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These HN threads about trucks are amazing. It’s like watching the same movie over and over again * Kei trucks are the coolest. Big gubment is making it so we c
by waiseristy 3y ago
These HN threads about trucks are amazing. It’s like watching the same movie over and over again
* Kei trucks are the coolest. Big gubment is making it so we can’t register them due to protectionism!
* Chicken tax chicken tax chicken tax
* Big trucks cause more crashes because reasons!
* Trucks are just lifestyle vehicles and nobody actually needs or uses them
Over and over and over again
- warmwaffles 3y ago> nobody actually needs or uses them These make me chuckle. Those people have never done home improvement projects or just projects that require picking up 8ft sheets of plywood or 20 bags of mulch.
- woodruffw 3y agoI put 20 bags of mulch in an SUV last weekend, one that almost certainly could carry less than TFA's mini-truck-thing. What gives?
- ghaff 3y agoAs someone who lives in an old house on a fair bit of land, I sort of agree. A sedan wouldn't really work for me but an SUV with a roof rack is mostly just as good as a truck. (And I suppose I could always buy a trailer if it were really an issue.) The enclosed space is more generally useful than a truck bed.
- rootusrootus 3y agoThat's the expensive route if you do it too often. I can buy 2 yards of mulch scooped into the back of my truck for quite a bit less than the cost of 20 bags. And then there's things like gravel, which you really don't want to try and get in bags at all. I could probably get by with a smaller truck if I didn't tow a big trailer with it, but I'd still choose an actual open-bed truck over an SUV or minivan. Different strokes for different folks. It's going to depend a lot on what you routinely haul.
- woodruffw 3y agoSure. To your point above: do you think that trucks are the best-selling car in the US because Americans are routinely hauling loose gravel, or could it be something else? I suspect it's something else.
- rootusrootus 3y agoI suspect it's because a modern crew cab half-ton pickup is pretty close to the perfect vehicle for a big swath of Americans. Huge interior room for the family, enough bed & payload to be useful for everything from hauling appliances to gravel, dirt, lumber, whatever. Just about the only thing it doesn't do well is fuel economy and driving in downtown urban areas. A large number of people rank those issues low on the list.
- ghaff 3y agoI mostly do outdoor activities that benefit from more interior space. I'd probably buy a trailer if mulch, gravel, etc. hauling became an issue. You're right that it depends on what you need space that's more than a sedan or a hatchback for.
- TheSpiceIsLife 3y agoI have a long wheelbase van with room racks, plus a trailer. But pick up the overwhelm majority of items in the Celica, a two door hatch. Anyways, suppliers deliver.
- everdrive 3y agoI think vans are a great choice, but from what I can find they’re not any cheaper than trucks. ie, getting one for less than 40k seems to be out of the question.
- jrockway 3y agoIs the price premium worth occasional use? Every DIY store I've ever been to has truck rental outside, and it's a lot less than a new truck.
- crazyjncsu 3y agoTo be fair to those people, they also don’t think you need your plywood and mulch because you should live in a nice little apartment with a surely altruistic landlord who takes care of every need that the plywood and mulch could satisfy.
- oblio 3y agoSomeone who does home improvements probably own a house. Shouldn't they be able to, you know, buy an apartment, if "the mising middle" apartments were available in the US and not banned by a million laws (freedom! :-) ).
- joeframbach 3y agoHome Depot rents a big truck for $20-$40 for the 2 hours I'd need it. I could rent this truck every weekend for 30 years for the same price as a giant truck. And I wouldn't have to worry about its maintenance either.
- alexjplant 3y agoOnce you do this math it becomes very difficult to justify truck ownership without also being responsible for something that needs hauling/towing on a regular basis. The truth is that in 2023 a truck is a lifestyle purchase for many people as evidenced by the average cost of a new F-150 and the inability to buy buy a no-frills Regular Cab pickup outside of fleet sales. If you'd have told me 15 years ago that people would be buying pickup trucks brand new for $60k with regularity I wouldn't have believed you but here we are...
- everdrive 3y agoI don’t disagree with your main point, but you can definitely still get regular cab no frills trucks. (Sadly that’s just not what most people buy)
- alexjplant 3y ago...and so many dealers don't stock them. I honestly don't remember the last time that I saw a new one on a lot, let alone the road. Of course n=1 and all of that but I used to own one and live in a rural area so I don't think I'm far off.
- warmwaffles 3y agoDepends on use case. I do more than what I originally posted. I do pull a trailer with a small tractor on it frequently and move a lot more stuff than normal people do. Renting a truck would be more of a hassle for this type of work than for me to just pay the premium and own the thing out right. > I could rent this truck every weekend for 30 years for the same price as a giant truck. That assumes the price never increases for 30 years.
- leviathant 3y agoMy wife and I completely gutted and renovated a 2 bedroom home built in 1905 with a used 2007 Dodge Magnum and a roof rack. We initially bought it for a road trip around the US because it saved us thousands of dollars in fuel economy (it was a 3.5l V6) over the month-long trip compared to any van or truck. I initially bought it with the intent of selling it right after the road trip, but it ended up being a really well-rounded vehicle. I grew up in south central Pennsylvania, and while we still have a fair amount of farmers in that region, most people buy trucks because they're marketed to, not because they're the right vehicle to own. I clicked through here because I've seen a couple of Kei trucks in Philadelphia lately.
- placesalt 3y agoMy corolla takes 10' long boards. Never maxed out the bags of mulch, but it's >10 for sure. Have been thinking about a roof rack for sheet goods. Can't see why it wouldn't work.
- avidphantasm 3y agoUsually cars of this class can only support about 100lbs on the roof. We have Prius and RAV4 Hybrid with that limitation. The roof racks are still very useful, but I wouldn’t put 4x8 sheets of anything on them.
- mindslight 3y agoI moved a bunch of sheet goods with my Civic coupe, by which I mean I moved sheet goods on a bunch of occasions, one or two each time. The problem comes out to be weight, and ease of loading/driving. The real solution for moving larger things is a trailer. UHaul rents trailers for the occasional use ~$20/day, no mileage charge. I say occasional use because it takes effort to go and get it, and UHaul builds them like brick shithouses. So you can get a lighter one that's nicer to tow if you buy one for a few kilobucks. I inherited a light crossover SUV that's more than capable of towing a 5x10 trailer with a modest amount of weight around town. It does highways too, but keeping ~65 rather than ~80. If I were still limited to the Civic and needed to move stuff on the regular, I'd buy an even lighter trailer. And a trailer has very little maintenance compared to getting another motor vehicle. I've started bringing a pallet or two and putting them down under whatever I get so I can just fork stuff off at home (and then in the case of stuff from big box stores, fork the rejects right back on to get returned). These Kei trucks look neat, but I don't think they would actually solve many problems I have. A dump bed would be fantastic, but if I really needed that I could just bite the supply shortage bullet and get a dump trailer.
- woodruffw 3y ago...and, inevitably, someone to make the above comment. Maybe you can be the one to finally break the cycle :-)
- waiseristy 3y agoBreak the cycle how? Every time one of these threads come up I suggest buying a domestic full size 90’s truck instead and nobody gives a shit. The only things that gain traction in these threads is people shitting on their cultural enemies. Because Truck People bad!! Maybe you can help break the cycle by looking at the huge used truck market we already have
- woodruffw 3y agoI'm missing why this is a problem for you: TFA makes your exact point, and the author explains that they settled on a Kei truck for a combination of price and mileage reasons. I don't care about "truck people." I thought the article was nice and, as a non-driver, I find the Kei trucks much more interesting to look at (and ride in).
- rootusrootus 3y ago> Truck People bad!! One thing that I try to remind people of is that pickup trucks are the best selling vehicles in the US because the approximate definition of 'Truck People' is everyone.
- joeframbach 3y agoHere I thought the childmashers were best selling because there is literally no alternative, as is the topic of this entire thread we are in.
- rootusrootus 3y agoChildmashers? That's kind of ridiculous. There are much smaller pickups than an F150, for sure. Like a Maverick, to use an easy example. And it's a popular choice, too, though it's probably not going to unseat the F150 anytime soon.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rootusrootus 3y agoDon't forget the small penis accusation. I have an F250, which I drive about 2000 miles a year, almost 100% of the time it has a >30ft trailer behind it. But that one time that the stars align and I need it for a grocery trip, a bunch of people are thinking "see, that guy doesn't need a truck" and it reinforces whatever internal monologue they have going. Meanwhile, approximately everyone here routinely drives alone in a vehicle capable of carrying 5-7 people. (and right about now, someone is about to reply with 'ride a bike, cars suck!')
- oblio 3y agoJust curious, what so you do for a living? Or what's your hobby? Isn't the F250 a huge vehicle and that trailer seems huge, is it a boat?
- rootusrootus 3y agoSoftware, just like so many others on HN. The trailer is an RV we take out every couple weeks during the nice weather season. It takes over 1300 pounds of payload capacity just for the trailer itself, which doesn't leave much for anything else (hitch, cargo, humans, canine). That's how I ended up trading the F150 we had for an F250. And yes, the F250 is pretty big. It's actually not a lot bigger dimensionally than an F150 (same cab, even), but it's usually taller, and it has a very stiff suspension and a live axle in the front, so it feels a lot bigger. Thus why mine rarely goes anywhere it doesn't need to go. My Model 3 is far more comfortable as a daily.
- steele 3y agoSo your F250 is an accessory for your recreational vehicle.
- cure 3y agoI'm confused - are you missing a zero? The F150's towing capacity appears to be 5,000 to 14,000 pounds (random source: https://veteransfordtampa.com/ford-f-150-towing-capacity https://veteransfordtampa.com/ford-f-150-towing-capacity). You could tow a 1,300 pounds trailer with a regular car, e.g. the 2023 Ioniq 5 has 2,300 pounds of towing capacity.
- mjmsmith 3y agoUsually followed by someone saying "I'd like to see that thing in a crash test against <giant pickup model>".
- joeframbach 3y agoWell maybe if the giant truck driver was able to see over their hood, they wouldn't be in a collision.
- GuardianCaveman 3y agoYou forgot the inevitable post by waiseristy mocking people who like these trucks and grouping everyone into single category of idiots.
- inconceivable 3y agolately i've seen a lot of people legitimately complaining that trucks look "too aggressive" and are "scary". it just makes me laugh.
- flangola7 3y agoThey legitimately are scary from an objective viewpoint. I love driving them, but they kill people for no reason and something needs to done at a systemic level to curb it. Modern vehicles have an array of cameras, sensors, and automatic braking, yet pedestrian deaths per vehicle-mile are higher than 30 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo
- jeromegv 3y agoSome of those trucks are quite high and will kill pedestrians and even destroy other cars more in higher number. It’s just physics. If you need it, fine, but seeing how much they are selling of those, a lot of us are starting to doubt how much of it is need vs want.
- ryandrake 3y agoThe ability to destroy other cars in an accident is a selling point in some… cultures. I remember sitting at the bar back in my very red state home town listening to a guy go on and on about how his new Dodge Ram would absolutely obliterate a “liberal’s Prius” if he crashed into it. He was not talking about the relative occupant safety difference between the two cars. He was specifically boasting about how he believed his truck can destroy other vehicles.
- asdff 3y agoThese must be the sort of people that put testicles on their trucks
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoThey're probably talking about the front grille being a vertical wall taller than the standing height of a 5-foot woman, which would knock you under the wheels without the driver even seeing you.
- gonzo41 3y agoWell, the Chicken tax chicken tax chicken tax point is worth complaining about. I feel like there'd be a titanic shift in US pickup market if they could get a Hilux.
- asdff 3y agoThey already sell the Tacoma here, its basically a Hilux. F150 sales still lap it.