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I grew up in a pretty rural part of the US and while those use cases were absolutely common for a decent percentage of large truck owners, they only used them f

I grew up in a pretty rural part of the US and while those use cases were absolutely common for a decent percentage of large truck owners, they only used them for those purposes about 5-10% of the time. The more reasonable folks had a small simple car for their daily driver, and weren't worried about using their big truck as a status symbol.

gruez 4y ago
>they only used them for those purposes about 5-10% of the time. "5-10%" works out to once every 1-2 weeks. That seems like a pretty good reason to have such a truck, considering that if you actually needed it it would be a huge hassle to rent one. I haven't done the math on this, but I imagine that if you used it even once every 3-4 weeks you'd come out ahead on time/money.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
How much ass does the second row of your average sedan see? I'd be surprised if it's even 5-10% of trips. Never-mind that if they were using the vehicle (sedan, pickup or otherwise) right up to the limit of it's capacity the majority of the time many here would be hand wringing about how they really should be using something with more spare capacity. This is fundamentally a societal expectations problem. People expect you to have more vehicle than you need. If you are maxing out what you have regularly you are "doing it wrong".
deltarholamda 4y ago
>they only used them for those purposes about 5-10% While true, when you need them, there is no substitute. So the answer is to have two vehicles, which may not be economically viable. Also, everybody has really strong opinions on the legitimacy of owning a truck until they need help moving.
- acdha 4y ago
  There's a certain logic for that but buying a luxury truck means you're paying a LOT more — like enough to buy one or even two additional new cars for every trip you don't need a truck for — and you're paying for a bunch of expensive stuff which is less durable for the times when you do need to use it as a work truck. If I'm moving, I can rent a truck from Home Depot which has a considerably larger bed for well under one percent of the extra cost of buying a super-sized truck. If I move less frequently than every day for a year, I'm still ahead by tens of thousands of dollars even before you consider how much extra I'd be paying to burn more fuel, which costs more per gallon, for every trip where I'm not doing something which needs that much towing capacity. You can pay a moving company to move your stuff multiple times a year, save tens of thousands of dollars, and not even have to pack your stuff.
  - Ancapistani 4y ago
    > buying a luxury truck means you're paying a LOT more It’s often difficult to sell a base-model truck, and you won’t get much for it. Ours is a 2001 F350 Lariat Super Duty. Even at two decades old, we could sell it in hours for $25k+.
  - deltarholamda 4y ago
    >If I'm moving, I can rent a truck from Home Depot which has a considerably larger bed for well under one percent of the extra cost of buying a super-sized truck This is definitely true, but as a former truck owner, I can tell you that's not how it works at all. "Hey, man, I really need some help moving, can you bring your truck over, I'll have pizza and beer!" Not to mention the rent-a-truck is pretty new. Yes, UHaul and the others exist, but they don't compete with "oh yeah, I know a guy with a truck."
    - acdha 4y ago
      Oh, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but the people I knew with these luxury trucks didn’t want to get them scuffed up. The old pickup I used to have was perfect for that but it was like half the weight, too, so I’d use that as an argument that most people are fine with what used to be normal sized trucks. The problem with the pizza and beer approach is that it only works for short moves - if you have anything like a substantial drive it’s a lot easier to rent a U-Haul so you can make one trip rather than multiplying time in traffic by half a dozen trips.

gruez 4y ago

>they only used them for those purposes about 5-10% of the time. "5-10%" works out to once every 1-2 weeks. That seems like a pretty good reason to have such a truck, considering that if you actually needed it it would be a huge hassle to rent one. I haven't done the math on this, but I imagine that if you used it even once every 3-4 weeks you'd come out ahead on time/money.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

How much ass does the second row of your average sedan see? I'd be surprised if it's even 5-10% of trips. Never-mind that if they were using the vehicle (sedan, pickup or otherwise) right up to the limit of it's capacity the majority of the time many here would be hand wringing about how they really should be using something with more spare capacity. This is fundamentally a societal expectations problem. People expect you to have more vehicle than you need. If you are maxing out what you have regularly you are "doing it wrong".

deltarholamda 4y ago

>they only used them for those purposes about 5-10% While true, when you need them, there is no substitute. So the answer is to have two vehicles, which may not be economically viable. Also, everybody has really strong opinions on the legitimacy of owning a truck until they need help moving.

acdha 4y ago
There's a certain logic for that but buying a luxury truck means you're paying a LOT more — like enough to buy one or even two additional new cars for every trip you don't need a truck for — and you're paying for a bunch of expensive stuff which is less durable for the times when you do need to use it as a work truck. If I'm moving, I can rent a truck from Home Depot which has a considerably larger bed for well under one percent of the extra cost of buying a super-sized truck. If I move less frequently than every day for a year, I'm still ahead by tens of thousands of dollars even before you consider how much extra I'd be paying to burn more fuel, which costs more per gallon, for every trip where I'm not doing something which needs that much towing capacity. You can pay a moving company to move your stuff multiple times a year, save tens of thousands of dollars, and not even have to pack your stuff.
- Ancapistani 4y ago
  > buying a luxury truck means you're paying a LOT more It’s often difficult to sell a base-model truck, and you won’t get much for it. Ours is a 2001 F350 Lariat Super Duty. Even at two decades old, we could sell it in hours for $25k+.
- deltarholamda 4y ago
  >If I'm moving, I can rent a truck from Home Depot which has a considerably larger bed for well under one percent of the extra cost of buying a super-sized truck This is definitely true, but as a former truck owner, I can tell you that's not how it works at all. "Hey, man, I really need some help moving, can you bring your truck over, I'll have pizza and beer!" Not to mention the rent-a-truck is pretty new. Yes, UHaul and the others exist, but they don't compete with "oh yeah, I know a guy with a truck."
  - acdha 4y ago
    Oh, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but the people I knew with these luxury trucks didn’t want to get them scuffed up. The old pickup I used to have was perfect for that but it was like half the weight, too, so I’d use that as an argument that most people are fine with what used to be normal sized trucks. The problem with the pizza and beer approach is that it only works for short moves - if you have anything like a substantial drive it’s a lot easier to rent a U-Haul so you can make one trip rather than multiplying time in traffic by half a dozen trips.