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Why not use a small trailer instead? I have a small hybrid, have driven 2200km since last time I filled the 40 liter tank, when I want some plywood, lumber or d

Why not use a small trailer instead? I have a small hybrid, have driven 2200km since last time I filled the 40 liter tank, when I want some plywood, lumber or dump run I connect my trailer which I can load 1000 kg on. I do live in a country where petrol isn't almost free so am not only saving the environment but also lots of money from not driving a lorry

orthecreedence 5y ago
My honda can't really haul anything but a few people and some surfboards. If I attached a trailer with 2000lb of base rock in it, it would probably kill the engine but more importantly would be super dangerous to drive since there's no real hitch or brake controller. So another vehicle was warranted: why not get one with the trailer "built in" (truck bed) so I don't have to have an SUV and a trailer that I have to hook up every time? There's other reasons I needed a tow-capable vehicle, but the utility of a truck just made the most sense. I agree that there's an entire class if stuff (lumber/plywood) you can strap to your roof or get a little trailer for that doesn't warrant a truck, but having one makes a lot of the stuff I do weekly so much easier.
- wffurr 5y ago
  Do you really haul 2000lb loads weekly? Your list of items "(getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc)." all seems perfectly doable with a trailer. I never had any trouble hauling trailers with my Subaru WRX sedan.
  - orthecreedence 5y ago
    Weekly? No. But it has happened enough times (20+) in the last eight months to justify a vehicle that can do it, among all the other things the truck can do that my honda cannot. Also, depending on the weight of the loads you're hauling in your trailer (lumber is obviously fine), you could be putting a lot of people on or around the road in danger. The brakes on a WRX are not designed for towing. I don't understand the weird fascination with people trying to convince others that they don't need a truck. Does it occur to you that I was aware that trailers existed before getting the truck and that their existence factored into the decision?
    - rich_sasha 5y ago
      Pure interest: would you mind listing the things you transported in more detail? Maybe not so much the raw materials but the end purpose. I don’t live in rural US (neither rural nor US). Here in UK you see more 4x4s in the countryside, part fashion, part poorer roads - but there is definitely plenty of countryside perfectly well served by regular cars, and you do see a lot of them about. Few trucks meanwhile. So my imagination can’t quite figure out the difference.
      - Snoozle 5y ago
        I think it's easy to underestimate just how large and undeveloped the majority of the USA is. England has a population density of 275 people per square kilometer, 281 if you consider the entire UK. UK also has an agricultural area of about 23 million acres, at 70% of available land. That means that a huge majority of UK land is developed and actively used, and over an area of 23 million acres. The US population density is 36 per square kilometer. That is about 1/8th the population density, which is already a huge difference. In addition, the total USA land used in agriculture is about 900 million acres, which is nearly 40x greater an area. So we are currently at 40x the agricultural land, at 1/8th the population density. The kicker to this is that the US agricultural land use is only 44%. So not only do we have 1/8 population density, 40x the agriculture land mass, we also don't even break 50% of land use for agriculture purposes. This all combines to mean a few things. 1. People that have land in the USA tend to have a lot more land. 2. There tends to be large amounts of unused land all over the place with no development. 3. A lot of land is being developed for the first time, instead of redeveloped. This doesn't directly answer your question as far as needing a trailer vs a truck, but it should give you an idea that the USA is much less developed and a lot more rugged than the countryside of a much older and more established and smaller land mass like the UK. Trucks make it a lot easier to handle all the unexpected situations that occur from having the land situation we have. One other point I'll add at the end of this. The USA also has extremely different and varied climates compared to the mild oceanic climate of the UK. This means more of every type of weather and bigger extremes. This takes huge tolls on both the roads and how tame undeveloped land is. For instance, in the midwest, it is not uncommon for large semi trucks and pickup trucks with huge tires to be the only cars capable of driving on the highway as the highway is covered in a foot of snow and they're the only vehicles capable of driving in it.
- rypskar 5y ago
  You don't need a truck to tow a larger trailer. My Audi A3 is rated to tow 1600kg. I did tow my 1000kg race car many times using a normal car without any problems and it was both safe and legal when I was racing. Trucks, and SUVs, are bad for the environment and are more unsafe for both the driver and for others.
  - orthecreedence 5y ago
    You don't need a vehicle to do anything. You can just walk or bike. If you need to move a large load, lift some weights or ask your friends to help you. People in egypt built the pyramids without vehicles. Vehicles in general are bad for the environment and are just plain unsafe for the driver and for others. Snark aside, why would I buy an Audi A3 when I already have a Honda? My truck is much more capable than your A3 and was probably much cheaper. Regarding safety, it's actually really safe because I only drive it when I need its hauling or towing capability.
    - sithadmin 5y ago
      Most pickup trucks are not going to be cheaper than the A3. A3's are not especially expensive if you factor out maintenance costs, and pickup trucks are inordinately expensive due to high demand in the US, plus dealers refusing to carry very many of the cheapest trim models for sales (unless doing a bulk deal for work fleet sales). Yes, in theory, an F-150 starts at 28K MSRP vs 32k for an A3...but good luck finding a new F-150 for 28k out the door. That said, as a former A4 owner, towing 1000+kg with an A3 seems like a death wish to me.
      - orthecreedence 5y ago
        I got my truck for <$7000. If towing/hauling are the goal, I'd trust a 90s pickup over any sedan regardless of manufacturer claims. And I do tow more than the A3's limits, so either way it's out the window. Agree with you on the tow ratings though. It's a really good idea to have some healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load, unless you're just going down the street.
- reedjosh 5y ago
  I have a little trailer and an older small SUV. I also have a house built in 1920. I would _really_ love a pickup. The trailer is a pain when you do as many runs for supplies as I do.
  - efsavage 5y ago
    I had the SUV/trailer combo for years, and it was handy but there are lots of things it's just not worth the hassle for. Now I have a pickup and making a daily trip to the town compost pile (to eventually get rid of the large pile of stuff that accrued over the trailer years) is super easy. I still have the trailer but haven't touched it once, I'd rather just make two trips with the truck. P.S. Trucks are just more fun! P.P.S. They're also cheaper to lease than SUVS thanks to crazy resale values.
  - orthecreedence 5y ago
    Yeah, people seem to forget the "pain in the ass" factor.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      And then there was the time I discovered that you cannot get 10' rebar into a Corvette. 6'? 8'? Sure. 10'? Not without shattering that fancy curved rear window.
dahfizz 5y ago
Does your car have an official towing capacity? In America at least, its rare for a non-SUV or truck to be officially rated for towing. So when you put a trailer on your little sedan and your brakes fail going down a long hill, insurance will have your head.
- rypskar 5y ago
  >>Does your car have an official towing capacity? Yes. Don't remember if it is 1500 or 1600kg. If a trailer is heavier than 750kg it does also have brakes, so that isn't a problem. It is an American thing thinking that you need a car 2x the weight of the trailer to tow it
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    > It is an American thing ... to tow RVs. Different game entirely than towing a utility trailer, which is more commonly all that you find Europeans towing behind a sedan.
  - beezle 5y ago
    1600kg is not a lot of tow capacity - only 3500 lbs. A base model Mustang for instance comes in at 3600 lbs. Most campers are going to exceed it as well especially when you add in supplies, etc. And that is not using a trailer. Most people also do not realize - you need to count the weight of the trailer, hitch, cargo and passengers against the rated tow capacity of the vehicle.
- willyt 5y ago
  Towing with a car is normal, you need to let your insurance know if you fit a towbar to a car that didn’t have one. You are limited to a max trailer weight of 750kg without an upgraded driving license. Also many normal sized cars have a max towing capacity which is about 750kgs anyway.
Enginerrrd 5y ago
As someone that owns a truck, I actually recommend this to a lot of people. It's really quite affordable and easy to rent one as needed too. However, there are definitely situations where a truck is vastly superior. I own a consulting company and I am a civl / environmental engineer that ends up driving a lot of forest service roads. ...so I have a 4wd truck. There are definitely weirdos out there that make a lot of judgments about me because I drive a truck.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > As someone that owns a truck, I actually recommend this to a lot of people So they don't constantly ask to borrow you and your truck? ;)
  - Enginerrrd 5y ago
    Lol! No, I just genuinely think its a very pragmatic approach.
Ichthypresbyter 5y ago
A lot of cars (rather than trucks) sold in the US either aren't rated to tow at all, or are rated to tow much less than the same car sold in other countries. For instance, a 2005 Subaru Forester is rated to tow 2400 lbs (1088 kg) in the US, but 1800 kg in Europe. The reason for this is different countries have different ideas of trailer safety- the US prioritizes allowing larger total weights to be towed at higher speeds, but Europe prioritizes allowing people to tow larger trailers with smaller cars. The European approach is to have less weight on the tongue of the trailer, which allows a smaller car to tow more without being overloaded, but results in a less dynamically stable configuration. They compensate for this by having lower speed limits for trailers and additional licensing requirements for drivers towing heavy trailers. See here: http://web.archive.org/web/20150520115726/https://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/tow-me-down-1609112611/1609771499 http://web.archive.org/web/20150520115726/https://oppositelo...

orthecreedence 5y ago

My honda can't really haul anything but a few people and some surfboards. If I attached a trailer with 2000lb of base rock in it, it would probably kill the engine but more importantly would be super dangerous to drive since there's no real hitch or brake controller. So another vehicle was warranted: why not get one with the trailer "built in" (truck bed) so I don't have to have an SUV and a trailer that I have to hook up every time? There's other reasons I needed a tow-capable vehicle, but the utility of a truck just made the most sense. I agree that there's an entire class if stuff (lumber/plywood) you can strap to your roof or get a little trailer for that doesn't warrant a truck, but having one makes a lot of the stuff I do weekly so much easier.

wffurr 5y ago
Do you really haul 2000lb loads weekly? Your list of items "(getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc)." all seems perfectly doable with a trailer. I never had any trouble hauling trailers with my Subaru WRX sedan.
- orthecreedence 5y ago
  Weekly? No. But it has happened enough times (20+) in the last eight months to justify a vehicle that can do it, among all the other things the truck can do that my honda cannot. Also, depending on the weight of the loads you're hauling in your trailer (lumber is obviously fine), you could be putting a lot of people on or around the road in danger. The brakes on a WRX are not designed for towing. I don't understand the weird fascination with people trying to convince others that they don't need a truck. Does it occur to you that I was aware that trailers existed before getting the truck and that their existence factored into the decision?
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    Pure interest: would you mind listing the things you transported in more detail? Maybe not so much the raw materials but the end purpose. I don’t live in rural US (neither rural nor US). Here in UK you see more 4x4s in the countryside, part fashion, part poorer roads - but there is definitely plenty of countryside perfectly well served by regular cars, and you do see a lot of them about. Few trucks meanwhile. So my imagination can’t quite figure out the difference.
    - Snoozle 5y ago
      I think it's easy to underestimate just how large and undeveloped the majority of the USA is. England has a population density of 275 people per square kilometer, 281 if you consider the entire UK. UK also has an agricultural area of about 23 million acres, at 70% of available land. That means that a huge majority of UK land is developed and actively used, and over an area of 23 million acres. The US population density is 36 per square kilometer. That is about 1/8th the population density, which is already a huge difference. In addition, the total USA land used in agriculture is about 900 million acres, which is nearly 40x greater an area. So we are currently at 40x the agricultural land, at 1/8th the population density. The kicker to this is that the US agricultural land use is only 44%. So not only do we have 1/8 population density, 40x the agriculture land mass, we also don't even break 50% of land use for agriculture purposes. This all combines to mean a few things. 1. People that have land in the USA tend to have a lot more land. 2. There tends to be large amounts of unused land all over the place with no development. 3. A lot of land is being developed for the first time, instead of redeveloped. This doesn't directly answer your question as far as needing a trailer vs a truck, but it should give you an idea that the USA is much less developed and a lot more rugged than the countryside of a much older and more established and smaller land mass like the UK. Trucks make it a lot easier to handle all the unexpected situations that occur from having the land situation we have. One other point I'll add at the end of this. The USA also has extremely different and varied climates compared to the mild oceanic climate of the UK. This means more of every type of weather and bigger extremes. This takes huge tolls on both the roads and how tame undeveloped land is. For instance, in the midwest, it is not uncommon for large semi trucks and pickup trucks with huge tires to be the only cars capable of driving on the highway as the highway is covered in a foot of snow and they're the only vehicles capable of driving in it.
rypskar 5y ago
You don't need a truck to tow a larger trailer. My Audi A3 is rated to tow 1600kg. I did tow my 1000kg race car many times using a normal car without any problems and it was both safe and legal when I was racing. Trucks, and SUVs, are bad for the environment and are more unsafe for both the driver and for others.
- orthecreedence 5y ago
  You don't need a vehicle to do anything. You can just walk or bike. If you need to move a large load, lift some weights or ask your friends to help you. People in egypt built the pyramids without vehicles. Vehicles in general are bad for the environment and are just plain unsafe for the driver and for others. Snark aside, why would I buy an Audi A3 when I already have a Honda? My truck is much more capable than your A3 and was probably much cheaper. Regarding safety, it's actually really safe because I only drive it when I need its hauling or towing capability.
  - sithadmin 5y ago
    Most pickup trucks are not going to be cheaper than the A3. A3's are not especially expensive if you factor out maintenance costs, and pickup trucks are inordinately expensive due to high demand in the US, plus dealers refusing to carry very many of the cheapest trim models for sales (unless doing a bulk deal for work fleet sales). Yes, in theory, an F-150 starts at 28K MSRP vs 32k for an A3...but good luck finding a new F-150 for 28k out the door. That said, as a former A4 owner, towing 1000+kg with an A3 seems like a death wish to me.
    - orthecreedence 5y ago
      I got my truck for <$7000. If towing/hauling are the goal, I'd trust a 90s pickup over any sedan regardless of manufacturer claims. And I do tow more than the A3's limits, so either way it's out the window. Agree with you on the tow ratings though. It's a really good idea to have some healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load, unless you're just going down the street.
reedjosh 5y ago
I have a little trailer and an older small SUV. I also have a house built in 1920. I would _really_ love a pickup. The trailer is a pain when you do as many runs for supplies as I do.
- efsavage 5y ago
  I had the SUV/trailer combo for years, and it was handy but there are lots of things it's just not worth the hassle for. Now I have a pickup and making a daily trip to the town compost pile (to eventually get rid of the large pile of stuff that accrued over the trailer years) is super easy. I still have the trailer but haven't touched it once, I'd rather just make two trips with the truck. P.S. Trucks are just more fun! P.P.S. They're also cheaper to lease than SUVS thanks to crazy resale values.
- orthecreedence 5y ago
  Yeah, people seem to forget the "pain in the ass" factor.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    And then there was the time I discovered that you cannot get 10' rebar into a Corvette. 6'? 8'? Sure. 10'? Not without shattering that fancy curved rear window.

dahfizz 5y ago

Does your car have an official towing capacity? In America at least, its rare for a non-SUV or truck to be officially rated for towing. So when you put a trailer on your little sedan and your brakes fail going down a long hill, insurance will have your head.

rypskar 5y ago
>>Does your car have an official towing capacity? Yes. Don't remember if it is 1500 or 1600kg. If a trailer is heavier than 750kg it does also have brakes, so that isn't a problem. It is an American thing thinking that you need a car 2x the weight of the trailer to tow it
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > It is an American thing ... to tow RVs. Different game entirely than towing a utility trailer, which is more commonly all that you find Europeans towing behind a sedan.
- beezle 5y ago
  1600kg is not a lot of tow capacity - only 3500 lbs. A base model Mustang for instance comes in at 3600 lbs. Most campers are going to exceed it as well especially when you add in supplies, etc. And that is not using a trailer. Most people also do not realize - you need to count the weight of the trailer, hitch, cargo and passengers against the rated tow capacity of the vehicle.
willyt 5y ago
Towing with a car is normal, you need to let your insurance know if you fit a towbar to a car that didn’t have one. You are limited to a max trailer weight of 750kg without an upgraded driving license. Also many normal sized cars have a max towing capacity which is about 750kgs anyway.

Enginerrrd 5y ago

As someone that owns a truck, I actually recommend this to a lot of people. It's really quite affordable and easy to rent one as needed too. However, there are definitely situations where a truck is vastly superior. I own a consulting company and I am a civl / environmental engineer that ends up driving a lot of forest service roads. ...so I have a 4wd truck. There are definitely weirdos out there that make a lot of judgments about me because I drive a truck.

rootusrootus 5y ago
> As someone that owns a truck, I actually recommend this to a lot of people So they don't constantly ask to borrow you and your truck? ;)
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  Lol! No, I just genuinely think its a very pragmatic approach.

Ichthypresbyter 5y ago

A lot of cars (rather than trucks) sold in the US either aren't rated to tow at all, or are rated to tow much less than the same car sold in other countries. For instance, a 2005 Subaru Forester is rated to tow 2400 lbs (1088 kg) in the US, but 1800 kg in Europe. The reason for this is different countries have different ideas of trailer safety- the US prioritizes allowing larger total weights to be towed at higher speeds, but Europe prioritizes allowing people to tow larger trailers with smaller cars. The European approach is to have less weight on the tongue of the trailer, which allows a smaller car to tow more without being overloaded, but results in a less dynamically stable configuration. They compensate for this by having lower speed limits for trailers and additional licensing requirements for drivers towing heavy trailers. See here: http://web.archive.org/web/20150520115726/https://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/tow-me-down-1609112611/1609771499 http://web.archive.org/web/20150520115726/https://oppositelo...