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> Everyone I know doing construction/trade work tends to drive much smaller pickups. Smaller than an F150? Maybe it's because I live in the Bay Area where ther

> Everyone I know doing construction/trade work tends to drive much smaller pickups. Smaller than an F150? Maybe it's because I live in the Bay Area where there's more money being thrown around but trucks of that size and larger seem to be common for trade workers.

paulddraper 3y ago
Not just you. Anyone who uses a truck a lot will have a 150+ --- How many programmers do you see with MacBook Airs
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  I'd bet good money the average Ford Ranger/Maverick hauls more than the average F-150 today > How many programmers do you see with MacBook Airs The people working on some of the most complex projects of our times rely on compute that isn't available in a laptop, so they're perfectly fine taking an Air. I personally used an M1 Air for a couple of years.
  - js2 3y ago
    I'd take that bet. The Ranger isn't manufactured anymore (edit: yes it is; can't recall having seen one though) and I've never seen a Maverick used commercially. I don't think I've even seen one that didn't look freshly washed. I mean, this isn't even hard to figure out: the F-150 is the best selling vehicle (not truck, but vehicle) in the U.S. for what, a decade or more?
    - wepple 3y ago
      +1 who in their right mind would use a maverick for actual work? Ford don’t even pretend to market to those folks. https://www.ford.com/trucks/maverick/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/maverick/ It’s a Subaru with a truck bed
      - mauvehaus 3y ago
        Not if it doesn't have BRAT seats, it isn't! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_BRAT https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_BRAT Owned an '86. It was a riot.
      - unethical_ban 3y ago
        It fits the niche that the ranger did 15 years ago. Same as the ranger having the capacity (except for bed) as the f150 the same time ago. Think auto shops shuttling parts around, or needing to toss dirty parts in the back of the truck without needing the hauling capacity.
      - rpmisms 3y ago
        For people who want some towing, some cargo, and good mileage. I've seen a couple landscapers using them. If you're towing a single mower and some trimmers/blowers, it's a good deal, and you can still take it into town and not look like an idiot.
    - panzagl 3y ago
      The Ranger is made again, but it's huge compared to the 90's ones. And the current F150 is much bigger than one from 10 years ago, so even an older F150 would be smaller than the current monstrosities.
    - icameron 3y ago
      They make the Ranger again. It looks just like a Tacoma or Chevy Colorado, and have a Turbo Charged I-4
  - oooyay 3y ago
    > I'd bet good money the average Ford Ranger/Maverick hauls more than the average F-150 today The Maverick can tow 4,000 lbs - which is pretty prohibitive with a small bed and the weight of a trailer. You're better off getting a modern Tacoma, of which there is an entire subreddit of people who will gleefully show you they too can haul.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  M1 MacBook Airs are solid and it's my daily driver as a programmer. But I also drive an F350 King Ranch Super Duty (I tow a 20k pound fifth wheel with it that I live in full time) so go figure.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    /me is jealous of that King Ranch :-)
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Damn
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    You. I like you. I only have the M1 Air half of that, and I don't think my farm would fit in a trailer, but I appreciate the priorities.
m463 3y ago
Trucks last longer in the bay area. The cost is amortized over basically... forever. Take a 10-year old california pickup to anywhere with winter and people will be amazed.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  I have a 20 year old Ranger that has been through 20 northeast winters. It's showing its age but no unibody vehicle can match it for long term durability.
  - m463 3y ago
    https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/albany-1994-ford-ranger-splash/7692062250.html https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/albany-1994-ford-rang... https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/el-cerrito-2001-ford-ranger-xlt/7693042357.html https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/el-cerrito-2001-ford-... https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/cta?auto_make_model=ford%20ranger&max_auto_year=2003&min_auto_year=1900 https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/cta?auto_make_model=ford... :)
kubectl_h 3y ago
Yeah what a weird comment from GP. The refrain that no one needs a full-size truck, that they're mall crawlers or compensation for undersized you-know-what is common on this site but I've never seen it taken to the level that "trades workers largely don't drive full sized trucks, actually".
- dsr_ 3y ago
  Oh. Actually, let me tell you: Most trades workers don't need full-sized pickup trucks. They do need an 8 foot bed. An amazing number of full-sized pickups come with 6.5 foot beds by default, and cost extra for the 8 foot. They won't put 2 tons of gravel in there; they will put plywood sheets and lumber and power tools; boxes of nails and air compressors; the toolbox that they always want, the toolbox for this job, and the toolbox with backup tools that you lend to the guy who 'forgot' stuff. (Not the guy who 'loses' stuff.) None of that needs the big V8. If you've got a 4 seat cab, you'll be asked to take a couple people out to the other site, but if you've got a 2 seater, maybe you don't get asked. Four wheel drive and big wheels mean bad fuel economy. If you need them, there's something wrong because the mud is supposed to go on your boots, not your wheels. Your pickup is not an earthmover or a wrecker. One exception: if you've got a really big truck, you might get wintertime snow-plow jobs. They really aren't fun. Source: neighbor is a contractor.
  - hedora 3y ago
    There are three specs that matter. (4wd matters in the hills, since it is surprisingly easy to get stuck on pavement/gravel when going uphill under load, but that is orthogonal). The three things are bed capacity, max bed weight load, and towing capacity. Weight in bed can matter, but once you’re above a few thousand pounds, you need to consider getting a dump trailer. Max carrying load matters more for conversions (e.g. to ambulances, adding toolboxes, etc). Towing matters for moving lots of weight. In the cheap 150/1500 ICE class, Ford wins these days on bed capacity (3000lbs), due to having aluminum frames. Ram wins at towing capacity (10,000lbs). As much as I like dunking the cybertruck for its impractical bed and Musk’s shenanigans, it can tow 14,000lbs, making it best in class for quarter ton trucks (assuming you count it in the same class as the ford F150 lightning). So, I’d like one for driving to and from our local rockery, except that using it for that will beat it to hell, and a used truck + nice EV sedan will cost less, be more fun to drive, and win on total CO2 emissions. The sedan uses much less electricity than the cybertruck, and would be driven many more miles than the truck. I’d only put a few tanks of diesel into the truck per year. Eventually, the grid will be more decarbonized, and batteries won’t be scarce. At that point, the cybertruck would probably be a better choice for me. Source: We bought a 1500 truck that is slightly too small for our use cases.
microtherion 3y ago
Here in Switzerland, you sometimes see e.g. a Piaggio Ape: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape And a number of construction jobs in our house were performed by a gentleman who arrived with a Vespa unless he specifically had to transport something sizeable.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Oh certainly. Trucks inside the USA are their own kind of culture (which I do not feel great about).
  - davidy123 3y ago
    Why would anyone downvote this? It's not a minority position.
  - mcv 3y ago
    I see big RAM trucks show up increasingly more often in Amsterdam. 10 years ago there was just 1, and this week I think I spotted the 4th in my neighbourhood.
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        No, they've got a point. These are simply not compatible with the old town and that's exactly where they go with them. You have to imagine a city that was made for something the size of a small horse drawn carriage where you take these massive vehicles. It's tight enough with normal cars, this is well across what's feasible in practice.
        CamperBob2 3y ago
        That sounds an awful lot like the vehicle owner's problem to me. This entire site is becoming more or less insufferable. Eternal September has nothing on the Reddit diaspora.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wcunning 3y ago
I live in the greater Detroit area and I pretty much only see contractors driving 1) their own HD truck (F250/ Chevy 2500 or bigger) 2) a big panel van with shelving for e.g. plumbing parts or 3) the company provided Ford Transit Connect or similar. Nobody is driving their own relatively recent Colorado/Ranger/Tacoma, and even those are bigger than the 1984 Ranger I drove in high school. A lot of it comes down to what vehicle can legally/safely tow a dump trailer with a mini excavator on it for sewer/electrical running underground or the relatively lower maintenance requirement for a big truck diesel engine.
WheatMillington 3y ago
FWIW here in New Zealand the F150 is gigantic, and very uncommon. Our usual "trucks" (utes) are far smaller - Hilux, Ranger, etc.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  FWIW you live on an island with a fraction of the population, and industry of the U.S and a very different geography and urban landscape. Could you haul anything 1000 miles if you even wanted to? Would there be any practical point to point travel where that was necessary without needing to transfer to a boat first? Because in the U.S. there's hundreds, maybe even thousands of trade routes that long.
nozzlegear 3y ago
Yeah, I live in Iowa and F150/Dodge Ram is the baseline for anybody working construction or farm jobs. My brother-in-law and my uncle both separately run their own construction companies; one drives an F250, the other drives a some kind of diesel Ram. They both use them to haul their trailers full of materials/tools and machines around to job sites. My father’s a farmer/mechanic and drives an older Silverado. I drive a Chevy Bolt EUV fwiw and love it.

paulddraper 3y ago

Not just you. Anyone who uses a truck a lot will have a 150+ --- How many programmers do you see with MacBook Airs

BoorishBears 3y ago
I'd bet good money the average Ford Ranger/Maverick hauls more than the average F-150 today > How many programmers do you see with MacBook Airs The people working on some of the most complex projects of our times rely on compute that isn't available in a laptop, so they're perfectly fine taking an Air. I personally used an M1 Air for a couple of years.
- js2 3y ago
  I'd take that bet. The Ranger isn't manufactured anymore (edit: yes it is; can't recall having seen one though) and I've never seen a Maverick used commercially. I don't think I've even seen one that didn't look freshly washed. I mean, this isn't even hard to figure out: the F-150 is the best selling vehicle (not truck, but vehicle) in the U.S. for what, a decade or more?
  - wepple 3y ago
    +1 who in their right mind would use a maverick for actual work? Ford don’t even pretend to market to those folks. https://www.ford.com/trucks/maverick/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/maverick/ It’s a Subaru with a truck bed
    - mauvehaus 3y ago
      Not if it doesn't have BRAT seats, it isn't! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_BRAT https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_BRAT Owned an '86. It was a riot.
    - unethical_ban 3y ago
      It fits the niche that the ranger did 15 years ago. Same as the ranger having the capacity (except for bed) as the f150 the same time ago. Think auto shops shuttling parts around, or needing to toss dirty parts in the back of the truck without needing the hauling capacity.
    - rpmisms 3y ago
      For people who want some towing, some cargo, and good mileage. I've seen a couple landscapers using them. If you're towing a single mower and some trimmers/blowers, it's a good deal, and you can still take it into town and not look like an idiot.
  - panzagl 3y ago
    The Ranger is made again, but it's huge compared to the 90's ones. And the current F150 is much bigger than one from 10 years ago, so even an older F150 would be smaller than the current monstrosities.
  - icameron 3y ago
    They make the Ranger again. It looks just like a Tacoma or Chevy Colorado, and have a Turbo Charged I-4
- oooyay 3y ago
  > I'd bet good money the average Ford Ranger/Maverick hauls more than the average F-150 today The Maverick can tow 4,000 lbs - which is pretty prohibitive with a small bed and the weight of a trailer. You're better off getting a modern Tacoma, of which there is an entire subreddit of people who will gleefully show you they too can haul.
chrisco255 3y ago
M1 MacBook Airs are solid and it's my daily driver as a programmer. But I also drive an F350 King Ranch Super Duty (I tow a 20k pound fifth wheel with it that I live in full time) so go figure.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  /me is jealous of that King Ranch :-)
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Damn
- rpmisms 3y ago
  You. I like you. I only have the M1 Air half of that, and I don't think my farm would fit in a trailer, but I appreciate the priorities.

m463 3y ago

Trucks last longer in the bay area. The cost is amortized over basically... forever. Take a 10-year old california pickup to anywhere with winter and people will be amazed.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
I have a 20 year old Ranger that has been through 20 northeast winters. It's showing its age but no unibody vehicle can match it for long term durability.
- m463 3y ago
  https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/albany-1994-ford-ranger-splash/7692062250.html https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/albany-1994-ford-rang... https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/el-cerrito-2001-ford-ranger-xlt/7693042357.html https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/el-cerrito-2001-ford-... https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/cta?auto_make_model=ford%20ranger&max_auto_year=2003&min_auto_year=1900 https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/cta?auto_make_model=ford... :)

kubectl_h 3y ago

Yeah what a weird comment from GP. The refrain that no one needs a full-size truck, that they're mall crawlers or compensation for undersized you-know-what is common on this site but I've never seen it taken to the level that "trades workers largely don't drive full sized trucks, actually".

dsr_ 3y ago
Oh. Actually, let me tell you: Most trades workers don't need full-sized pickup trucks. They do need an 8 foot bed. An amazing number of full-sized pickups come with 6.5 foot beds by default, and cost extra for the 8 foot. They won't put 2 tons of gravel in there; they will put plywood sheets and lumber and power tools; boxes of nails and air compressors; the toolbox that they always want, the toolbox for this job, and the toolbox with backup tools that you lend to the guy who 'forgot' stuff. (Not the guy who 'loses' stuff.) None of that needs the big V8. If you've got a 4 seat cab, you'll be asked to take a couple people out to the other site, but if you've got a 2 seater, maybe you don't get asked. Four wheel drive and big wheels mean bad fuel economy. If you need them, there's something wrong because the mud is supposed to go on your boots, not your wheels. Your pickup is not an earthmover or a wrecker. One exception: if you've got a really big truck, you might get wintertime snow-plow jobs. They really aren't fun. Source: neighbor is a contractor.
- hedora 3y ago
  There are three specs that matter. (4wd matters in the hills, since it is surprisingly easy to get stuck on pavement/gravel when going uphill under load, but that is orthogonal). The three things are bed capacity, max bed weight load, and towing capacity. Weight in bed can matter, but once you’re above a few thousand pounds, you need to consider getting a dump trailer. Max carrying load matters more for conversions (e.g. to ambulances, adding toolboxes, etc). Towing matters for moving lots of weight. In the cheap 150/1500 ICE class, Ford wins these days on bed capacity (3000lbs), due to having aluminum frames. Ram wins at towing capacity (10,000lbs). As much as I like dunking the cybertruck for its impractical bed and Musk’s shenanigans, it can tow 14,000lbs, making it best in class for quarter ton trucks (assuming you count it in the same class as the ford F150 lightning). So, I’d like one for driving to and from our local rockery, except that using it for that will beat it to hell, and a used truck + nice EV sedan will cost less, be more fun to drive, and win on total CO2 emissions. The sedan uses much less electricity than the cybertruck, and would be driven many more miles than the truck. I’d only put a few tanks of diesel into the truck per year. Eventually, the grid will be more decarbonized, and batteries won’t be scarce. At that point, the cybertruck would probably be a better choice for me. Source: We bought a 1500 truck that is slightly too small for our use cases.

microtherion 3y ago

Here in Switzerland, you sometimes see e.g. a Piaggio Ape: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_Ape And a number of construction jobs in our house were performed by a gentleman who arrived with a Vespa unless he specifically had to transport something sizeable.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Oh certainly. Trucks inside the USA are their own kind of culture (which I do not feel great about).
- davidy123 3y ago
  Why would anyone downvote this? It's not a minority position.
- mcv 3y ago
  I see big RAM trucks show up increasingly more often in Amsterdam. 10 years ago there was just 1, and this week I think I spotted the 4th in my neighbourhood.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      No, they've got a point. These are simply not compatible with the old town and that's exactly where they go with them. You have to imagine a city that was made for something the size of a small horse drawn carriage where you take these massive vehicles. It's tight enough with normal cars, this is well across what's feasible in practice.
      - CamperBob2 3y ago
        That sounds an awful lot like the vehicle owner's problem to me. This entire site is becoming more or less insufferable. Eternal September has nothing on the Reddit diaspora.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wcunning 3y ago

I live in the greater Detroit area and I pretty much only see contractors driving 1) their own HD truck (F250/ Chevy 2500 or bigger) 2) a big panel van with shelving for e.g. plumbing parts or 3) the company provided Ford Transit Connect or similar. Nobody is driving their own relatively recent Colorado/Ranger/Tacoma, and even those are bigger than the 1984 Ranger I drove in high school. A lot of it comes down to what vehicle can legally/safely tow a dump trailer with a mini excavator on it for sewer/electrical running underground or the relatively lower maintenance requirement for a big truck diesel engine.

WheatMillington 3y ago

FWIW here in New Zealand the F150 is gigantic, and very uncommon. Our usual "trucks" (utes) are far smaller - Hilux, Ranger, etc.

chrisco255 3y ago
FWIW you live on an island with a fraction of the population, and industry of the U.S and a very different geography and urban landscape. Could you haul anything 1000 miles if you even wanted to? Would there be any practical point to point travel where that was necessary without needing to transfer to a boat first? Because in the U.S. there's hundreds, maybe even thousands of trade routes that long.

nozzlegear 3y ago

Yeah, I live in Iowa and F150/Dodge Ram is the baseline for anybody working construction or farm jobs. My brother-in-law and my uncle both separately run their own construction companies; one drives an F250, the other drives a some kind of diesel Ram. They both use them to haul their trailers full of materials/tools and machines around to job sites. My father’s a farmer/mechanic and drives an older Silverado. I drive a Chevy Bolt EUV fwiw and love it.