A picture of a hand holding remote car keys pointed at a white pickup truck. Below that is the text:
In the US, 75% of truck owners tow only once a year or less. Nearly 70% of them go off-road once a year or less. Additionally, 35% of truck owners haul something in their truck beds once a year or less
I doubt many people are driving around a $5k 2024 truck, but let's say it's reasonable or say that this is the difference between what you could otherwise have and what the truck costs. Let's also say you own the truck 10 years.
I don't know what your average trailer hire costs in the US. Maybe $20 for a few hours? Let's assume $50. So you need to hire a trailer 100 times in those 10 years, or 10 times a year.
Though as someone who doesn't own a truck but who hires a trailer once a year or so, if I have multiple things I save them up and do them together in one trailer hire, so a bit of planning makes it even less worth having a truck.
This doesn't even include the extra gas a truck guzzles, the cost of bigger tires, the cost of maintaince (bigger parts are usually more expensive, bigger engine holds more fluids).
I went from driving a 4x4 jeep to driving a small hatchback and the amount of money I'm saving is astronomical.
Here are a few options to remedy this rare problem.
Uhaul truck rental.
Ask a friend. family member or neighbor to help you out with their truck or ask to borrow their truck for the task at hand. (Fill the gas tank before returning it to ensure they'll be willing to let you borrow their truck again, when you need it.)
I didn’t say it did. I’m saying that when you need it, and you’re the guy that owns the truck, it’s nice. I’m not talking some lifted thing, but a midsize pickup is nice to have when you need it.
That’s a massive assumption and completely ignore that said family member may only use that bed once or twice a month to help others. And they would still be ridiculed by these people.
No I think you're misunderstanding me. When he said "you should just borrow a truck from a friend", he was describing what should be happening in an ideal situation. The ideal situation being that the only truck owners be people who legitimately need and use the truck for regular truck-related work. Thus whomever you borrow the truck from would be a person who actually uses the truck.
The whole purpose of this thread is calling out the problem of people who own a truck simply because "muh truck". Even smaller ones have a different gear ratio than cars to favor torque instead of gas mileage, so I believe it is a fair complaint within the context of this community.
Really that summarizes this whole debate. There are absolutely people that don't need it but buy one for a litany of bad reasons. Then, there are entire swaths of territory where having a pickup is just plain necessary. Live up north in a rural area? You probably have both a trailer and a PU to tow it because you need to be self sufficient, and have a lot of long distance hauling jobs.
I'd suggest though that the trend of absurdly high hood lines and everything being a monster truck aren't helping those populations either.
International Harvester made some great trucks. Fuck, chevy s-10s were handy and capable when I was a kid. Now everything is ginormous and crew cabbed so one person can drive around in a combine level shitwagon
The clearance is a very important consideration though. Where I am the bush is life so you NEED clearance just to drive on many 'roads' to get over huge ruts, small fallen trees, or just general bushwacking. Trucks like these are more akin to work trucks and not everyday unless driven by owner necessity (can't afford a 2nd car atm). Funny you should mention it, but my buddy is a mechanic and has a lifted S-10 that he's used more than once to get us out of a jam. That is often the case: the one with lowest clearance needs the most help.
A spare vehicle is legitimately useful if you have an actual use case and are fortunate enough to have the space for it. My winter car allows me to do all of my own maintenance without having to worry about stranding myself at home.
True, but most case i see is people spend more than necessary maintaining a vehicle they don't have a place to store for an emergency that only came once every few years, which will end up selling it anyway. Just like truck, it only works for a minority of people.
I suspect for many it is just a convenient excuse to buy a new vehicle because they're tired of their current one and need a way to justify the cost to themselves.