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Here in Seattle, I have one close friend with a pickup, everyone else drives Subarus (no exception). But in all seriousness, he gets asked about 1.5x a week if

Here in Seattle, I have one close friend with a pickup, everyone else drives Subarus (no exception). But in all seriousness, he gets asked about 1.5x a week if someone can borrow his truck, it's insane how far this "ask" stretches itself. It drives him a little bonkers, but he's also a pretty nice guy so he says yes more than he should. Anyways, I'd probably buy a smaller pickup because of how often my partner buys and sells used furniture as a hobby, but I don't want to be the friend with the truck in the city.

carabiner 5y ago
Many Tacoma owners in Seattle (fun fact, Tacoma is the native name for Mt. Rainier). I'm one of them. I've owned it for 7 years, 3 in Seattle, and I've never once been asked by someone to borrow it. Guess I must be a loner. You can rent a cargo van from UHaul without much trouble. Also, I have to laugh at all these anecdotes about owning a pickup as a personality trait. I wasn't inducted into some pickups dudes club when I got mine. People haven't treated me any differently - still a nerdy, introverted guy who does a lot of outdoors sports. I drive to the grocery store or trailhead or city park in my truck, do my thing, and go home.
- enjo 5y ago
  "You can rent a cargo van from UHaul without much trouble." Maybe we have different definitions of what "much trouble" is. It takes like an hour to do anything with UHaul where I'm at. It's insane how bad that company is at doing the most basic thing that they've been doing for like 4 decades.
  - drewg123 5y ago
    I rented one last fall, and they have a mostly electronic pick up and return process now. The biggest delay was getting the keys when I went to the gas station to get the van. I waited ~5 minutes in line for the cashier, and then she had to call somebody from the back. The return was easy.. just take a few pics on my phone as part of their return process, and then drop the keys in a drop box.
    - xattt 5y ago
      This obviously depends on how forward-looking the manager is at a particular location.
  - rizzom5000 5y ago
    UHaul rentals are painful, but Home Depot has a truck rental program that is relatively painless if you can deal with the no reservations policy. I've done some fairly substantial remodel projects without owning a truck.
    - foobarian 5y ago
      I live 5 minutes from a HD and it is still a giant PITA to rent their truck. Usually there is a line and the transactions are relatively slow. Then you have to gas it up. Then you have to make an extra trip, even more if you're not using it to bring home a Home Depot purchase. Then you only have it for 75 minutes.
      - rizzom5000 5y ago
        I just check online and see which store has the truck I want. I haven't had any issues with lines and there is no limit on how long I can keep it where I live. I'm in a major metro area though so ymmv.
      - olyjohn 5y ago
        I have a Harbor Freight trailer I tow with a Honda fit. It's 8 feet long, and I built sides on it about 4 feet tall. It's got a 1500lb capacity, and my hitch on my car is rated to 2000lbs. The trailer was $300, the hitch for my car was $150. Spent a few bucks on wood for the floor and sides of the trailer. Been using this thing for about 20 years. Never needed a truck. Most truck beds anymore are less than 6 feet long, because everybody needs a 4 door. A trailer is $35,000 cheaper than a truck, and when you unhook it from your car, you can still use the car to take a trip and get 35-40mpg. I tow motorcycles, dirt, trash to the dump. I tore off my old roof and hauled it all to the dump in my trailer. I have used it to bring home 16 foot boards, plywood, sheetrock. It's light enough that I can move it around when it's unhooked. It takes about 30 seconds to hook up. My neighbor did the same thing, and built his entire deck, brought in all his concrete, boards, materials, etc in with his Mazda 3 on a small utility trailer. These small trailers are so useful and cheap, I don't know why you'd spend any money renting one. And they're actually more useful than these pickups with short stubby beds that are only good for a half ton anyways.
  - zardo 5y ago
    In Seattle, there's a good chance it takes an hour to go pick up your friend's pickup.
  - ethanjstark 5y ago
    So bad--it boggles my mind. We joke that their company moto is: "U-Haul: It's Always Somthing". So many instances of showing up after reserving online, and the staff says, "Uh, we don't have that truck." Most recently, my friends couldn't get their reserved truck (on their moving day) because their site (and backend) was down nationwide. They had the truck, but _because_ everything's digital now, they had no fallback ability to rent out the reserved truck.
    - olyjohn 5y ago
      Not only that, but their arbitrary safety rules get really annoying. "No you can't hook that onto the bumper hitch, even though its rated for 4500lbs. The rules say you need a receiver." The receiver is still rated for 4500lbs but that's okay. But then they are happy to slap a receiver onto any passenger car that is not rated to tow at all and let you load up as much as you want into one of their box trailers.
  - carabiner 5y ago
    Fair, it's been a few years since I rented one. It still works better than a truck in most cases since it protects your stuff from rain, car exhaust, mud splashes etc.
    - DHPersonal 5y ago
      I needed to pick up a bunk bed I bought on Facebook Marketplace, so I rented a small U-Haul in my neighborhood last year to make the whole process simpler. I downloaded the U-Haul app to schedule the rental, used the truck for about an hour and was pleased that the return process took about five minutes. There may be lots of horror stories about renting a U-Haul in a big city, but the process of renting a U-Haul in the suburbs — the place where the truck got lots of its stigma over MAGA owners rolling coal down Main Street — has only been incredibly easy for me, so much so that owning a truck seems rather pointless. I've also rented a U-Haul for most of the times I've moved, either across-city or interstate, and each of those processes have been simple and not time-consuming.
  - cozzyd 5y ago
    Zipcar used to have cargo vans. Not sure if they still do (don't use them anymore). But I haven't had a terrible experience at UHaul, as long as you go to one of their big locations. (I always go to this location in Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8543365,-87.6406812,3a,75y,141.15h,93.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVsnaGEGkIgmeNBjmT04bwQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8543365,-87.6406812,3a,75y,1... , even if it's not the closest, it's easy enough to get to and they don't run out of stuff...)
singlow 5y ago
I used to own a pickup. I resolved to never own another one because it resulted in requests to help haul stuff or help someone move at least twice per month.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  I'm actually the opposite here, I love being asked to help people. I feel that it strengthens my relationships with them and makes me feel important.
  - munificent 5y ago
    My too. This is literally why I bought a pick-up truck 20 years ago. (Which I still drive today. The Tacoma will outlive me.) I love it myself. I've moved with it, carried music equipment to gigs with it, brought home countless DIY projects from the hardware store with it, and even camped in the back of it. But I also have done many many favors for friends.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Some people count on that to take advantage of you. One of the easiest strategies is to start asking for small favors, and then move on to bigger ones. Because the person has already granted you a small favor, it’s harder for many to say no to the bigger ones even if they want to. But if it makes you happy, I guess that’s all that matters!
    - Andrex 5y ago
      That sounds like the natural progression of a relationship/friendship to me. I'd ask my better-known friends larger tasks than people I don't know as well, too.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Yes, of course, if it’s a two way relationship. But I’ve seen plenty where the “mark” is unaware or cognitively dissonant that they are being taken advantage of. Initially, they take pride in being able to help someone, but eventually they’re giving much more than taking, and they cannot bring themselves to say no, whether it be to keep themselves happy because “if I’ve helped them before, why should I not help them now…even though I don’t really want to”, or to avoid confrontation. Pride is always a liability, so I like to try to keep away from it as much as possible.
downut 5y ago
In the 90s we lived in SF SOMA and I had a 4WD pickup. It was excellent for hauling antique furniture and oddball arty type things (store couldn't possibly deliver). And it was perfect for exploring the Lost Coast, Trinity Alps, Owens & Saline Valley etc. Manual steering, so || parking was a nice upper body workout. The apartment garage space was $100/month, well worth it. But... the idea that you would have to plug it in on a multiday trip... yeah, I'm laughing. I just drove central AZ->Sacramento->Ft. Bragg->SF->San Jose->Sacramento->AZ in a Prius. Nope, I'm not digging the charging idea. I don't recall having that many problems with the borrowers. I helped some people move, maybe once a year. The way it works is they reciprocate with something else, or else, you discover they are not your friend. That's useful to know.
- pengaru 5y ago
  Being a giant pickup truck, how long do you think it'll be before there's a variety of petrol range extenders that go in the frunk and/or bed? I fully expect that to be something the local u-haul rents out for cross-country road-trips.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    I still can't believe a diesel-electric, "train-locomotive-on-tires" hybrid concept has never been attempted stateside. Electrical motor torque (from rest) screams to be marketed to American truck buyers. It's the one EV market that probably didn't ever need environmentalism as a boost to be successful.
    - downut 5y ago
      Mail delivery trucks. All delivery trucks? Regenerative braking is a beautiful thing.
  - downut 5y ago
    A 2016 Prius gets ~40++ mpg on a 10 gal tank all day at 90mph. That is, >> 400 mile range per fueling stop. I heard this on the internets, of course, I wouldn't know, personally ;-). Fueling stops imply human fuel as well. I gazed with amazement at all the fanboyz in the threads above about what a gamechanger this E-truck is. Oh. 230 mile range OPTIMAL. Some hope of a range extending $$$ option. wrt to your comment, of course that would be a game changer, if a hybrid E-truck could get 40+ mpg with a 400+ mile range. (No comment on the aerodynamics and efficiency at speed) And the imagination goes... yeah, you could now financialize on-site construction generators... emergency power generators... whoa baby let me in where do I invest. Because you could market this to sportsball enthusiasts and then scale. In the US, maybe? Well, I in fact own a 2001 Tundra V8 4WD which I recently refurbed $3K into because it just works. But I sure wish it got 40 mpg instead of an optimistic 13 mpg. Extra gas tanks are a well known technology for extended off road excursions, for a century now.
hourislate 5y ago
Uhaul rents pickups for $20 a day plus mileage in Seattle. Let your friend know so he can point everyone there.
cannaceo 5y ago
I had an employee once who told me his pickup provided him job security. Every company he worked for wanted him to use the truck for errands. He was able to get $2-3/hr more than everyone else. There were a few times I wanted to let him go but we needed his truck.
- bena 5y ago
  Wouldn't just buying a truck for the company be cheaper than a whole employee?
  - shard 5y ago
    I would imagine someone without a truck was let go instead. It's just the delta between a him and a truck-less employee, not a whole employee.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    If the company owns the truck, they then have to get insurance for it, and to get reasonably priced insurance, they will likely need to run background checks on everyone allowed to drive it. It is much less hassle and money to throw a few bucks an hour at the guy who is willing to use his own to run the errands if thr company doesn't need the truck for anything else.
    - bena 5y ago
      There are liability and insurance concerns with having your employees use their own vehicles for company work as well. That does not go away.
  - smabie 5y ago
    I mean, the employee presumably isn't adding zero value. Maybe he's not as great as someone else, but his truck tips the scales just over the line in his favor?
  - cannaceo 5y ago
    Lots of reasons that I didn't at that time. I didn't want to deal with the hassle of purchasing and maintaining a truck and didn't have a place to park it. I wasn't going to park it at my house and didn't want to use one of my two parking spots at my warehouse. We weren't doing things the buttoned up proper way at the time but most small businesses cut corners to make things work. You can go broke being excessively compliant.

carabiner 5y ago

Many Tacoma owners in Seattle (fun fact, Tacoma is the native name for Mt. Rainier). I'm one of them. I've owned it for 7 years, 3 in Seattle, and I've never once been asked by someone to borrow it. Guess I must be a loner. You can rent a cargo van from UHaul without much trouble. Also, I have to laugh at all these anecdotes about owning a pickup as a personality trait. I wasn't inducted into some pickups dudes club when I got mine. People haven't treated me any differently - still a nerdy, introverted guy who does a lot of outdoors sports. I drive to the grocery store or trailhead or city park in my truck, do my thing, and go home.

enjo 5y ago
"You can rent a cargo van from UHaul without much trouble." Maybe we have different definitions of what "much trouble" is. It takes like an hour to do anything with UHaul where I'm at. It's insane how bad that company is at doing the most basic thing that they've been doing for like 4 decades.
- drewg123 5y ago
  I rented one last fall, and they have a mostly electronic pick up and return process now. The biggest delay was getting the keys when I went to the gas station to get the van. I waited ~5 minutes in line for the cashier, and then she had to call somebody from the back. The return was easy.. just take a few pics on my phone as part of their return process, and then drop the keys in a drop box.
  - xattt 5y ago
    This obviously depends on how forward-looking the manager is at a particular location.
- rizzom5000 5y ago
  UHaul rentals are painful, but Home Depot has a truck rental program that is relatively painless if you can deal with the no reservations policy. I've done some fairly substantial remodel projects without owning a truck.
  - foobarian 5y ago
    I live 5 minutes from a HD and it is still a giant PITA to rent their truck. Usually there is a line and the transactions are relatively slow. Then you have to gas it up. Then you have to make an extra trip, even more if you're not using it to bring home a Home Depot purchase. Then you only have it for 75 minutes.
    - rizzom5000 5y ago
      I just check online and see which store has the truck I want. I haven't had any issues with lines and there is no limit on how long I can keep it where I live. I'm in a major metro area though so ymmv.
    - olyjohn 5y ago
      I have a Harbor Freight trailer I tow with a Honda fit. It's 8 feet long, and I built sides on it about 4 feet tall. It's got a 1500lb capacity, and my hitch on my car is rated to 2000lbs. The trailer was $300, the hitch for my car was $150. Spent a few bucks on wood for the floor and sides of the trailer. Been using this thing for about 20 years. Never needed a truck. Most truck beds anymore are less than 6 feet long, because everybody needs a 4 door. A trailer is $35,000 cheaper than a truck, and when you unhook it from your car, you can still use the car to take a trip and get 35-40mpg. I tow motorcycles, dirt, trash to the dump. I tore off my old roof and hauled it all to the dump in my trailer. I have used it to bring home 16 foot boards, plywood, sheetrock. It's light enough that I can move it around when it's unhooked. It takes about 30 seconds to hook up. My neighbor did the same thing, and built his entire deck, brought in all his concrete, boards, materials, etc in with his Mazda 3 on a small utility trailer. These small trailers are so useful and cheap, I don't know why you'd spend any money renting one. And they're actually more useful than these pickups with short stubby beds that are only good for a half ton anyways.
- zardo 5y ago
  In Seattle, there's a good chance it takes an hour to go pick up your friend's pickup.
- ethanjstark 5y ago
  So bad--it boggles my mind. We joke that their company moto is: "U-Haul: It's Always Somthing". So many instances of showing up after reserving online, and the staff says, "Uh, we don't have that truck." Most recently, my friends couldn't get their reserved truck (on their moving day) because their site (and backend) was down nationwide. They had the truck, but _because_ everything's digital now, they had no fallback ability to rent out the reserved truck.
  - olyjohn 5y ago
    Not only that, but their arbitrary safety rules get really annoying. "No you can't hook that onto the bumper hitch, even though its rated for 4500lbs. The rules say you need a receiver." The receiver is still rated for 4500lbs but that's okay. But then they are happy to slap a receiver onto any passenger car that is not rated to tow at all and let you load up as much as you want into one of their box trailers.
- carabiner 5y ago
  Fair, it's been a few years since I rented one. It still works better than a truck in most cases since it protects your stuff from rain, car exhaust, mud splashes etc.
  - DHPersonal 5y ago
    I needed to pick up a bunk bed I bought on Facebook Marketplace, so I rented a small U-Haul in my neighborhood last year to make the whole process simpler. I downloaded the U-Haul app to schedule the rental, used the truck for about an hour and was pleased that the return process took about five minutes. There may be lots of horror stories about renting a U-Haul in a big city, but the process of renting a U-Haul in the suburbs — the place where the truck got lots of its stigma over MAGA owners rolling coal down Main Street — has only been incredibly easy for me, so much so that owning a truck seems rather pointless. I've also rented a U-Haul for most of the times I've moved, either across-city or interstate, and each of those processes have been simple and not time-consuming.
- cozzyd 5y ago
  Zipcar used to have cargo vans. Not sure if they still do (don't use them anymore). But I haven't had a terrible experience at UHaul, as long as you go to one of their big locations. (I always go to this location in Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8543365,-87.6406812,3a,75y,141.15h,93.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVsnaGEGkIgmeNBjmT04bwQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8543365,-87.6406812,3a,75y,1... , even if it's not the closest, it's easy enough to get to and they don't run out of stuff...)

singlow 5y ago

I used to own a pickup. I resolved to never own another one because it resulted in requests to help haul stuff or help someone move at least twice per month.

DangitBobby 5y ago
I'm actually the opposite here, I love being asked to help people. I feel that it strengthens my relationships with them and makes me feel important.
- munificent 5y ago
  My too. This is literally why I bought a pick-up truck 20 years ago. (Which I still drive today. The Tacoma will outlive me.) I love it myself. I've moved with it, carried music equipment to gigs with it, brought home countless DIY projects from the hardware store with it, and even camped in the back of it. But I also have done many many favors for friends.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Some people count on that to take advantage of you. One of the easiest strategies is to start asking for small favors, and then move on to bigger ones. Because the person has already granted you a small favor, it’s harder for many to say no to the bigger ones even if they want to. But if it makes you happy, I guess that’s all that matters!
  - Andrex 5y ago
    That sounds like the natural progression of a relationship/friendship to me. I'd ask my better-known friends larger tasks than people I don't know as well, too.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Yes, of course, if it’s a two way relationship. But I’ve seen plenty where the “mark” is unaware or cognitively dissonant that they are being taken advantage of. Initially, they take pride in being able to help someone, but eventually they’re giving much more than taking, and they cannot bring themselves to say no, whether it be to keep themselves happy because “if I’ve helped them before, why should I not help them now…even though I don’t really want to”, or to avoid confrontation. Pride is always a liability, so I like to try to keep away from it as much as possible.

downut 5y ago

In the 90s we lived in SF SOMA and I had a 4WD pickup. It was excellent for hauling antique furniture and oddball arty type things (store couldn't possibly deliver). And it was perfect for exploring the Lost Coast, Trinity Alps, Owens & Saline Valley etc. Manual steering, so || parking was a nice upper body workout. The apartment garage space was $100/month, well worth it. But... the idea that you would have to plug it in on a multiday trip... yeah, I'm laughing. I just drove central AZ->Sacramento->Ft. Bragg->SF->San Jose->Sacramento->AZ in a Prius. Nope, I'm not digging the charging idea. I don't recall having that many problems with the borrowers. I helped some people move, maybe once a year. The way it works is they reciprocate with something else, or else, you discover they are not your friend. That's useful to know.

pengaru 5y ago
Being a giant pickup truck, how long do you think it'll be before there's a variety of petrol range extenders that go in the frunk and/or bed? I fully expect that to be something the local u-haul rents out for cross-country road-trips.
- beerandt 5y ago
  I still can't believe a diesel-electric, "train-locomotive-on-tires" hybrid concept has never been attempted stateside. Electrical motor torque (from rest) screams to be marketed to American truck buyers. It's the one EV market that probably didn't ever need environmentalism as a boost to be successful.
  - downut 5y ago
    Mail delivery trucks. All delivery trucks? Regenerative braking is a beautiful thing.
- downut 5y ago
  A 2016 Prius gets ~40++ mpg on a 10 gal tank all day at 90mph. That is, >> 400 mile range per fueling stop. I heard this on the internets, of course, I wouldn't know, personally ;-). Fueling stops imply human fuel as well. I gazed with amazement at all the fanboyz in the threads above about what a gamechanger this E-truck is. Oh. 230 mile range OPTIMAL. Some hope of a range extending $$$ option. wrt to your comment, of course that would be a game changer, if a hybrid E-truck could get 40+ mpg with a 400+ mile range. (No comment on the aerodynamics and efficiency at speed) And the imagination goes... yeah, you could now financialize on-site construction generators... emergency power generators... whoa baby let me in where do I invest. Because you could market this to sportsball enthusiasts and then scale. In the US, maybe? Well, I in fact own a 2001 Tundra V8 4WD which I recently refurbed $3K into because it just works. But I sure wish it got 40 mpg instead of an optimistic 13 mpg. Extra gas tanks are a well known technology for extended off road excursions, for a century now.

hourislate 5y ago

Uhaul rents pickups for $20 a day plus mileage in Seattle. Let your friend know so he can point everyone there.

cannaceo 5y ago

I had an employee once who told me his pickup provided him job security. Every company he worked for wanted him to use the truck for errands. He was able to get $2-3/hr more than everyone else. There were a few times I wanted to let him go but we needed his truck.

bena 5y ago
Wouldn't just buying a truck for the company be cheaper than a whole employee?
- shard 5y ago
  I would imagine someone without a truck was let go instead. It's just the delta between a him and a truck-less employee, not a whole employee.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  If the company owns the truck, they then have to get insurance for it, and to get reasonably priced insurance, they will likely need to run background checks on everyone allowed to drive it. It is much less hassle and money to throw a few bucks an hour at the guy who is willing to use his own to run the errands if thr company doesn't need the truck for anything else.
  - bena 5y ago
    There are liability and insurance concerns with having your employees use their own vehicles for company work as well. That does not go away.
- smabie 5y ago
  I mean, the employee presumably isn't adding zero value. Maybe he's not as great as someone else, but his truck tips the scales just over the line in his favor?
- cannaceo 5y ago
  Lots of reasons that I didn't at that time. I didn't want to deal with the hassle of purchasing and maintaining a truck and didn't have a place to park it. I wasn't going to park it at my house and didn't want to use one of my two parking spots at my warehouse. We weren't doing things the buttoned up proper way at the time but most small businesses cut corners to make things work. You can go broke being excessively compliant.