attach it to a car. You *can* but it is really REALLY ill-advised. I drive a Ford Fiesta, and it has tiny wheels with tiny brakes that are great for stopping a 1 ton car, but stopping a 1 ton car with a half-ton trailer loaded with 1.5 tons of stuff is a *completely* different matter. Pickup trucks are **built to haul stuff** and are built with the braking power to stop with a 2 ton load on a trailer, *and* a ton of stuff in the bed. They also tend to have low gearing that works really well to give you the torque you need to get 3 tons of stuff moving as well. And make no mistake, in America, especially in rural America, there are *tons* of uses for this sort of towing power that makes it practical to own for everyday ownership and use; even in the suburbs and urban America, we tend to haul a bunch of stuff around (large appliances and the like) in places where you can't just drive a tractor. Some examples I've seen:
* Home improvement: my best friend's parents like to DIY their house, and it's fairly often that they need to lug a big awkward thing home from Home Depot or Lowes; a pickup means they don't fuck up their car's roof or upholstry by jamming it in awkwardly.
* Towing/transporting other vehicles: An ex-coworker of mine raced cars on the weekends, and he had a pickup to get his (non-street-legal) race car out to the track and back. It's really unsafe to tow that trailer behind a regular car, considering it is carrying a car.
* Having a lot of friends in the hot part of America: A lot of people I know with pickups will fit 3-6 friends in the bed as they haul some minor things, because that's just how we do. If it's a nice rural area, this is accepted and legal, as long as everyone stays seated and is an adult in the bed.
* Working as a general contractor: You never know exactly what you'll need to bring to a site, and a pickup works well as a halfway between a panel truck and just a car; it can haul most loads and won't be too gas-intensive to be prohibitively expensive to drive to every job site.
* Wanting something durable: Trucks are tough. Seriously, they get built for ruggedness and durability. [Top Gear has a Toyota Hilux that they put through the ringer, including setting it on fire and putting it on top of a building that got demolished, and not only did it run after some reconnected bits with basic hand tools, but it got *driven into the studio* afterwards. Check out the first bits before the demolition by clicking the blue paragraph](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk) If you do *anything* where it is probable that your vehicle will take some significant abuse, a pickup is a pretty good investment, as driving a truck with some dings is less expensive than completely replacing a less durable car. Since they have that rugged reputation, pickups are *expected* to be less than pristine, especially if you're in a more rural area. [Also, here is part 2 of that video, just in case](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTPnIpjodA8) EDIT: [And part 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFnVZXQD5_k)
So, just because you don't see a use, doesn't mean there is one. Plenty of people who need both a way to haul something regularly, and the ability to commute, don't also have the money for two vehicles. They therefore get something that is a good middle-of-the-road solution; it can tow and haul when needed, and gets better gas mileage than a full-sized truck.
Your question seems to center on the notion of "need", people should not have massive pick-up trucks because they don't need them.
A life where you were only furnished with what you actually needed would be a poor one indeed.
I moved to America from Europe, and I drive a "full size" pick-up truck. I don't really need its 1.5 ton carrying capacity or six liter engine but I always wanted one, and could never dream of affording it in Europe.
>If you want a cool car buy a porsche, much better looking and cooler. A porsche is also a lot more fun to drive.
Why do you need a Porsche that can do 380 km/h when you can't legally travel faster than 130 km/h in the US? The argument cuts both ways.
>Most of the pickup trucks I saw wheren't carrying a massive load, there was just a person in the truck.
Just because they weren't carrying a load at the time, doesn't mean they are never used to carry a load. For many people, it is important to have the option to carry a load if needed, but the rest of the time, the bed is relatively empty.
>Vans are much better for moving stuff than a pickup truck. Your stuff doesn't get rained on or blown away and you can stock things vertically.
First off, having the bed designed to be weather exposed can be a huge benefit. I sometimes have to transport things that are fairly disgusting and you probably don't want on the interior of a car. Blood or fermented chicken liver can be cleaned out of the bed of a truck with a hose, but if they get on the interior of a car, the cleaning process is long and complicated and potentially expensive.
Second, many people have a bed cover on their pickup, so that anything in the bed is kept out of the rain and wind. [Some bed cover designs basically give the bed a similar shape to the back of a van](http://image.trucktrend.com/f/features/gear/9095402+w799+h499+cr1+ar0/163_0802_22z%2Btruck_bed_cover_buyers_guide%2Bsnugtop.jpg), which would allow items to be stacked vertically.
>How often are you actually moving something huge?
I have owned my pickup for about 2 months now. In that time, I have loaded up the bed completely 3 separate times. Should I have rented a trailer each of those times?
>Pickup trucks seem to be a rediculous 50 000 dollar fashion statement.
My pickup was $10,000.
>A porsche is also a lot more fun to drive.
A Porsche can't go mudding.
To sum up my argument let me walk you through my though process when I decided that I should buy a pickup. First off, I knew that I needed something with 4x4 and a hefty engine. Where I live gets a lot of snow and I often find myself driving on poorly maintained dirt roads with steep grades. This factor alone eliminates most cars from my list of potential vehicles leaving me with things like Jeeps, SUVs, and pickups. Second, when I go do things with a group of people, we usually take multiple cars. At least one for our gear and equipment (camping gear, rifles, fishing gear, etc. depending on what we are doing), and another with enough passenger space for however many people we have. For this reason, having at least some of the people in our group have vehicles with a large amount of storage space is very useful. Third, I go do things on my own that require me hauling equipment far more often than I am driving more than one person somewhere and we don't need any equipment. For this reason, I felt like it would be a waste of space to have extra seats that I usually didn't use instead of more cargo space. In my previous car, most of my passenger space was used for cargo storage anyway. And finally, the most important reason that I picked a pickup over a different 4x4. I often find myself transporting things that while they are not large, are very disgusting and probably shouldn't be in the cab of a car. I mention fermented chicken liver earlier because in my previous car (a sedan) I spilled a jar full of fermented chicken liver all over the back seat. The process to have it all cleaned up took a lot of effort, time, and money. It also made the inside of the car smell so bad that I effectively couldn't use it as transport for anyone else. I also occasionally find myself collecting roadkill, animal scat samples, or other sorts of dead/gross things. The possibility of a full dead carcass is just going up because I am taking up hunting. With a pickup, I can easily have all of these sort of things in the bed which both prevents them from stinking up the cab and makes it easy to clean up after they are gone. I would much rather spend 5 minutes spraying down the bed with a hose than a couple of hours scrubbing the upholstery.
Some people use trucks "wrong" in exactly the way you describe. However show me a small car that can tow all of my belongings from Minnesota to California or take a trailer into the north words in the dead of winter. Not impractical at all.
Also, the type of terrain is important. Pickups are common in Switzerland (at least I saw a good number of them there).
To the other points:
2) what exactly are you going to tow the trailer with?
3) the size difference between a van and pickup is negligible. Also pickups have inexpensive toppers to protect from the rain.
4) you don't have much of an idea of farming culture entails.
>Pickup trucks seem to be a rediculous 50 000 dollar fashion statement. American roads are much wider (ie higher taxes) because they have to accomodate all the oversized vehicles used for personal transport and damage roads.
That's nonsense. The interstates are wider and damaged by the trucking industry, not by pickups.
A lot of general contractors I know prefer the truck form factor to the van because of easier access to the payload. They don't have to climb around to reach a specific tool; they just reach in and grab it. I had a small pickup truck for a short time and while I didn't enjoy driving it, when hauling sand, landscaping bark, or garbage to the recycler, it was handy to have that space without destroying the interior.
As an oilfield contractor who is constantly reaching into my pickup to retrieve various tools, I would absolutely despise having an suv. My pickup is easily the most practical vehicle type for the work I do and the very rugged roads and off roads that I drive on.
>American roads are much wider (ie higher taxes) because they have to accomodate all the oversized vehicles used for personal transport and damage roads.
Not one of your numbered points, but this one stuck out to me. Even if nobody drove pickups, we'd need big, strong highways to handle the 18-wheelers. Once you get out onto the long highways the number of trucks is staggering.
Yeah, this was just dumb. Pickups don't put any more wear on the roads than OP's imagined car/trailer combos would, and it's all minimal compared to commercial trucking.
As a clown I strongly disagree, you can fit two dozen clowns in the cab alone. Plus the truck bed is a perfect place to put all our clowning equipment. Pick up trucks are very practical clown cars.
took my dog out shooting once, didn't realize how horrible gun shy she was. After a few shots I realized she had disappeared. Found her in the car, she had squeezed her way behind the front seats in the pick-up (with a very PTSD look in her eyes). There's more space that it looks like. I think a pickup truck would make a fine clown car.
ITT: A bunch of people like different cars for different reasons.
Huh, who'd have thunk people buy cars for themselves and where they live and not for other people and their needs?
What ?
Clearly you don't know what pick-ups are used for nor do you realize that they're actually quite versatile.
If I own a business and have to transport heavy items from time to time but can only afford one vehicle, why would I buy any other type of vehicle ?
A regular car and use a trailer when you need it. The guy who mows the lawn where I live does this. He drives his sedan when he isn't working and when he works he puts the trailer with the mower on.
audi or bmw or volvo, doesn't matter. it's all basically the same.
a truck though is a different _type_. with a rather specific use. all op's asking is "do like 20% of all guys in town X really need to transport heavy shit on a regular basis? and if so, why?"
most of the scenarios that other people have mentioned here as their main reason for using a pickup do exist in europe too (perhaps with the exception of driving along vast ranches). but europeans use vans for these purposes (ford transit style). yet, there is no chance you get to see 20% vans anywhere.
The US has more room, newer houses and towns and farms which need more work and more landscaping, we more often do our own renovations, and in general we own more 'toys' than do typical Europeans. More boats per capita, more people hauling dirt or sod to newly built houses, more construction done by amateurs, more people working on their own houses or boats or barns or cars or whatever. Of the hundred or so people and family I know in the UK and Germany, none have even what we in the US would call a moderate collection of tools, a table saw and a compressor and so on, for example. One or two have a boat, one or two have an ATV, one or two have a snow machine. Compared to the same number in the US, the number of tool using monkeys, boat owners, ATV owners (I live in the south so I don't know any snow machine owners in the US, but I think if I were up north I would) is an order of magnitude greater. It's a different culture. It's not correct to say that Europeans are doing everything people in the US do but with vans. We do different stuff, due to differences in economy and free space and costs of stuff like boats or planes or whatever.
1) How much more pollution is created to build an extra car for every person who needs a truck? Also, many people don't have room for two vehicles or just can't afford both.
2) A light truck can haul a much bigger boat than any car and can get it over much harsher terrain.
3) Ever try to haul manure in a van?
4) That's up for debate.
5) See #1.
In my short answer it comes down to utility and versatility. Not all americans camp or move locations or work construction or farming sup plies. But it is nice to have the ability to do so with a truck. Trailers suck and are not a replacement for a truck. You have to store a trailer, regester a trailer and there are many restrictions to parking trailers on streets. Many areas especially in populated areas you can't have trailers at all but a truck is perfectly fine. Vans are limited because they can't fit in garages and limited on what they carry and you have to share the same air as what you carry.
One thing you are missing is that there is a world of difference between pickup trucks. My household for example, has a 25 year old mazda pickup truck. It is tiny in comparison to the dodge and ford beasts I see everyday in town. Seriously, it looks like a toy in comparison. Yet it can haul almost as much while getting double to triple the mileage. Even then, we do most of our driving with our Prius.
Mind you, what you have observed is unfortunately common. Fake cowboys driving gigantic pickup trucks in heavily urban areas for common errands and commutes which could be done with any vehicle. We have a saying for that around here regarding urban cowboys.
All hat, no cattle.
Another counter argument to you saying pickup trucks are unnecessary and how everyone who owns one is just trying to make a fashion statement: supercars.
Does anyone actually *need* a Lambo? Do people use them for their intended purpose, like when was the last time that guy took his Ferrari to a track?
Shit, most supercars are just as hard, if not worse on fuel than your average half ton. Plus they're notoriously hard to park.
Almost every point an anti-pickup person makes can be turned around and aimed at supercars, yet you never hear anyone say "why do people even buy Ferraris? I mean its not like they're racecar drivers, they don't need a half million dollar supercar to take on Sunday drives, they can't go over the speed limit anyway, they should just buy a Prius." See how silly that sounds?
My pickup truck doesnt use up that much gas. You could say the same about a sports car, or really most things that can exert more horsepower than a v6. And those don't even have a truck bed.
I've read most of the comments and still can't believe this many people are severely against pickups, I'll be the first to admit they aren't fuel efficient and even as someone who lives in a downtown area in a modest winter state (ohio) I still find plenty of use to justify buying my truck. I just took out a big bush from my front lawn yesterday and I'm not about to put it in the cab of my civic, or rent a trailer for it, I just tossed it in the bed and was done. It's the little things I think that justify it as much as the big things like boats and things (which I do haul also)
They don't get bad mileage compared to the equivalent car, though. If you're going to haul a huge load you need a big engine and big brakes, in a car or a truck. OP keeps saying "just rent a trailer, yarp", but if I can pull the trailer I had to have bought the big engine in the first place, the trailer doesn't come with horsepower. So all the savings he's imagining are gone, and now to haul something I have to go find a god damned trailer first.
My dad's pickup truck has a **huge** backseat area. I prefer it on long trips than my mother's ML because it has more room and I just prefer the sitting position.
The biggest reason why I own a truck is because I want a truck.
Trucks just make life easier.
They're better on fuel than you might think, a lot of modern half ton trucks can get close to 30 MPG which isn't terrible considering how much power they make. A full sized or even mid sized sedan isn't going to be that much better.
I can comfortably sit 6 full grown adults in my truck.
If I have to haul firewood or fertilizer or a dead animal, I don't want that shit in the back of a van, I want it outside. That plus you cant use a fucking trailer and an Audi to go back in the woods and haul firewood out.
I like to hunt. You aren't putting a dead whitetail in the trunk of a little car. You aren't going to be able to take a car way back in the woods through mud and over rocks.
The size of a truck is really only a hindrance in a heavily populated areas like big cities, most of North America is very rural so the size is hardly ever an issue for parking and shit.
Have you ever been in rural Canada in the winter? Almost everyone I know owns a truck and a car and they just park their car in the winter, a Hyundai Elantra isn't going to go very far with 3 feet of snow on the road.
There's a bunch of other stuff I can think of too that doesn't apply to me. A farmer is going to need a truck to haul crops and livestock (I know you mentioned this was possible with a car and trailer but there's no way a car is going to be capable of safely hauling any actual amount. Farmers have to transport their shit in bulk.) Then there's people who own large camper trailers or boats. Someone might have a boat that they only move twice a year but they need a truck to do that, the other 362 days a year it might not be hauling anything but that doesn't mean they don't need a truck.
But yeah. I like to go back in the woods, I like to hunt, I like to haul firewood, I like to be able to easily get around in the winter, I like to comfortably sit all my friends in one vehicle, all things you aren't going to be able to do (at least not very well) in a car or van hauling a trailer. Most importantly though, I drive a truck because I like to drive trucks. I don't get why people get all pissy about it, I'm not hurting anyone and it makes my life better. What's with reddit's hatred of pickup trucks?
A Lamborghini is too.
Owning a pickup truck for most people has less to do with utility and more to do with owning something you can take pride in and love, just like a sports car enthusiast might with a BMW Z4 or Lotus Evora.
My step dad is a pool man: He cleans swimming pools. He could not do his job without a truck, but cannot afford a second personal transport.
This is a matter if personal preference though.
"Pickup truck" is a broad definition. Of course a massive RAM Super Duty is going to be harder to park than a tiny Ranger. But the owner bought it because their lifestyle is better suited by a bigger truck.
Having a bed is more practical for me. I live in an apartment, so I'd have no place to put a trailer. Even if I did have a place to put a trailer, most cargo I'd want to haul fits in the bed just fine. Trailers are also make maneuvering more difficult.
Say I want to go camping. Navigating backwoods gravel roads is infinitely easier witg 4WD and a full bed than if I had a Prius and a trailer.
Very few trucks actually cost $50k. My Tacoma cost ~$20k, which is right about the same as most new cars, but will hold that value for years longer than say an Altima.
I can get 20mpg if I drive with gas consumption in mind. I typically get right around 18, because I have more fun in my truck than I could possibly have in a Civic with a shitty fart can that gets a few MPG more.
That fun factor was also a big one for me. Sure, I can sip my Starbucks while I silently glide to Whole Foods in my Prius. Or I can tear up some muddy field with some friends and the satisfaction that only comes from loud engine noises, then get Starbucks and Whole Foods. You really don't understand how fun mud riding is until you've done it.
Alaskans use trucks. Its a necessity up here more cars are destroyed by the winter here, than trucks. Ive pulled audis, hondas, and alot of other cars. I hauled shit to the dump. Pulled trailers and loaded my toys and tools in the bed of my pickup. And the winters are harsher here and worse when only 1/16 of alaska has partially accessible roads. Sweden and finland are populted and majority has roads while our budget to keep roads maintain is low a truck can handle a pothole whilst a car will damage the underside or take off an oilpan without a skid. Plus a van is front wheel drive majority of the time so thats unsafe. And v40 cross country is allowed to tow at 1500kg it has a different gear ratio than a regular v40. But i wouldnt recommend it. Top gear had an episode on this only the diesel models like a toureg should be used. And they got stuck in mud quite a bit.
Your first argument, that they are way too big, especially given that they're typically transporting a lone person with little to no cargo, can be expanded to cars in general. Even the typical sedan in the US is large and massive.
I'll try to answer your points in sequence. 1. Just because SOME people use them as everyday transportation doesn't mean that they never use them for cargo, or that no one does. I can afford multiple vehicles, so I use my pickup truck for heavy work and my little compact for most commuting. But some people can't afford multiple vehicles, and they use a pickup truck frequently. Or some people live somewhere where a compact car just won't cut it; for instance, I know a lot of people in south dakota and montana that wouldn't be able to drive for many months out of the year if they had a honda civic, or chevy spark. 2. A trailer still needs a haul vehicle. And while an audi can tow an appreciable amount, it can't touch what a lot of trucks can tow, and the audi is pretty expensive. I bought my truck and car for less than I would have paid for a new audi. A trailer can certainly be a good option for some situations. And in others, a pickup truck is best. 3. Again, you seem to think that juts because another vehicle is better in SOME cases, it's better in all. A van is better for moving things like cakes, or prisoners, or weather sensitive stuff, sure. But is it better for moving a round haybale? Won't fit. A fridge? It's better to be able to stand the fridge up. A load of topsoil? Much, much, much easier to load and unload in a pickup. 4. Sure, europe was primarily farmers at one point; so was america. And yes, tractors can be used for a lot of agricultural stuff. And, yet again, they're not the best answer for everything. It's best to use a tractor over a truck to pull a plow, for instance, but likewise it's better to use a truck over a tractor to pull a horse trailer over the highways. 5. Yet again, you seem to be under the impression that just because MOST people aren't using their pickup most of the time, it's inherently a ridiculous vehicle. Of course some people have trucks they aren't using. The same can be said of lots of things, from treadmills to bread machines. But plenty of people have them and use them because they're the best option for them. I don't use my truck every day, but I've still saved money having it over renting one for all the things I've done with it. It seems odd to hear you complain about how these things are an expensive fashion statement when I spent less on both my truck and my car (a LOT less) than an audi, which you pose as a reasonable alternative to a pickup (and then you go on to recommend a porsche, specifically saying they're much better looking and cooler; who wants an expensive fashion statement now?) If you want to talk about things like roads and so forth, I'm pretty sure our roads aren't getting narrower if we gave up pickup trucks; semi trailers and so forth need the roads to be wider yet.
Nobody mentioned fifth wheel trailers either. Good luck using one of those with a van...
You didn't really touch on the gas thing. People who use only a truck spend a lot on gas.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of trucks that are surprisingly fuel efficient, especially compared with a car trying to tow heavy things. But consider also people such as myself; I drive my car unless I need a lot of power or hauling capacity, in which case the truck gets used. Both, together, were cheaper than the audi the OP thinks I should be using, and both gets its specific task done better. My car gets better mileage than an audi, and my truck can haul way more.
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Just for demonstration's sake: Starting MSRP for a Ford F-150: $25,025 (from Ford's website) Starting MSRP for an Audi A3 sedan: $29,000 (from Audi's website) Average price of gasoline in the US: $3.52/gallon ([Consumer Report](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/11/average-gas-prices/index.htm)) It would take 1,129 additional gallons of gas before the F-150 started to be more expensive than the A3.
Add in the fact that pickup's depreciate slower and holds that value even longer.
And the cost for parts for a pickup is much lower than an Adui.
And then we added the cost of maintenance and repairs. There's no way that it costs more to keep an F150 running.
> It would take 1,129 additional gallons of gas before the F-150 started to be more expensive than the A3. So only about 17,000 extra miles then? * Audi A3 = 30 mpg * Ford F-150 = 15mpg To drive 34,000 miles the A3 would use 1,129 gallons, and the F-150 would use 2,258.
Uhm... I get ~22 in my Expedition and it weighs more than an f150 and has the same engine and tranny combinations. 16-17 city and I get 22 highway. I also don't drive it efficiently (I can get 25-26 but I have a lead foot).
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In the 20% where an Audi doesn't make sense it *really* doesn't make sense though. A pickup might not be the 100% optimal choice for daily commutes but it's still going to get the job done with only a minor increase in cost. When it comes to hauling stuff the Audi is going to have a lot of issues with bigger loads. A full cost analysis...let's see. First we need the cost per mile driven, which will be $3.52 x MPG^-1 (dollars/gallon x gallons/mile = dollars/mile). The F-150 gets 17 city and 23 highway. The Audi A3 quattro gets 24 city and 33 highway. So then we want to set the equalities: City: 25,025 + (3.52/17)x = 29,000 + (3.52/24)x x = **65,819.8 miles** before the F-150 starts to be more expensive than the Audi A-3 (based solely on differing costs of fuel). Highway: 25,025 + (3.52/23)x = 29,000 + (3.52/33)x x = **85,710.9 miles** before the F-150 starts to be more expensive than the Audi A-3 (based solely on differing costs of fuel).
Except the only Audis that are capable of pulling a decently sized trailer, like for example a boat, are the SUVs/crossovers, which have an MSRP closer to 50 grand and gas mileage barely better than an f150.
From my experience trucks and SUV's usually have the same mpg. My brother had an old 96 chevy stick shift and it got bout 16 mpg, his wife had a somewhat new small SUV and it got 16 mpg.
The small SUV's have gotten much better lately. I have a 2003 Subaru Forester and I get about 17mpg city, but the new ones will get 24. Ford Escape will get 22, CX-5 will get 26, 24 for the RAV-4, 23 for the CRV, etc etc. That's all just city mileage, most can do low to mid 30's on the highway. Not groundbreaking but definitely better than most trucks. Although small trucks are getting up there, a Tacoma with the base engine should get in the lower 20's. The problem is, no one really wants the truck with the base engine because you're probably getting a truck for it's hauling potential and you want a bigger engine for that...
Base engine as in what it comes with when you buy it? I've always heard that as stock, but I've never met anyone that's gotten an engine for their truck.
Pretty much every truck in the US (except the ridgeline which is only kind of a truck) offers multiple engines. base engine = the engine that comes on the base model of the truck with no upgrades. The tacoma and frontier come standard with a 4cyl but you can upgrade to a v6 which hits the mileage fairly hard. Same thing with full size trucks, base engine is usually a v6 and you can upgrade to various v8 or diesel engines.
Thank you for that, I've never bought a vehicle, still using my first car(got it in a will). I'm not a truck guy, I understand they burn a lot of gas and I don't need one for work so I don't have one. But I know a lot of people that need one for work, a lot of times a v6 can't cut it. While I'm sure the owner of the truck would prefer to have the gas mileage of a prius that's just not an option. There's a difference in mileage of course, but it's worth it in what you can do with it. What I mean is if you have a work truck you can tow/pull more than if you have an audi. It's more practical and helps more. However if you're just a douche that has a truck but no scratches in the bed then yeah you need a car.
How about we go back to the mid 80s 6.2 diesel suburban, stock they get 24 mpg highway. My 04 expedition 4.6 gets 22 highway at about 80 mph. Let's not kid ourselves here, oversized doesn't always mean completely lacking in other areas. I prefer what I drive over a car, I tow things often, 6 people fit comfortably, 8 in all, and enough power to put a massive smile on my face like an ass. It's great. However, I just noticed what you drive, I'm now jealous. Edit:just noticed you used city figures, due to the lack of power in the burban it gets 19 city, my expo gets 17-19 (unless I'm having a bad day, when my foot gets heavy I get 13)
A lot of modern half ton trucks hit high 20s for their MPG, honestly they aren't much worse than your average full size sedan.
I get 30mpg in my truck. That's pretty good.
Wouldn't the trailer need to be registered too?
Not sure what you mean, you just put the towing vehicles plate on the trailer
In the US trailers require registration and separate plates. At least every state I've lived in (which admittedly is only 2).
Some states don't require it if the combined trailer load islight enough. Oregon is something like 1800lbs
Sorry, that's how it works here in the UK
Yeah, if only it were that easy here. My buddy found out the hard way that if he towed his camper and his boat behind his camper he had to still have current plates on both trailers.
1) If you regularly need to transport something large then I can see a need for it. But commuting in a pickup is ridiculous. Your option is reasonable, the people driving to work on a monday morning in a pickup are not reasonable. 2) What type of stuff are you regularly hauling that is so heavy that a normal car can't tow it? A volvo or audi can tow a boat/all my furniture in a trailer or a camper. They are probably more expensive in the US because they are foreign cars, here they are cheaper. 3) You can easily move a fridge or a bale of hay in a van. Also if you are moving soil or hay you should buy farm equipment. Also there aren't many people that haul large amounts of farm supplies regularly. 4) There are loads of horses where I live and no pickup trucks, a car can easily pull a horse. 5) If you have a lawnmowing service a pickuptruck can make sense. However the vast majority of people have no major use for it. I don't think buying a porsche is rational either, however if I was to spend a fortune on a toy car I would much rather have a porsche than a pickup.
1. And a lot of people need one. Just because some people don't is no reason to condemn everyone. 2. I bought a compact car AND my truck for a lot less than an audi. And I've used my truck to haul everything from a fifth wheel trailer to hay bales to machinery. 3. Moving a fridge in a van requires you to lay it down, which isn't as good as standing it up. And when I say bale of hay, I don't mean the square kind a man can lift. I mean a round bale, from a forklift. Move that in a van. And even though there aren't a lot of people who move a lot of farm supplies regularly, A. There are a lot of things to move besides farm supplies and B. again, condemning everyone for the actions of some is flawed. 4. Yes, some cars can pull a horse. But price out a car that can pull a horse trailer with five horses. I'm pretty sure my truck costs a lot less. 5. Again, yes, some (some!) people don't need one. And some do. If you want to spend your fantasy fortune on a porsche, fine. And I want to spend my much, much smaller chunk of cash on a vehicle I actually use.
It is odd that all those people live on the same continent. Americans need them but finish people have no need for them. I seriously doubt many people regularly need a pickup truck. Moving a fridge is easier in a van because no wind. I don't see why it has to lay down. The farmers where I live use trailers with a lot higher capacity than a pickup. Most cars can pull two horses. There are loads of horses where I live and no pickup trucks. I saw a lot of pickup trucks in the US, I don't think those people regularly drive with 5 horses. If they are doing that they use a truck designed for horse transport.
I never said they all live in the same continent (after all, north america is hardly the only place pickup trucks are manufactured, bought, or sold), and I've said many times that not everyone that has a truck needs it. But that's totally different than saying they're all impractical clown cars. Transporting a fridge standing up is better for the fridge; it prevents you having to wait 24 hours for the refrigerant to drain back to its proper position. And there absolutely are trailers with bigger capacities than a truck; they're usually towed by tractors. Try driving a tractor towing five horses halfway across montana. See where that gets you. Alternatively, show me an even remotely economical car that can do the same. And, yet again, I never said that everyone that has a truck pulls 5 horses regularly. I freely admit that plenty of people that have trucks don't need them. You just seem to be unable to grasp that some people do need them.
So stand it up in the van instead of laying it down. Also 30 dollar home delivery is cheaper than a pickup truck. There are loads of horses where I live. 2-3 horses can easily be pulled by a car, with 5 horses you rent an animal transport. How often do you drive far with 5 horses?
According to [this](http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-parts/towing/towing-capacity/vehicle/towing-capacity-chart.htm), If your friends are towing horses or boats with their Audi or Volvo, not only are they fools, but would be breaking highway safety laws in the US.
From what I could read from that a Volvo or audi can haul over 2 tonnes, that is about 3 horses with a wagon. I have never weighed my friends boat but according to google [this boat](http://www.batmassan.se/PageFiles/31818/Seascape%2027.jpg) weighs less than 1200 kg. It can be pulled by a sedan.
According to the manufacturer specs, Volvo and Audi sedans are approved to haul nothing but passenger's and a regular trunk load.
1500 kg for the v40 http://www.volvocars.com/au/all-cars/volvo-v40/specifications/pages/technical-spec.aspx 2100 kg for xc70 http://www.volvocars.com/au/all-cars/volvo-xc70/specifications/pages/technical-spec.aspx
If your car can pull two horses and a trailer it has an enormous engine, and gets crappy mileage and cost a lot of money even it it's not a pickup. The vast majority of passenger cars cannot pull anything like this kind of load. You don't seem to have thought this through very much. I think you just don't like the way pickup trucks look, or that something about people coming to different decisions than your countrymen do bothers you, or something along those lines. The majority of people who own pickups have them for practical reasons, not for fashion statements. If you saw more than you expected in Boston I can understand your confusion, but that's a carryover from places where they're practical and useful.
I use a tractor a couple times a year, yet I would never buy one myself and I wouldn't commute to work with it. I really can't see that a large portion of the US population regularly moves several tonnes of cargo.
I'm not sure what your point is here. A pickup is not a tractor. My pickup, for example, is essentially a van with an open back. It doesn't drive like a tractor, it doesn't get poor mileage. I can get in it and go eight hours down the highway just as though I were in a car. In my area and for my uses this is better than a van with a closed back. I can carry more stuff, it's more useful for recreation, it's easier to clean out after a dirty load. We're not making these things up, this is the reality of what we do with our vehicles. I understand that you don't move sod or dirt or tools every other weekend, but I do, and many other people do. I have a boat. A utility trailer is no use if I'm already towing a boat. I help people move into tight urban areas. In many of those places a trailer is impractical. If I had to rent or borrow a trailer every time I wanted to move something or haul something or get a load of gravel or whatever I'd incur a large opportunity cost. Also, I just texted a Swedish engineer about this. He thinks you're crazy, and says a lot of Swedish farmers use pickup trucks.
What van do you own that you can stand a fridge up in?
Possibly a Daimler/ Mercedes sprinter or Nissan n3500 in a high top configuration but that isn't the point. At this point op and co are arguing that prospective truck buyers really need a 28 foot long van that is 12 feet tall AND gets worse fuel economy on more expensive fuel in addition to costing more than 100k dollars. Also you can't use a tarp and water hose to swim in the back of the van.
There are plenty of fridges too tall to stand up in most of the vans I've seen. And this is just a specific case. Try loading and unloading topsoil in a van compared with a truck. Try hauling a round haybale. Try loading and unloading a lot of firewood. A truck is better for all these tasks. 30 dollar home delivery is cheaper than a truck, once or twice or even several times. But the number of times I've used my truck? I've saved a lot over renting. I know a lot of people that can say the same. As to how often I drive far with 5 horses, never. But I know plenty of people who do. Not that I think it matters; I've already said a truck is the best vehicle for what I use mine for, and you refuse to believe me, so I could say i drive 5 horses around every day, and you'd probably just dismiss me.
> Most cars can pull two horses. There are loads of horses where I live and no pickup trucks I honestly cannot think of any car that can pull two horses and a trailer. The best I've seen for a non truck or truck based SUV is around 3,500 lbs. Two horses plus a trailer and gear is going to be close to 3,000 lbs which is really pushing it, especially given that those vehicles have lower tongue weight limits than trucks. And I don't care what the vehicle is rated for, towing 3,000 pounds without an upgraded transmission cooler and active brake package is pretty dumb. The only non truck vehicle I can think of that would be usable for serious towing in the US would be the Chevy Traverse. But it's pretty big and expensive, but will get a little better fuel economy than a truck. With the tow package it can handle 5,200 lbs which makes it pretty reasonable. I'd still get a truck though. I can say, having grown up hauling horses around, you want a truck. It's a really dirty hobby and the last thing I want is getting my nice SUV messed up because I toss hay and dusty grain sacks and moldy blankets in the boot.
I have a friend who ruined a 4wd suv by carrying too much play sand and gravel home from home depot, a 60 mile drive from sea level to 4,000 ft.
>If they are doing that they use a truck designed for horse transport. Trucks *are designed for hauling stuff*! Cars, decidedly, are not. Using your car to haul loads it wasn't designed to pull is, by definition, impractical. It's bad for the car and unsafe on the road.
> Most cars can pull two horses. You "can" pull quite a bit of stuff with a car, but it is not safe. Get over 35MPH with a trailer and horses that weigh 2x what the cars does and tell me what happens if you have to get on the brake in an emergency. Not pretty.
I have spent a good portion of my life in rural Canada. Good luck commuting through 2' of fresh snow many kilometres down a gravel road in anything but a pickup truck. You may succeed in an SUV most of the time, but if that is what you do, I guarantee a neighbour with a pickup will be towing you out of the snow eventually.
And try doing this in an Audi while pulling a horse trailer as OP suggests. I'm wondering how much of North America he actually saw and how much culture he actually experienced to come to his broad conclusion.
I come from an area that is a lot less populated, a lot more agricultural, a lot snowier and has a lot of dirt roads. New England had a lot of pickup trucks. Even in Boston.
Ok, so you're really saying that you think pickup trucks are silly in downtown Boston, then, right? If you've only experienced New England you're not in a good position to think that pickup trucks are largely unnecessary for our whole country, the Rockies, for instance.
I don't think the Rockies are much worse than the mountains of rural Norway.
You need to remember that the gulf stream warms up Europe considerably, so even though I live in Canada around the latitude of Copenhagen, winter that are -30 to -40 are common. My SO's parents live in a small community (~50 people) that's 6 hours from a city of 70,000. The closet grocery store is an hour and a half away. They need to use unplowed logging roads in the winter that are literally covered in 2/3 metre of snow. Even going through this in a truck, you aren't able to stop or else you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. A van is not able to plow through this. You have only seen New England, and from your trip you've decided that pick up trucks are unnecessary for the entire North American continent. That's like me saying that heaters are unnecessary for Europe because I went to Sicily in November. The North American continent is extremely environmentally diverse, and a small section of Northeastern USA doesn't fully represent the continent.
Well, it is a lot "worse". We actually have mountains with long, steep inclines and people actually live there and have to transport stuff often at speeds over 10 mph while not worrying about the drive train in their Audi or their general safety (such as plummeting thousands of feet down a ravine.) Audis are great for carrying skis and bikes where I live, not horses and boats. You wouldn't get 10 miles without being impounded for that.
Last winter we had storms in my area where we got 1.5 meters of snow in a single day.
> a lot snowier Can you define how snowy where you live is? Last year my state (in New England) had a storm that dumped about 80 cm of snow over a 36 hour period and our average snowfall in my area is 150 to 230 cm. It's not uncommon to have storms dump 20-40 cm of snow at a time on a near weekly basis.
I live in rural Scandinavia. A tractor with a plow plows the road and a car can drive behind.
So now to get out of my long driveway, I need to hire someone to come and plow it. And then I need to wait for both my driveway to be plowed and the road to be plowed before I go to work. And if another dump happens during the day, I need to wait for both plows to come through again before I can go home. How is that more practical than just having a vehicle that lets me get through the snow?
A volvo can handle a lot of snow and I hardly believe that all those people I saw in Rhode Island get snowed in very often. Where I live there is a person on every road who plows it with his tractor every morning.
So, what is your average snowfall? Based on [this]( http://www.weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-precipitation-Rainfall,Stockholm,Sweden), Stockholm gets under 60mm of snow on average in its heaviest month. How does that compare to where you are? No, you don't need a truck to get through 6cm. However, where I am, out average snowfall in December of 54cm. Last year we got 143cm in December, including 40cm in a single day. You need a truck to get through that. And with heavy snowfall like that, it isn't enough to plow it every morning. If you want a non-truck to get through anytime of day, you need to plow it several times daily. Also, I am willing it bet that our driveways are longer and our roads are longer per capita than yours: I could be wrong, but plowing a the time is likely less practical for us.
I have personally pulled Volvo out of the snow with a truck. So no, they don't handle the snow like a truck. No doubt there are people that have trucks and don't need them. That doesn't mean trucks are impractical. There are people who virtually need them.
Where I live the only roads that will ever see a plow is the major highways. If you have to use a secondary road you're shit out of luck.
What happens when the tractor is off plowing another road or there is no tractor at all? Again, the need for a pickup truck arises.
1) Driving to work on a Monday morning in a pickup truck is not reasonable. Well, it really depends. If you have the money for it, and can pay for the gas, it's entirely reasonable. It may be a status symbol, they may like the versatility of a truck, or it's also a cultural thing as well (from Texas, it just is.) O I think some of them are ridiculously oversized and overpowered? Sure, but I'm not buying those trucks, other people who value that are. Also, working on an older model truck verses working on a new car, you have room under the hood, as opposed to newer cars where everything is crammed in. (Though most of the newer trucks are pretty tight under the hood now too.) For context, currently drive a sedan, but shortly looking at a truck when I get property north of where I am. They are really useful for Home Depot runs, which I will new to make often. Also, point 5, about the vast majority of people having no use for it. What difference would it make to you if I bought a truck, and used it 1 time a year for hauling something? I determine it's value to me, anyone else's opinion doesn't matter for that (though you are certainly welcome to buy whatever vehicle you prefer.)
Ill add to this that in Australia alot of tradespeople also work from their pickups. Usually they'll have several side access tool boxes integrated into the tray and provision for a ladder on top. It provides much easier access to tools and equipment than a van or suv. Have alook through some of the solutions available for various trades here: http://www.csmtransportequipment.com.au/application
/u/incruente already answered, but I also have a big truck. An '02 Ford F-250 with a utility bed to be exact. 1) I don't commute in my truck. I do my current commute on a [50cc motorcycle](http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=derbi+gpr+50+nude&go=&qs=bs&form=QBIL). when I had a longer commute, I used a full size motorcycle. 2) I haul motorcycles and cars on a regular basis. Motorcycles don't fit in most vans. A car won't pull my 28 foot (8.5 meter) enclosed car hauler. Back when I just had my Subaru Forester, I'd have to find someone with a truck whenever I needed to tow a car and most 1/2 ton trucks won't safely tow a car long distances. It puts too much stress on their transmissions. 3) NA 4) I don't have horses, but I'm reminded of the last time I went hiking. There was a group of 9 riders on the same trail. What about when you are pulling 3 or more horses? Should they all have driven different cars so that each could tow a single horse? Families that ride on a regular basis should have a big truck to pull their horses. 5) That's why most people don't drive trucks.
1) I drive 6 miles to work each way. It's not worth the cost for me to buy a car just for commuting. 2) Manure, rocks, gravel, lumber and anything else that will fit in the bed. I can drive my truck through deep mud or over rough terrain to drop it off. You can't do that in any Audi I've ever seen, especially with a trailer on the back. 3) Do you have any data to back that up? 4) My truck can and does regularly pull three horses. Would I be better off making three trips with a car? 5) Again, where's your data to back that up? Even if you had any, in this country, we believe that if an individual wants to buy a truck and is willing to take on the associated costs, they should be allowed to. I'm no expert on sports cars, but from what I've seen, many of them don't have fuel economy that's much better than a truck and they're almost useless from a utilitarian perspective to boot.
>2) What type of stuff are you regularly hauling that is so heavy that a normal car can't tow it? A volvo or audi can tow a boat/all my furniture in a trailer or a camper. It might be able to pull a caravan type camper, but it cannot pull most of these. http://www.palominorv.com/Puma/default.aspx?RVType=TT and they are a pretty typical size for campers in the US. >3) You can easily move a fridge or a bale of hay in a van. Also if you are moving soil or hay you should buy farm equipment. Also there aren't many people that haul large amounts of farm supplies regularly. A lot of the time people arent moving 1 bale of hay, they are moving an entire rack. Sometimes more than 20 miles. First if all your car couldn't tow the hayrack. A tractor would not be practical here because a truck can go twice or even three times as fast. >4) There are loads of horses where I live and no pickup trucks, a car can easily pull a horse. Most people that do horse shows in the US will use something like this with a large diesel truck. http://www.imgur.com/Wj6nxoT.jpeg >I don't think buying a porsche is rational either, however if I was to spend a fortune on a toy car I would much rather have a porsche than a pickup. Most people are not buying trucks as a "toy". Some do absolutely but most buy them for utility purposes.
When was the last time you haulled a 1500+ kg camper? I use a tractor a couple times a year yet that doesn't mean that I want to buy one and use it to get around.
2 weeks ago? and before that I trailered my racing keel boat which cannot be pulled with any car
Some people will take them out every weekend in the summer.
> You can easily move a fridge or a bale of hay in a van. lol, have you ever even seen a round bale before? > Also if you are moving soil or hay you should buy farm equipment. What if I'm not a farmer, and I just do some landscaping on the weekends? You have some strange ideas about cost effectiveness.
In response to your first point, gas in the US is much much cheaper than anywhere in Europe. So while gas mileage is important, its not nearly important to us as it is to you.
According to OP that's part of the problem. You owning a truck in Montano or Texas is the reason they pay 3x for fuel. It just isn't fair. Get your finger out of his eye.
I have a 2011 F-150 Crew cab 4x4 truck. I live outside of Washington DC. My truck is used primarily for commuting to work. I have had the truck for three years and it has 25,000 miles on it. The truck gets 16MPG in the city and 20 on the highway. Yes, it is not the most fuel efficient vehicle out there but I like it. Love it for driving in the snow we get 3-4 times each winter. I love it when I have to run to the hardware store for a large of assortment of things I might need to buy for the home I own.
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American here. I can't believe this conversation is still ongoing. Comparing towing capacity between cars and trucks is not much of a comparison at all. I'm on mobile so I just grabbed what I could find quickly. An a4 has a towing capacity of less than 1500 lbs (with no additional cargo/ passengers) unless the trailer has an active braking system. I have never seen any car outside of Ford Crown Victoria (read large wheelbase and 4.2 l V8) with a a trailer brake package / controller. I also can't imagine it being remotely "good" for the car. A base model Ford F-150 which are ABUNDANT (read can be had used and in great shape for well under 10k dollars) can tow 6500 lbs and I wouldn't hesitate to pull 4000+ without trailer brakes. From there they can go as high as 10k lbs plus with proper equipment. I certainly appreciate some of your whys, ifs, and situational commentary but this isn't even really debatable from a utility standpoint. http://i.imgur.com/osT6Ql1.jpg http://i.imgur.com/PDwkh02.jpg Quick edit: for those not in the states the F series Is the truck. The E series are vans. As you can see the e series can tow a ton and have a large internal cargo capacity but are suited for a different type of hauling if you will.
A Volvo v40 can drag 1400 kg which is a massive load. When did you last drag more than 1400 kg? Where I live you need a special license to pull a trailer heavier than 2 tonnes meaning that most people can't haul much more anyways.
Boats. 5th wheels/ campers Landscaping and earthwork equipment, it goes on and on. Where I live you do not need any additional licenses or permits so long as your trailer is not wider than 8 ft. Said licenses can be gotten by any citizen. Edit: also outside of the unarguable towing angle, the standard reasoning for most is the plywood / Sheetrock analog. 8' x 4' in dimensions. Also furniture and such.
I am sure there are people who haul 2 tonne items regularly and these people would probably be better off buying a real truck. But I probably saw 20% pick up trucks in the US. I hardly believe that 20% of americans have to haul things massively bigger than what people where I live do.
I agree with your ballpark estimate. Though there will certainly be geographic variance 20% doesn't seem out of line. So, accounting for the 20% that "need" a truck (for business or employment purposes) there is still the segment that will argue what the definition of "need" is. If I can get by with carrying 4 or fewer passengers (plus myself) an extended cab truck can accommodate this. If I can afford to pay for the fuel at 3.09 per gallon( current price in south east usa) at 13- 14 mpg in the city while not hauling anything (and up to 20 mph on highways with some of the newer engine tech)an extended cab truck may be fiscally reasonable If I need to "use" the truck for any sort of transport, ie cargo, building materials, appliances, furniture, and of course trailering once a month in aggregate an extended can truck satisfies this and is of significant convenience. All of this is outside of the fact that I may just like to own and drive a truck while providing readily available utility to others who do not have that capability because they went with a Volvo. (People really appreciate that. Like really, really.) And of course It's really none of anyone's business what one decides to do with their income regarding transportation "needs".
A Volvo V40 is rated to safely haul [nothing beyond regular passenger payload](http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-parts/towing/towing-capacity/vehicle/towing-capacity-chart38.htm). They also run 50k. How does it make sense to you to pull a trailer with one?
V70 is rated for 1600 kg which is a large boat, or a camping trailer. https://www.media.volvocars.com/se/sv-se/models/v70/2014/specifications V40 is rated at 1300 kg which is a lot. In Sweden they start at 30 000 dollars and we have much higher taxes than in the US. I couldn't find a car dealer that sells pickup trucks here but a guy has a website and imports and sells them, his cheapest truck was a Dodge Ram 1500 for 70 000 dollars.
> I couldn't find a car dealer that sells pickup trucks here but a guy has a website and imports and sells them, his cheapest truck was a Dodge Ram 1500 for 70 000 dollars. And how is that remotely comparable to buying a truck in the US...?
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They run from [37k to 53k](http://www.caradvice.com.au/volvo/v40/) in the US. The cheapest truck you can find that pulls 1300kg is $70k in the US?? And, please, show me the manufacturer spec that says it's safe to pull that kind of weight with an A4 or a V40. Please.
I would like to add that those prices are for a 2014/2015 New truck. The f150 is the best selling vehicle in the United States for decades at this point. Add to that the offerings from Chevy/gmc, dodge, and Nissan and you have a used market that is flush with inventory. A quick look at auto trader reveals a 2009 full size truck with low miles and decent equipment can be had for around 10k.
1500 kg http://www.volvocars.com/au/all-cars/volvo-v40/specifications/pages/technical-spec.aspx
US specs do actually allow 1300 kg, which is less than a mid-sized ski boat and way less than a trailer with a couple horses, and, even if you decided to risk pulling that much up a mountain (and risk the resulting ticket and impound fees,) where do you put all your gear? And how slow do you plan on driving as you assent to 6000 ft altitude up a winding pass?
2*500 kg horse + 300 kg of trailer. I also don't see 20% of americans regularly hauling 2 horses up a winding mountain pass on a regular basis.
Here in the U.S., a basic Ram truck with a V8 can be had for as little as $25,000. Much less than a V40. I'm not saying I'd rather have a Ram. I'd rather have a V40. My Jetta TDI Sportwagen is much nicer to drive than a pickup and has an available manual transmission, which is something I like. But you can't argue that a pickup is much more versatile and until gas prices in the U.S. make them prohibitively expensive, people will continue to purchase them.
> A car with trailer is just a pick up with a detachable bed. Incorrect. The truck often has a much higher towing capacity, can also tow a trailer (thus giving it vastly superior capacity over the car), can often handle much worse road conditions, and (at least for my truck) is a lot easier to work on than most cars. You also complain that a truck is hard to park. I would pose that a car with a trailer is harder to park than a truck without. I agree that you can get an audi a4 for less than a hilux. And there are many, many, MANY trucks out there besides the hilux, many of which are a lot less expensive. You keep finding one example of someone doing something poorly, or for the wrong reasons, or spending a lot of money, and applying that example to everyone doing even a similar thing.
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Then you're changing your point. You're going from "pickups are expensive and ridiculous and no farmer in europe has ever used a pickup truck why would you use one" to "some people who have pickups would be better off getting a car and a trailer".
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I've spent very little time in europe, mostly greece, and I saw a couple in the olive picking areas. Seems like an SUV is, in many ways, just a pickup with a topper. It could be better for moving more people, but it's worse for anything that won't fit inside or for moving bulk material. I can see people in different situations needing either one.
Where do you store the trailer?how much does that storage cost? How much can the car haul on a trailer? My audi allroad had one of the highest tow ratings for a sedan and that was 6k lbs,figure 1k for trailer and that's capacity. Meanwhile my large truck can haul 12k and laugh it off. I can put a 30 ft car trailer behind my truck and a 12 camper on it and go anywhere. You can't do that with a car
> If you really need the added capacity then you would buy a pick up as an extra vehicle. What if you can't afford or do not have room for two vehicles? > Most people that own a pick up don't really need that. Most people don't need an A4 either, they'd be just fine with a Fit/Jazz or Versa, or even just public transportation. Why is it ok to buy a car you don't really need but not a truck?
You can still remove the bed of a pickup truck and turn it into a chassis cab, on which you can put anything you want. And while you can get an Audi for less than a Hilux, I would take the truck. It will require a lot less maintenance and be cheaper to run in the long term (and possibly insure in some places).
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> I personally would prefer the comfort and driving experience of the Audi. I don't know why we're still talking about Audi's here. I know OP is the one who first brought it up, but it seems ridiculous to me to say "trucks are an unnecessary, expensive luxury" and then suggest a luxury car as a reasonable alternative. An Audi has roughly double the MSRP of my truck. A car could save me up to $1200/year in gas, so I would have to drive it 20 years to make the truck the more expensive option. In the meantime, I get more utility out of my truck. I have a canvas topper that keeps my stuff in the back dry and provides a shelter when I go camping, and it folds out of the way when I need to haul dirt or mulch or something tall. And I have 4wd with high clearance for the winter weather we get around here.
And before anyone jumps into say how Audi's aren't that expensive comparatively in Scandinavia or Europe, they are a fairly expensive luxury brand here in the US, which is the specific place OP is arguing against truck ownership.
As if an Audi would make it 20 years hauling a trailer and everything you move around with your truck.. I'd give it one to five years and have a completely depreciated trade in value- if it could even still limp as far as the lot.
True, plus my truck is a toyota, so it might still be going strong in 20 years. I wonder how the maintenance costs compare to an Audi...
Your average 4X4 half ton is going to be rated to tow around 10,000 pounds, an Audi A4 with a trailer would be lucky to haul a third of that. Also you can get a truck equipped to handle this for well under $30K. Not sure how much a new A4 costs but I doubt its much cheaper if it even is cheaper.
Let's go through this list: 1) Yes pick ups are larger than most sedans (not necessarily SUV's). Yes they are harder to park. Do they serve no purpose? Uh...no. I find a use for my truck probably once a week in one way or another. Hauling lumber? Awesome, did that last week. Home Depot run? Sweet, got that shit on lock. Need to help literally anyone move? Don't need to spent cash on a U-Haul. Need to hop a curb without destroying the front of your car? Fan-fucking-tastic. No purpose my ass. 2) I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how trailers work. They do not "hold a lot more weight". Technically they can hold more volume than most truck beds can. The limiting factor on weight is still the car itself. Also "an audi with a large trailer". I assume you mean the big ass audi SUVs, because I would not recommend trying moving anything more than a bass boat with a luxury sedan. Sure...it probably *can* tow the boat, but honestly it really shouldn't. That's an easy way to break a nice car and also fucking kill yourself on the road. Furthermore, if you're already dropping all that money on one of those luxury SUV's, money isn't really a problem, and neither is gas mileage or size. 3). "Vans are much better for moving stuff than a pickup truck. Your stuff doesn't get rained on or blown away and you can stock things vertically." Two words...**bed cover**. On top of that fucking obvious solution, trucks are built to handle far heavier working loads than vans are. 4). I've actually never heard of farming culture as a reason. I mean sure, the offroading capabilities of most trucks makes them an obvious solution, but that's never just been a go-to for truck use. But simply as an aside, where do you think most of the world's food comes from? "Europe has a lot stronger farming culture than the USA." Like, that's actually just entirely false. I...I can't tell if you're kidding at this point. 5). All the time. I run into a situation at least once a month that calls for the use of my truck that a normal sedan or otherwise hefty SUV would not be good for. Seriously though, I take it you've never been to Home Depot or Lowes'. All this jargon aside, it seriously is a great place to check out. Tons of neat stuff. One day there and you'll understand why there is, while maybe not for you, a use for these vehicles.
I don't think OP has ever actually used a pickup and only saw people hauling improperly. If you're being a responsible hauler there is no need to worry about shit flying away or whatever. If you load is too big for a bed cover then a tarp, moving straps, and tiny bit of know how can get any load secured easily. Also most pickups I see are hauling things you don't want in a van. I use mine for runs to the dump all the time, sometimes it's yard waste, sometimes it's straight garbage - either way it's not something I want crammed in an enclosed vehicle with me
You make a good point, but I think OP is hating on pickups for much less reasonable reasons than that. But your comment reminded me of a story about the dangers of unsecured loads... Where I live there was a truck pulling a trailer down the highway piled high with junk and scrap metal. The speed limit is 65 but at this particular spot it slows down to 50 as you get to an overpass and the road starts to curve. Where the overpass starts there was this bump that runs the width of the road, almost like a mini speed bump, that hits your suspension pretty hard if you don't slow down. Well this truck driving down the highway with an unsecured load, hits the bump, and a large bolt about the size of a fist is launched into the air at 65 mph, goes through the windshield of an oncoming car and kills the passenger instantly. Freak accident, but it could've been prevented with nothing more than a tarp. Really fucked with my head since I drove down that road not more than 15 minutes before it happened. Can you imagine what it must've been like to have your passenger sitting there talking to you one minute, and then BAM they're dead. **TL;DR: unsecured loads are just as dangerous on a trailer!**
Seen a video of something like this happen in russia, truck was driving down with an unsecured load of bricks and hits a bump, a single brick falls off and goes right through the windshield of a car going in the other direction. Dash cam in the car captured the whole thing including audio of the poor drivers reaction after seeing his mom killed by the brick.
This same thing happened on my old commute route in San Diego. For some reason SD seems to be the Land of Unsecured Loads.
Jesus, yeah that kind of thing is insane. Also why I always have a tarp and moving straps in a bag in my bed
> where do you think most of the world's food comes from? China. Also: European Union has smaller, but not significantly smaller overall agricultural production than USA.
You could make the exact same argument about sports cars. Sure, they have they have their uses and are fun but very few people who buy them really need them or take them to the track. Most people just sit around in traffic in them. The difference with pickup trucks is that many pickup truck owners, unlike sports car owners, will not readily admit that part of reason they bought it was to be seen in it. But that's because admitting it would conflict with exactly that "no-nonsense hard-working blue-collar man's-man" image they are attempting to project by owning a pickup truck. There is no similar conflict with "hot-shot show-off risk-taker" image of a sports car owner. But ask a pickup truck owner to show up at his favorite bar in a VW Bug and it will quickly become apparent they do care about what they are seen driving. In summary, fashion often looks ridiculous to outsiders. Pickup trucks are no more or less ridiculous than sports cars.
This is a part of it. Porsche owners don't claim that they need to drive at 380 km/h. I think sports cars are a bit ridiculous as well but they do seem fun to drive. I see most people driving to work alone in their pickup truck on perfect Rhode Island roads like people driving a tractor saying my ride can handle any terrain and can carry a 20 tonnes!
You keep claiming that pickups are no fun to drive, presumably because they're not small and zippy. I love driving a truck and with the exception of parking at times it's no more hassle to drive than any other vehicle.
I'm actually wondering how much time you spent in the US and what areas your visit was limited to in order for you to come to your conclusion.
New England for two weeks. Never seen so many pickup trucks.
Oh...then don't come to the south. They're near the majority vehicle. Well that and SUVs.
I am not saying no one needs a pickup truck, I am saying the vast majority of people don't need one. I highly doubt that most people in the south regularly do things that a normal car can't. Most people go to work and go grocery shopping.
Let's see what I did last week, as a person living in the south. Transported my dirt bike 5 hours. Could have used a trailer, but driving a truck for five hours is far easier than a trailer. Transported a load of gravel across town. Using the truck bed saved us about an hour over what using the trailer would have taken. Transported ten people. 5 in cab, 5 in bed. Very illegal with a trailer. That's three uses in seven days.
> 5 in cab, 5 in bed. Very illegal with a trailer. Illegal with a truck too?
The laws on that vary in different areas. In some places, it is legal. In some, it's illegal.
Good to know there are some places yet where men can be free! :)
Very legal here in Texas! Where you have to where a seatbelt in the backseat of a car but not if you're in the bed of a pickup! Makes perfect sense, right?
Not in me state
>New England for two weeks. Lol wut. I'm willing to bet you mostly stuck to the city and urban areas, too? Here in Texas, many of us who own trucks use them because they're extremely practical economically. You have a load of topsoil for your yardwork? Throw it in the bed. You have an 8ft stud for home repairs? Throw it diagonally in the bed. Got a washer and drier, but don't want to shell out the extra $100 for delivery? Throw them in the bed. You need to pull your buddy out of a ditch because he's a dumbass? Grab a chain and hop in your truck. You need to get 4 cows and a steer to Navasota from Cypress? Hook up that trailer and kick it into towing gear. You gotta pull your buddy out of a flooded area? Grab your chain, put it in 4 wheel drive. Look, there are tons of practical reasons to own a truck, and a great many people use their trucks for them. Can an SUV do some of those jobs too? Absolutely. Are they necessarily any better at it? No, not without spending a ridiculous amount of money to get an equal or better result, at which point you're making a poor investment. A truck is a vehicle designed for work, that some people use as a commuter car or for fun. An SUV or hatchback is a car designed for comfort and commuting that can also occasionally do work, unless it's specifically designed to do heavy lifting, in which case it's generally more expensive than a truck. Truck beds are easier to clean, easy to use, parts are cheaper, and they're more stable for towing, and the only SUV's that are comparable are generally more expensive, so not as great an investment if you're looking for a work vehicle. If you want to see what is more practical, look at what our workmen and construction companies buy for their vehicle fleets. I'll give you a hint: it ain't Audi's.
I'm currently in the outback of australia, als they almost solely use pickups here. You know why? Because they move a lot of shit. And because they need to drive over rough terrain. Now any better options?
In fairness though, most 'pickups' in Australia; The Hilux, Patrol, and Landcruisers, (Which in my knowledge, are the go-to farm vehicles) are only marginally larger then SUV's, and I assume OP is primarily taking issue with 'American style' trucks, like the F350, and Dodge Ram. You also have to take into account the additional factor that isn't so much present in the US or Europe, which is that very few roads in proper outback are paved, so offroading capabilities are essential for farmers, and contributes to the need for utes in Australia
Well yeah, we've mostly all ascertained that he is talking about a small percentage of pickup owners who have massive vehicles and dont use them for an appropriate purpose.
>a small percentage of pickup owners who have massive vehicles and dont use them for an appropriate purpose. You would have to make the assumption that those people don't have a boat, horse trailer, desert toys, fifth wheel, etc, to haul when they aren't commuting to the office.
Exactly.
My friends go camping, own boats, go skiing, live on dirt roads, own atvs etc yet we don't need pickups. I saw a lot of them in the US. There can't be a lot of people that need an f 350 regularly.
There also aren't a lot of people that own F350's... F150 is by far the most common pickup in america.
I know three guys that own F350s, all three of them are construction foremen or general contractors. and I live in Texas.
> My friends go camping, own boats, go skiing, live on dirt roads, own atvs etc yet we don't need pickups. Alot of people who do those things in many places dont own a pickup (or at least they might, but its because they already have it for another reason).
>In fairness though, most 'pickups' in Australia; The Hilux, Patrol, and Landcruisers, (Which in my knowledge, are the go-to farm vehicles) are only marginally larger then SUV's You lucky bastards. -An American who likes smaller trucks and SUVs.
Nah, you can just get an Audi for that, and tow a boat too. Fuck I know that the best thing in the Prairies of Canada are our Audis. I rarely see any pickups here as Audi's and Porsches are far more economical and cheaper. Need to move a horse or a ton of hay? Get a $1000 trailer and slap that horse on sideways. Dirt? Well that can get heavy and you might need an even more economical vehicle with more power and torque like a Bently. But don't worry, it'll be fine offroad and you just know that you can find the parts down the road when your in-dash cappuccino machine breaks down.
Don't forget jumping in your Lambo when flood/snow hits Calgary and you really want some timbits.
Farmers in Europe move a lot of stuff as well, no pickup trucks. If you wanted to move stuff you would buy a van. You don't even have winter roads but if roads are that bad buy a Jeep.
Dude, how the fuck are you gonna get a van through terrain that requires four wheel drive?
See also... http://letsgotravelaustralia.com/about-us/tow-vehicle/ (esp. last picture!) Ute (Australian term for a pickup truck) AND trailer. Van aint gonna cut in on those roads. Of course there are plenty of other reasons you might want a Ute over a van or other vehicle type.
Those vans probably avg around the same mpg as a pickup, but are less versatile and are completely useless in the snow
You have a funny idea of what a pickup is like. Some pickups are huge and gas guzzling, sure, but many are like mine: A ten year old Toyota 6 cyl. I don't have kids, so I don't need a back seat. It gets fine mileage, about as good as a small car around town, which is where I use it. It cost the same as a car. Perhaps most importantly, I live in the southern US, so it's usually sunny and warm here. I'm not driving it on snow. As someone who drove on snow for a long time, I think that's why you don't see them much. Rear wheel drive pickups suck on snow and ice. But in nice weather they're great. I can pick up (HA!) something on the spur of the moment. I can haul sod or a load of dirt for my yard. I can pile a huge amount of coolers, tools, sails, chairs, tents, etc. and haul my boat to the lake for a weekend. A van sucks for that, you have to unload everything to get at it, it's hot in the van once you've stopped, it's just not very good. So in general, a small pickup is a great vehicle for general light yard work, carrying tools, and recreation, if you live in a place where it doesn't snow and the weather is usually nice. Regarding farming, I lived in Germany for two years. European farms are very different from US farms. A European farm will often have been a farm for hundreds of years. All the stumps are pulled, the fields are set, the walls are in place, the barns are older than the US. A Texas farm is even now often still being created. A Texas farmer is moving fences, hauling large stumps and other trash, lots of stuff a European farmer never has to think about. And more stuff; for example, Texas farmers have hogs to deal with. I think on a German farm if you do have to move a several hundred pound hog carcass you'd use an ATV with a trailer? Or a tractor, maybe. But on a large Texas farm, if you spend the day (or night) shooting at invasive wild hogs, you might have a ton of hog carcass to move twenty miles to a processing plant. A pickup will do it at 70 mph on the road; a tractor is a lot slower. The biggest thing, though, is the climate. You don't see pickups as much in the northern US either, and when you do many of your objections are correct. But in the south they're really useful. I had to have a car for a few years, and I hated it. Couldn't stop to buy a compressor I saw on sale once, didn't have a truck. Couldn't help someone move, didn't have a truck. Couldn't move my own damn table saw across town, didn't have a truck. And forget hauling a boat out for the weekend. Where would I put all my stuff? Arrgh, that was a terrible two years. I love my truck.
> You don't see pickups as much in the northern US either, and when you do many of your objections are correct he was specifically talking about new england. whatever, your response made sense to me. it's still sort of like "it comes in handy here and there" (which is about as satisfying as "because i can"), but yeah, makes sense -- at least for guys in the rural(-ish) parts of the country, who haul sod and load dirt ;).
> he was specifically talking about new england. Yeah, I think if he had made a more focused objection he'd have had a better case. He seems to think the whole US is like Boston or Rhode Island. "F350s are a stupid thing to drive in Boston" is a pretty reasonable claim. Not totally, people in Boston can still have a weekend reason to own an F350, but a lot better than his blanket condemnation, when he's never even been to the part of the country that uses them the most, and pretty clearly doesn't know much about how cars and trucks actually, you know. Work.
I kind of miss the old small trucks, my first vehicle was a early 90's hardbody. Nowadays they still have smaller trucks (tacoma, frontier and the new colorado) but they're still a lot bigger than the old rangers and hardbodys were. They should bring back the Subaru Baja :)
I like my 2004 Tacoma. It's a little bigger than my 95 Toyota was, and it's about right for me. The 95 felt kind of dinky.
Anytime you need to move something you think.. "who do i know that owns a truck?"
I get a trailer or a moving van.
Have you actually ever pulled a trailer? Ever tried backing a trailer? Can you imagine people with no experience hauling trailers trying to drive through town, much less through a city? Parking is 10x harder with a car+trailer as opposed to just a truck. My mom can easily drive the pickup (crew cab,long bed) park it, go get garden supplies etc. She definitely not pull a trailer without getting stuck (not stuck in the mud, but stuck when the trailer gets in a position. Where it is very difficult to get out of without detaching the trailer. Furthermore, my mom drives a sedan normally and she has ruined more than one car by getting soil and all sorts of stuff rubbed into the upholstery and floorboard an everything else. In a truck you just throw it in the bed. No worries. One more thing, America is a hell of a lot bigger than Europe. I live in North Carolina (an average sized state) and my dad has work trucks for his whole fleet. They also use trailers when the load is really long or oversized, but when the trailer is loaded, usually the bed of the pickup is too. But when the load can fit in the bed of the truck, there is no need for a trailer, but certainly would not fit in a van or car for that matter. Plus when you're out on a job, it is very inefficient to hook up a trailer anytime you need to haul something across the job or across town or across the state. Let's say we just need to get a crew to a site we can use the van, but when on the site and they need to haul something, they have to go all the way back to the shop, come back to the site, haul, then return the trailer and take it back to the shop. This is even more true when the job is 300 miles (~500 km) from the shop. On top of all that, the work crews absolutely destroy any vehicles they drive. Pickups can take a massive beating before they start to show it. And when they do die, the people at the shop can just throw a new part on the truck or even jerry rig it so it still works. trucks (at least base models) don't really have any complex parts that an unskilled worker can't fix with some wrenches, and they're made very heavy duty. Plus, I drive a full size SUV (Chevy Tahoe 4wd), and when I'm at work and boss needs me to run something up to a job site, it normally doesn't fit in my SUV so I have to either borrow a truck from someone who might need it, or pull a trailer carrying like 2 25 foot aluminum beams, for example. Just throw it in the truck, no time wasted. Tl;Dr: trucks save massive amounts of time, save your car's interior from getting ruined, and eliminate the trouble of inexperienced (even experienced drivers too) drivers trying to pull a trailer. Also, if you load a trailer the wrong way (too much weight behind the axles) there's a good chance you'll lose control and have a wreck, I've seen it happen multiple times.
friends with trucks are free.
A lot of your argument seems to be that you *can* just rent a trailer and attach it to a car. You *can* but it is really REALLY ill-advised. I drive a Ford Fiesta, and it has tiny wheels with tiny brakes that are great for stopping a 1 ton car, but stopping a 1 ton car with a half-ton trailer loaded with 1.5 tons of stuff is a *completely* different matter. Pickup trucks are **built to haul stuff** and are built with the braking power to stop with a 2 ton load on a trailer, *and* a ton of stuff in the bed. They also tend to have low gearing that works really well to give you the torque you need to get 3 tons of stuff moving as well. And make no mistake, in America, especially in rural America, there are *tons* of uses for this sort of towing power that makes it practical to own for everyday ownership and use; even in the suburbs and urban America, we tend to haul a bunch of stuff around (large appliances and the like) in places where you can't just drive a tractor. Some examples I've seen: * Home improvement: my best friend's parents like to DIY their house, and it's fairly often that they need to lug a big awkward thing home from Home Depot or Lowes; a pickup means they don't fuck up their car's roof or upholstry by jamming it in awkwardly. * Towing/transporting other vehicles: An ex-coworker of mine raced cars on the weekends, and he had a pickup to get his (non-street-legal) race car out to the track and back. It's really unsafe to tow that trailer behind a regular car, considering it is carrying a car. * Having a lot of friends in the hot part of America: A lot of people I know with pickups will fit 3-6 friends in the bed as they haul some minor things, because that's just how we do. If it's a nice rural area, this is accepted and legal, as long as everyone stays seated and is an adult in the bed. * Working as a general contractor: You never know exactly what you'll need to bring to a site, and a pickup works well as a halfway between a panel truck and just a car; it can haul most loads and won't be too gas-intensive to be prohibitively expensive to drive to every job site. * Wanting something durable: Trucks are tough. Seriously, they get built for ruggedness and durability. [Top Gear has a Toyota Hilux that they put through the ringer, including setting it on fire and putting it on top of a building that got demolished, and not only did it run after some reconnected bits with basic hand tools, but it got *driven into the studio* afterwards. Check out the first bits before the demolition by clicking the blue paragraph](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk) If you do *anything* where it is probable that your vehicle will take some significant abuse, a pickup is a pretty good investment, as driving a truck with some dings is less expensive than completely replacing a less durable car. Since they have that rugged reputation, pickups are *expected* to be less than pristine, especially if you're in a more rural area. [Also, here is part 2 of that video, just in case](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTPnIpjodA8) EDIT: [And part 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFnVZXQD5_k) So, just because you don't see a use, doesn't mean there is one. Plenty of people who need both a way to haul something regularly, and the ability to commute, don't also have the money for two vehicles. They therefore get something that is a good middle-of-the-road solution; it can tow and haul when needed, and gets better gas mileage than a full-sized truck.
> ringer FYI, it's spelled "wringer." Great post though, we college students also value pickups when we have to move every semester.
Your question seems to center on the notion of "need", people should not have massive pick-up trucks because they don't need them. A life where you were only furnished with what you actually needed would be a poor one indeed. I moved to America from Europe, and I drive a "full size" pick-up truck. I don't really need its 1.5 ton carrying capacity or six liter engine but I always wanted one, and could never dream of affording it in Europe. >If you want a cool car buy a porsche, much better looking and cooler. A porsche is also a lot more fun to drive. Why do you need a Porsche that can do 380 km/h when you can't legally travel faster than 130 km/h in the US? The argument cuts both ways.
>Most of the pickup trucks I saw wheren't carrying a massive load, there was just a person in the truck. Just because they weren't carrying a load at the time, doesn't mean they are never used to carry a load. For many people, it is important to have the option to carry a load if needed, but the rest of the time, the bed is relatively empty. >Vans are much better for moving stuff than a pickup truck. Your stuff doesn't get rained on or blown away and you can stock things vertically. First off, having the bed designed to be weather exposed can be a huge benefit. I sometimes have to transport things that are fairly disgusting and you probably don't want on the interior of a car. Blood or fermented chicken liver can be cleaned out of the bed of a truck with a hose, but if they get on the interior of a car, the cleaning process is long and complicated and potentially expensive. Second, many people have a bed cover on their pickup, so that anything in the bed is kept out of the rain and wind. [Some bed cover designs basically give the bed a similar shape to the back of a van](http://image.trucktrend.com/f/features/gear/9095402+w799+h499+cr1+ar0/163_0802_22z%2Btruck_bed_cover_buyers_guide%2Bsnugtop.jpg), which would allow items to be stacked vertically. >How often are you actually moving something huge? I have owned my pickup for about 2 months now. In that time, I have loaded up the bed completely 3 separate times. Should I have rented a trailer each of those times? >Pickup trucks seem to be a rediculous 50 000 dollar fashion statement. My pickup was $10,000. >A porsche is also a lot more fun to drive. A Porsche can't go mudding. To sum up my argument let me walk you through my though process when I decided that I should buy a pickup. First off, I knew that I needed something with 4x4 and a hefty engine. Where I live gets a lot of snow and I often find myself driving on poorly maintained dirt roads with steep grades. This factor alone eliminates most cars from my list of potential vehicles leaving me with things like Jeeps, SUVs, and pickups. Second, when I go do things with a group of people, we usually take multiple cars. At least one for our gear and equipment (camping gear, rifles, fishing gear, etc. depending on what we are doing), and another with enough passenger space for however many people we have. For this reason, having at least some of the people in our group have vehicles with a large amount of storage space is very useful. Third, I go do things on my own that require me hauling equipment far more often than I am driving more than one person somewhere and we don't need any equipment. For this reason, I felt like it would be a waste of space to have extra seats that I usually didn't use instead of more cargo space. In my previous car, most of my passenger space was used for cargo storage anyway. And finally, the most important reason that I picked a pickup over a different 4x4. I often find myself transporting things that while they are not large, are very disgusting and probably shouldn't be in the cab of a car. I mention fermented chicken liver earlier because in my previous car (a sedan) I spilled a jar full of fermented chicken liver all over the back seat. The process to have it all cleaned up took a lot of effort, time, and money. It also made the inside of the car smell so bad that I effectively couldn't use it as transport for anyone else. I also occasionally find myself collecting roadkill, animal scat samples, or other sorts of dead/gross things. The possibility of a full dead carcass is just going up because I am taking up hunting. With a pickup, I can easily have all of these sort of things in the bed which both prevents them from stinking up the cab and makes it easy to clean up after they are gone. I would much rather spend 5 minutes spraying down the bed with a hose than a couple of hours scrubbing the upholstery.
Some people use trucks "wrong" in exactly the way you describe. However show me a small car that can tow all of my belongings from Minnesota to California or take a trailer into the north words in the dead of winter. Not impractical at all. Also, the type of terrain is important. Pickups are common in Switzerland (at least I saw a good number of them there). To the other points: 2) what exactly are you going to tow the trailer with? 3) the size difference between a van and pickup is negligible. Also pickups have inexpensive toppers to protect from the rain. 4) you don't have much of an idea of farming culture entails. >Pickup trucks seem to be a rediculous 50 000 dollar fashion statement. American roads are much wider (ie higher taxes) because they have to accomodate all the oversized vehicles used for personal transport and damage roads. That's nonsense. The interstates are wider and damaged by the trucking industry, not by pickups.
A lot of general contractors I know prefer the truck form factor to the van because of easier access to the payload. They don't have to climb around to reach a specific tool; they just reach in and grab it. I had a small pickup truck for a short time and while I didn't enjoy driving it, when hauling sand, landscaping bark, or garbage to the recycler, it was handy to have that space without destroying the interior.
As an oilfield contractor who is constantly reaching into my pickup to retrieve various tools, I would absolutely despise having an suv. My pickup is easily the most practical vehicle type for the work I do and the very rugged roads and off roads that I drive on.
>American roads are much wider (ie higher taxes) because they have to accomodate all the oversized vehicles used for personal transport and damage roads. Not one of your numbered points, but this one stuck out to me. Even if nobody drove pickups, we'd need big, strong highways to handle the 18-wheelers. Once you get out onto the long highways the number of trucks is staggering.
Yeah, this was just dumb. Pickups don't put any more wear on the roads than OP's imagined car/trailer combos would, and it's all minimal compared to commercial trucking.
As a clown I strongly disagree, you can fit two dozen clowns in the cab alone. Plus the truck bed is a perfect place to put all our clowning equipment. Pick up trucks are very practical clown cars.
I imagine the bed comes in handy for the occasional, impromptu parade as well.
took my dog out shooting once, didn't realize how horrible gun shy she was. After a few shots I realized she had disappeared. Found her in the car, she had squeezed her way behind the front seats in the pick-up (with a very PTSD look in her eyes). There's more space that it looks like. I think a pickup truck would make a fine clown car.
ITT: A bunch of people like different cars for different reasons. Huh, who'd have thunk people buy cars for themselves and where they live and not for other people and their needs?
What ? Clearly you don't know what pick-ups are used for nor do you realize that they're actually quite versatile. If I own a business and have to transport heavy items from time to time but can only afford one vehicle, why would I buy any other type of vehicle ?
A regular car and use a trailer when you need it. The guy who mows the lawn where I live does this. He drives his sedan when he isn't working and when he works he puts the trailer with the mower on.
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audi or bmw or volvo, doesn't matter. it's all basically the same. a truck though is a different _type_. with a rather specific use. all op's asking is "do like 20% of all guys in town X really need to transport heavy shit on a regular basis? and if so, why?" most of the scenarios that other people have mentioned here as their main reason for using a pickup do exist in europe too (perhaps with the exception of driving along vast ranches). but europeans use vans for these purposes (ford transit style). yet, there is no chance you get to see 20% vans anywhere.
The US has more room, newer houses and towns and farms which need more work and more landscaping, we more often do our own renovations, and in general we own more 'toys' than do typical Europeans. More boats per capita, more people hauling dirt or sod to newly built houses, more construction done by amateurs, more people working on their own houses or boats or barns or cars or whatever. Of the hundred or so people and family I know in the UK and Germany, none have even what we in the US would call a moderate collection of tools, a table saw and a compressor and so on, for example. One or two have a boat, one or two have an ATV, one or two have a snow machine. Compared to the same number in the US, the number of tool using monkeys, boat owners, ATV owners (I live in the south so I don't know any snow machine owners in the US, but I think if I were up north I would) is an order of magnitude greater. It's a different culture. It's not correct to say that Europeans are doing everything people in the US do but with vans. We do different stuff, due to differences in economy and free space and costs of stuff like boats or planes or whatever.
hah, thanks for the explanation! incidentally, i've just read your other comment and replied to it (that it all makes more sense now).
1) How much more pollution is created to build an extra car for every person who needs a truck? Also, many people don't have room for two vehicles or just can't afford both. 2) A light truck can haul a much bigger boat than any car and can get it over much harsher terrain. 3) Ever try to haul manure in a van? 4) That's up for debate. 5) See #1.
In my short answer it comes down to utility and versatility. Not all americans camp or move locations or work construction or farming sup plies. But it is nice to have the ability to do so with a truck. Trailers suck and are not a replacement for a truck. You have to store a trailer, regester a trailer and there are many restrictions to parking trailers on streets. Many areas especially in populated areas you can't have trailers at all but a truck is perfectly fine. Vans are limited because they can't fit in garages and limited on what they carry and you have to share the same air as what you carry.
One thing you are missing is that there is a world of difference between pickup trucks. My household for example, has a 25 year old mazda pickup truck. It is tiny in comparison to the dodge and ford beasts I see everyday in town. Seriously, it looks like a toy in comparison. Yet it can haul almost as much while getting double to triple the mileage. Even then, we do most of our driving with our Prius. Mind you, what you have observed is unfortunately common. Fake cowboys driving gigantic pickup trucks in heavily urban areas for common errands and commutes which could be done with any vehicle. We have a saying for that around here regarding urban cowboys. All hat, no cattle.
Another counter argument to you saying pickup trucks are unnecessary and how everyone who owns one is just trying to make a fashion statement: supercars. Does anyone actually *need* a Lambo? Do people use them for their intended purpose, like when was the last time that guy took his Ferrari to a track? Shit, most supercars are just as hard, if not worse on fuel than your average half ton. Plus they're notoriously hard to park. Almost every point an anti-pickup person makes can be turned around and aimed at supercars, yet you never hear anyone say "why do people even buy Ferraris? I mean its not like they're racecar drivers, they don't need a half million dollar supercar to take on Sunday drives, they can't go over the speed limit anyway, they should just buy a Prius." See how silly that sounds?
My pickup truck doesnt use up that much gas. You could say the same about a sports car, or really most things that can exert more horsepower than a v6. And those don't even have a truck bed.
I've read most of the comments and still can't believe this many people are severely against pickups, I'll be the first to admit they aren't fuel efficient and even as someone who lives in a downtown area in a modest winter state (ohio) I still find plenty of use to justify buying my truck. I just took out a big bush from my front lawn yesterday and I'm not about to put it in the cab of my civic, or rent a trailer for it, I just tossed it in the bed and was done. It's the little things I think that justify it as much as the big things like boats and things (which I do haul also)
They don't get bad mileage compared to the equivalent car, though. If you're going to haul a huge load you need a big engine and big brakes, in a car or a truck. OP keeps saying "just rent a trailer, yarp", but if I can pull the trailer I had to have bought the big engine in the first place, the trailer doesn't come with horsepower. So all the savings he's imagining are gone, and now to haul something I have to go find a god damned trailer first.
My dad's pickup truck has a **huge** backseat area. I prefer it on long trips than my mother's ML because it has more room and I just prefer the sitting position.
The biggest reason why I own a truck is because I want a truck. Trucks just make life easier. They're better on fuel than you might think, a lot of modern half ton trucks can get close to 30 MPG which isn't terrible considering how much power they make. A full sized or even mid sized sedan isn't going to be that much better. I can comfortably sit 6 full grown adults in my truck. If I have to haul firewood or fertilizer or a dead animal, I don't want that shit in the back of a van, I want it outside. That plus you cant use a fucking trailer and an Audi to go back in the woods and haul firewood out. I like to hunt. You aren't putting a dead whitetail in the trunk of a little car. You aren't going to be able to take a car way back in the woods through mud and over rocks. The size of a truck is really only a hindrance in a heavily populated areas like big cities, most of North America is very rural so the size is hardly ever an issue for parking and shit. Have you ever been in rural Canada in the winter? Almost everyone I know owns a truck and a car and they just park their car in the winter, a Hyundai Elantra isn't going to go very far with 3 feet of snow on the road. There's a bunch of other stuff I can think of too that doesn't apply to me. A farmer is going to need a truck to haul crops and livestock (I know you mentioned this was possible with a car and trailer but there's no way a car is going to be capable of safely hauling any actual amount. Farmers have to transport their shit in bulk.) Then there's people who own large camper trailers or boats. Someone might have a boat that they only move twice a year but they need a truck to do that, the other 362 days a year it might not be hauling anything but that doesn't mean they don't need a truck. But yeah. I like to go back in the woods, I like to hunt, I like to haul firewood, I like to be able to easily get around in the winter, I like to comfortably sit all my friends in one vehicle, all things you aren't going to be able to do (at least not very well) in a car or van hauling a trailer. Most importantly though, I drive a truck because I like to drive trucks. I don't get why people get all pissy about it, I'm not hurting anyone and it makes my life better. What's with reddit's hatred of pickup trucks?
A Lamborghini is too. Owning a pickup truck for most people has less to do with utility and more to do with owning something you can take pride in and love, just like a sports car enthusiast might with a BMW Z4 or Lotus Evora.
My step dad is a pool man: He cleans swimming pools. He could not do his job without a truck, but cannot afford a second personal transport. This is a matter if personal preference though.
"Pickup truck" is a broad definition. Of course a massive RAM Super Duty is going to be harder to park than a tiny Ranger. But the owner bought it because their lifestyle is better suited by a bigger truck. Having a bed is more practical for me. I live in an apartment, so I'd have no place to put a trailer. Even if I did have a place to put a trailer, most cargo I'd want to haul fits in the bed just fine. Trailers are also make maneuvering more difficult. Say I want to go camping. Navigating backwoods gravel roads is infinitely easier witg 4WD and a full bed than if I had a Prius and a trailer. Very few trucks actually cost $50k. My Tacoma cost ~$20k, which is right about the same as most new cars, but will hold that value for years longer than say an Altima. I can get 20mpg if I drive with gas consumption in mind. I typically get right around 18, because I have more fun in my truck than I could possibly have in a Civic with a shitty fart can that gets a few MPG more. That fun factor was also a big one for me. Sure, I can sip my Starbucks while I silently glide to Whole Foods in my Prius. Or I can tear up some muddy field with some friends and the satisfaction that only comes from loud engine noises, then get Starbucks and Whole Foods. You really don't understand how fun mud riding is until you've done it.
Alaskans use trucks. Its a necessity up here more cars are destroyed by the winter here, than trucks. Ive pulled audis, hondas, and alot of other cars. I hauled shit to the dump. Pulled trailers and loaded my toys and tools in the bed of my pickup. And the winters are harsher here and worse when only 1/16 of alaska has partially accessible roads. Sweden and finland are populted and majority has roads while our budget to keep roads maintain is low a truck can handle a pothole whilst a car will damage the underside or take off an oilpan without a skid. Plus a van is front wheel drive majority of the time so thats unsafe. And v40 cross country is allowed to tow at 1500kg it has a different gear ratio than a regular v40. But i wouldnt recommend it. Top gear had an episode on this only the diesel models like a toureg should be used. And they got stuck in mud quite a bit.
Wait guys he doesn't even drive a car of his own, he has no idea what he's talking about
Your first argument, that they are way too big, especially given that they're typically transporting a lone person with little to no cargo, can be expanded to cars in general. Even the typical sedan in the US is large and massive.
Towing things with sedans hasn't picked up in the U.S. yet and a van doesn't have a good transmission for towing heavy loads either.
I misread the title as "pick up trucks do not make good clown cars." Just a note to everyone else reading.
OP is gonna flip when he finds out about [Ute muster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_muster)s
A Porsche is the real clown car here.