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> people just love them as a symbol This is an unfortunate trope that is oft repeated by those that live their life in constant upgrade cycles. The regular F-

by exabrial 10mo ago

> people just love them as a symbol This is an unfortunate trope that is oft repeated by those that live their life in constant upgrade cycles. The regular F-150 is a pinnacle of value engineering for Ford. It's infinitely repairable for owners. Look around on the highway, you will see hundreds of 15+ year old F150s on the road, and a few times a day I will see 25+ year old trucks on the road too. There are thousands of aftermarket parts for repair or customization. Owners are happy with them, and they recognize the truck as something they buy once and keep for a long time. If it is any kind of expression of self, its one of "I don't need to be consumeristic; I picked something simple that will last a lifetime."

SoftTalker 10mo ago
Also, a truck can be used like a car. But a car cannot be used like a truck. If you need to haul 4x8 sheets of plywood or drywall, dimensional lumber, piping, ladders, etc a truck (or work van) is pretty much it. If I could only afford one car it would be a truck.
- NathanielK 10mo ago
  The old Dodge Grand Caravan with the fold flat sheets fits 4x8 sheets inside. The built in roofrack is also very ergonomic for ladders, canoes, etc. We have pickups and the minivan and I often prefer to haul with the van. Better fuel efficiency and lower load floor are nice.
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    Yeah minivans can be quite useful. A bit of a PITA to fold or remove seats, depending on the model, and typically can't tow much or really carry much weight but for the occasional large item they can work.
- vel0city 10mo ago
  I (and practically most people) are rarely to never carrying stacks of full sheets of drywall. Having that be the basis of your needs for a car is absurd for most people. Even then, my minivan can pack some pretty long and pretty large things inside. Meanwhile it's got a better turning radius than most trucks, it has way better visibility, it's far less pedestrian unfriendly, it's got an easier loading height, sliding doors make it easier to fit the back five passengers in and out, the stuff I'm hauling doesn't have to risk getting wet or affected by the outside environment. Seems like the minivan is way superior than a bed for suburban life if one needs such a large vehicle. I've needed to move homes requiring the need for a 24' box truck more than I've needed to haul a stack of drywall around. Should I daily drive a uhaul truck?
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    Those were some examples, not an exhaustive list. What about hauling a load of mulch or topsoil, you're not doing that in your nice minivan. Or a bed-load of tree limbs and cut brush? I do that a few times a year. Hauling furniture, firewood, lawn mowers, trash. An open truck bed is the most flexible configuration in my experience. Of course it's not perfect for everything. A utility trailer could do a lot of that too, if you have a suitable tow vehicle. Sometimes the extra space taken by a trailer is inconvenient.
    - vel0city 10mo ago
      > What about hauling a load of mulch or topsoil, you're not doing that in your nice minivan I've mostly just had that delivered when doing a big job, but I have just laid a tarp before. It's not that big of a deal really. And I don't even bother with a tarp for the smaller jobs, it's already bagged. Just don't grab bags with holes in it, and use the vacuum later. It's fine. > Or a bed-load of tree limbs and cut brush? I live in a suburb. The trash service picks up brush. If it's more than what I can fit in a few bags I just put in a bulky trash request and the send a truck with crane to pick up the pile. Welcome to living in a society, it's quite nice. > Hauling furniture, firewood, lawn mowers, trash Once again, large furniture moves have been easily handled with cheap rentals. One-off pieces have usually been easily partially disassembled to load even into a hatchback. I've had no issues putting my lawn mower even into my old Accord, they're not that big when you fold the bar down. Spend a couple of minutes unscrewing things and suddenly you no longer need a truck. Not that I need to move my lawn mower much, I'm not in the lawn service industry. I'm also not in the piano moving industry. But maybe most Americans do move pianos on a quarterly basis. And once again, a small tarp and I've carried plenty of firewood for my fireplace. But once again like the majority of Americans I live in an "urban" area and don't rely on multiple chords of firewood to make it through a winter. But the family I had that did live in a rural area that did mostly heat by firewood just had it delivered. You might as well argue one needs a trailer rated to carry fuel oil or large quantities of liquid propane. You know what's inconvenient? Navigating urban spaces every day with a giant oversized monstrosity that my kids can't even easily climb into on their own. A vehicle where I can barely open the doors on an average parking spot. A vehicle that gets less than 20mpg compared to 35+ (or even way more than that with my EV). A vehicle where each tire costs $200+ compared to $100. A vehicle where a brake job costs way more than it needs to.
- Marsymars 10mo ago
  Hey, you can fit 4x8 in a Maverick, and that's barely a truck.
- jasonkester 10mo ago
  a car cannot be used like a truck. I think that’s more down to choice than possibility. I’ve hauled all those things home from the diy store in my boring Volvo with its roof rack. Had 600-odd pounds of sand in the back just last week. 4x8 plywood isn’t particularly heavy, and little consumer “150 pounds max” roof racks can hold a lot more than they claim.
- Ekaros 10mo ago
  As European. If you do that stuff semi-regularly just get a trailer. Couple thousand and they last decades.
- Mawr 10mo ago
  And sure, for the exact target demographic of carpenters and such that's... false. What you do is get a regular car that's great for everyday stuff and buy a trailer. You get a flatbed that's what, 4x the size of the one on your truck? And it's cheap, at knee-level, and detachable, so you only pay the cost of inconvenience and extra fuel when you use it, not all the time. You won't use it much anyway, because a regular car fits more than you think.
  - Amezarak 10mo ago
    Millions of people in the US do their own carpentry. In fact, there are orders of magnitude more DIY carpenters than there are professionals. > And it's cheap, at knee-level, and detachable, so you only pay the cost of inconvenience and extra fuel when you use it, not all the time. You can also hook a trailer up to a truck, giving yourself even more capacity. Many people do this. However, people in urban or suburban areas may not have trailer storage areas.
chickensong 10mo ago
'99 F-150 with >250k on original engine and transmission here. Going to pick up 900 lbs of rock tomorrow. Suspension is pretty poor, but it still pulls hard under load. I'd like to upgrade to a newer model, but the '99 refuses to die.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- kalleboo 10mo ago
  > Going to pick up 900 lbs of rock tomorrow Is there any car that can't do that though? That's just the weight of 5 adults.
  - NetMageSCW 10mo ago
    I don’t think I could get 900lbs of rock in most cars.
    - kalleboo 10mo ago
      I had no trouble fitting 800 lbs of gravel in my little kei car
  - chickensong 10mo ago
    It feels heavier than that, so I looked it up and my memory was wrong, it's ~1400 lbs per scoop. Anyway, my point is that it's been a surprisingly good vehicle that just keeps going. Throw some lumber on the rack after loading gravel, it doesn't care until the suspension starts bottoming out. It's not my first truck, and I'm not tied to any brand, but the overall experience has been so solid at high mileage, that it sets a bar for any future trucks. I'm just a single data point, and I'm sure there are folks who've had poor experiences, but having owned many vehicles over the years, the F-150 feels particularly robust to me. Honda engines give me a similar feeling. As one commenter described "using in anger", there are some things that will take repeated abuse and just love it. Maybe I've been lucky, but in my limited experience, the F-150 has a well-deserved reputation.
omnimus 10mo ago
Fair. Look I think the big difference in perception is that in most countries outside US these trucks are just a symbol. Like if you see some F-150 or RAM it is always used by some angry MAGA and gun supporters. It makes no sense to use these in Europe. They are not road legal so they are imported under special licenses, they are so oversized they can't park anywhere. There restrictions on loading pickups so people don't even use the truck bed. Always one guy driving them. They are for showing off your opinions.
- philipallstar 10mo ago
  This is just social media and your news outlets of choice feeding you what you'd like to see.
  - mrguyorama 10mo ago
    No, it is also reality in the US. In northern maine, the "Manly men" have a road pickup, with a giant cab and all the luxury features and a 7L engine, and an entirely separate "Work" truck that actually has normal work truck features like no infotainment and is easy to clean and is not a luxury vehicle. They only ever drive the work truck into the muddy farm. They might go "Mudding" in their pavement princess and then take it through a drive through car wash. Then in the winter, when they need to plow the snow, they have yet another truck, usually an old work truck, that they slap a plow on. Trucks are a lifestyle brand. They don't tow things other than once a year, and that thing is a giant RV for the yearly camp trip, because they don't actually like camping. They don't need to tow their Skiddoo in the winter because they just drive it all over the state from their back yard, which is great fun. My dad bought an F350 for "work" that is full of all the luxury options of course, and is usually towing an oversized box trailer full of tools as a work space, but normal people that don't have free rent and have to work for a living just take the damn tools out of the back of the truck before doing the work. But it doesn't matter because that $80k status symbol is "owned" by his company and is treated as a depreciating asset for tax purposes, so he buys a brand new one every 5 years. Ironically, he actually does tow multiple times a week, but 90% of his usage WOULD be covered by an electric truck.
  - 10mo ago

SoftTalker 10mo ago

Also, a truck can be used like a car. But a car cannot be used like a truck. If you need to haul 4x8 sheets of plywood or drywall, dimensional lumber, piping, ladders, etc a truck (or work van) is pretty much it. If I could only afford one car it would be a truck.

NathanielK 10mo ago
The old Dodge Grand Caravan with the fold flat sheets fits 4x8 sheets inside. The built in roofrack is also very ergonomic for ladders, canoes, etc. We have pickups and the minivan and I often prefer to haul with the van. Better fuel efficiency and lower load floor are nice.
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  Yeah minivans can be quite useful. A bit of a PITA to fold or remove seats, depending on the model, and typically can't tow much or really carry much weight but for the occasional large item they can work.
vel0city 10mo ago
I (and practically most people) are rarely to never carrying stacks of full sheets of drywall. Having that be the basis of your needs for a car is absurd for most people. Even then, my minivan can pack some pretty long and pretty large things inside. Meanwhile it's got a better turning radius than most trucks, it has way better visibility, it's far less pedestrian unfriendly, it's got an easier loading height, sliding doors make it easier to fit the back five passengers in and out, the stuff I'm hauling doesn't have to risk getting wet or affected by the outside environment. Seems like the minivan is way superior than a bed for suburban life if one needs such a large vehicle. I've needed to move homes requiring the need for a 24' box truck more than I've needed to haul a stack of drywall around. Should I daily drive a uhaul truck?
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  Those were some examples, not an exhaustive list. What about hauling a load of mulch or topsoil, you're not doing that in your nice minivan. Or a bed-load of tree limbs and cut brush? I do that a few times a year. Hauling furniture, firewood, lawn mowers, trash. An open truck bed is the most flexible configuration in my experience. Of course it's not perfect for everything. A utility trailer could do a lot of that too, if you have a suitable tow vehicle. Sometimes the extra space taken by a trailer is inconvenient.
  - vel0city 10mo ago
    > What about hauling a load of mulch or topsoil, you're not doing that in your nice minivan I've mostly just had that delivered when doing a big job, but I have just laid a tarp before. It's not that big of a deal really. And I don't even bother with a tarp for the smaller jobs, it's already bagged. Just don't grab bags with holes in it, and use the vacuum later. It's fine. > Or a bed-load of tree limbs and cut brush? I live in a suburb. The trash service picks up brush. If it's more than what I can fit in a few bags I just put in a bulky trash request and the send a truck with crane to pick up the pile. Welcome to living in a society, it's quite nice. > Hauling furniture, firewood, lawn mowers, trash Once again, large furniture moves have been easily handled with cheap rentals. One-off pieces have usually been easily partially disassembled to load even into a hatchback. I've had no issues putting my lawn mower even into my old Accord, they're not that big when you fold the bar down. Spend a couple of minutes unscrewing things and suddenly you no longer need a truck. Not that I need to move my lawn mower much, I'm not in the lawn service industry. I'm also not in the piano moving industry. But maybe most Americans do move pianos on a quarterly basis. And once again, a small tarp and I've carried plenty of firewood for my fireplace. But once again like the majority of Americans I live in an "urban" area and don't rely on multiple chords of firewood to make it through a winter. But the family I had that did live in a rural area that did mostly heat by firewood just had it delivered. You might as well argue one needs a trailer rated to carry fuel oil or large quantities of liquid propane. You know what's inconvenient? Navigating urban spaces every day with a giant oversized monstrosity that my kids can't even easily climb into on their own. A vehicle where I can barely open the doors on an average parking spot. A vehicle that gets less than 20mpg compared to 35+ (or even way more than that with my EV). A vehicle where each tire costs $200+ compared to $100. A vehicle where a brake job costs way more than it needs to.
Marsymars 10mo ago
Hey, you can fit 4x8 in a Maverick, and that's barely a truck.
jasonkester 10mo ago
a car cannot be used like a truck. I think that’s more down to choice than possibility. I’ve hauled all those things home from the diy store in my boring Volvo with its roof rack. Had 600-odd pounds of sand in the back just last week. 4x8 plywood isn’t particularly heavy, and little consumer “150 pounds max” roof racks can hold a lot more than they claim.
Ekaros 10mo ago
As European. If you do that stuff semi-regularly just get a trailer. Couple thousand and they last decades.
Mawr 10mo ago
And sure, for the exact target demographic of carpenters and such that's... false. What you do is get a regular car that's great for everyday stuff and buy a trailer. You get a flatbed that's what, 4x the size of the one on your truck? And it's cheap, at knee-level, and detachable, so you only pay the cost of inconvenience and extra fuel when you use it, not all the time. You won't use it much anyway, because a regular car fits more than you think.
- Amezarak 10mo ago
  Millions of people in the US do their own carpentry. In fact, there are orders of magnitude more DIY carpenters than there are professionals. > And it's cheap, at knee-level, and detachable, so you only pay the cost of inconvenience and extra fuel when you use it, not all the time. You can also hook a trailer up to a truck, giving yourself even more capacity. Many people do this. However, people in urban or suburban areas may not have trailer storage areas.

chickensong 10mo ago

'99 F-150 with >250k on original engine and transmission here. Going to pick up 900 lbs of rock tomorrow. Suspension is pretty poor, but it still pulls hard under load. I'd like to upgrade to a newer model, but the '99 refuses to die.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
kalleboo 10mo ago
> Going to pick up 900 lbs of rock tomorrow Is there any car that can't do that though? That's just the weight of 5 adults.
- NetMageSCW 10mo ago
  I don’t think I could get 900lbs of rock in most cars.
  - kalleboo 10mo ago
    I had no trouble fitting 800 lbs of gravel in my little kei car
- chickensong 10mo ago
  It feels heavier than that, so I looked it up and my memory was wrong, it's ~1400 lbs per scoop. Anyway, my point is that it's been a surprisingly good vehicle that just keeps going. Throw some lumber on the rack after loading gravel, it doesn't care until the suspension starts bottoming out. It's not my first truck, and I'm not tied to any brand, but the overall experience has been so solid at high mileage, that it sets a bar for any future trucks. I'm just a single data point, and I'm sure there are folks who've had poor experiences, but having owned many vehicles over the years, the F-150 feels particularly robust to me. Honda engines give me a similar feeling. As one commenter described "using in anger", there are some things that will take repeated abuse and just love it. Maybe I've been lucky, but in my limited experience, the F-150 has a well-deserved reputation.

omnimus 10mo ago

Fair. Look I think the big difference in perception is that in most countries outside US these trucks are just a symbol. Like if you see some F-150 or RAM it is always used by some angry MAGA and gun supporters. It makes no sense to use these in Europe. They are not road legal so they are imported under special licenses, they are so oversized they can't park anywhere. There restrictions on loading pickups so people don't even use the truck bed. Always one guy driving them. They are for showing off your opinions.

philipallstar 10mo ago
This is just social media and your news outlets of choice feeding you what you'd like to see.
- mrguyorama 10mo ago
  No, it is also reality in the US. In northern maine, the "Manly men" have a road pickup, with a giant cab and all the luxury features and a 7L engine, and an entirely separate "Work" truck that actually has normal work truck features like no infotainment and is easy to clean and is not a luxury vehicle. They only ever drive the work truck into the muddy farm. They might go "Mudding" in their pavement princess and then take it through a drive through car wash. Then in the winter, when they need to plow the snow, they have yet another truck, usually an old work truck, that they slap a plow on. Trucks are a lifestyle brand. They don't tow things other than once a year, and that thing is a giant RV for the yearly camp trip, because they don't actually like camping. They don't need to tow their Skiddoo in the winter because they just drive it all over the state from their back yard, which is great fun. My dad bought an F350 for "work" that is full of all the luxury options of course, and is usually towing an oversized box trailer full of tools as a work space, but normal people that don't have free rent and have to work for a living just take the damn tools out of the back of the truck before doing the work. But it doesn't matter because that $80k status symbol is "owned" by his company and is treated as a depreciating asset for tax purposes, so he buys a brand new one every 5 years. Ironically, he actually does tow multiple times a week, but 90% of his usage WOULD be covered by an electric truck.
- 10mo ago