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I've heard it said that Americans ought to quit buying so many pickup trucks. The argument is that most truck owners use them to commute around in, and rarely need to transport anything they can't transport just as well with a smaller (more efficient) passenger vehicle. On those rare occasions, it would be better, so the argument goes, to borrow or rent a truck. Then we'd quit burning so much gasoline.
I still want a truck. (I don't currently own one.)
It's pretty clear to me that I can't own an additional vehicle without spending a lot more than I would on the occasional U-Haul rental, or outweighing the [rather intense but temporary] discomfort I feel if I need to borrow something. But I think the question is whether the incremental cost of owning a truck INSTEAD of a sedan would still be so large that owning one would be a bad idea. For me that's less clear.
The differences in operation and maintenance cost are pretty obvious, but there are some lost opportunities for which the cost is harder to calculate: - Snap up the fantastic price on a used couch on Craigslist that "MUST BE PICKED UP TODAY!!! (Also applies to roadside sale items.) - Help someone who is stuck in the snow get free of it, pull out a stump, stand in the back of the vehicle to reach something high. - Transport my BBQ grill (I want to do this often). - Pick up just a couple more planks (drywall sheets, saplings, etc.) from Home Depot. - My mom wants to borrow my ladder today. - Accessing certain camp sites.
There's just so many little things for which borrowing or renting a vehicle would be a pain. And nowadays its easy to find a truck that can carry multiple passengers. It's really hard to fault people who conclude that they want to own a pickup even though they are inefficient and bigger than what they need on a daily basis.
I'm not sure why it's so different in other countries.
Do I just need more "friends"? (Lucky them, if I befriend them because they have a pickup, right? )
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I love my friends and I even love my hippie friends and I even love my goddamned ridiculous, meat is murder, save the whales, bush is hitler, up with homeopathy, community-gardening, granola-eating, peace love and narcotics hippie friends but when they say something like how I should get rid of my trucks because they are bad for the environment, I am going to tell them that despite the fact that I love them very very much I am not going to start transporting sheets of drywall on top of my corolla.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:stand in the back of the vehicle to reach something high.
Most people manage with ladders. When they want to lend their ladders to people, they use a car with a roof rack. For wood, they fold down the back seat of their car and post the wood through from the trunk. Most people only need one or two couches and don't pick them up every week. If you're creative, there's a lot you can do with even a regular sized car.
If you genuinely need a truck, because you haul truck-sized items on a weekly basis, then get one.
However, most of your arguments seem spurious attempts to justify something you want because it's cool. You want to transport your BBQ grill often? Do you run a catering service? Do you go camping in obscure difficult to reach areas more than once a year? Are you really going to be pulling up stumps frequently?
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I've done all of the items on your list with my Plymouth Voyager (now dodge caravan) except the help someone who is stuck in the snow. (If you think back honestly, most of the someones you have seen stuck in the snow were driving pickups. And with your frontwheel drive caravan, you won't be as likely to be stuck yourself.) And, if I had bothered to have a tow bar installed I probably could have done that.
Given that, it still is bigger than you need on a daily basis, until you try to put all your little ones into the same vehicle. Forget about your threatened youthful image and get the caravan.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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It's quite possible to find smaller pickups that have gas mileages around the 20/25mpg mark. It's one thing to be commuting around in an F250, and quite another in a 2WD Ranger.
From a green standpoint, it's also worth it to consider whether you're buying the car new or used. If I were buying a car new, I'd hold it to much higher efficiency standards.
Last, you could check out some of the newer hatchback models they're making. Even on non-hybrids, they can get around 30mpg highway, and quite a few have rear seats that fold down, significantly expanding cargo space. I can tell you from experience that it is possible to fit a full size dresser into a Honda Fit, for example.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I'd probably use a truck for truck like things on roughly a monthly basis. I would only rent or borrow a truck on an annual, or at best semiannual basis.
Yes, I clearly want to justify it to myself. You got me there. I don't want to look cool, though, but rather I enjoy having excess capacity in my transportational infrastructure.
Re: BBQ and camping.
I have transported my grill three times in the last year and it was a pain because I had to take the seat out of my van and try to secure it enough to make it safe to have it in there with my kids and try not to get ash on the upholstery. The times I've wanted to move my grill but didn't because of the hassle are roughly six in the last year: we frequently visit Grandma's house for Sunday dinner and I like to BBQ on those occasions, and her grill is usually full of wasps and/or wasp poison.
I don't go camping to out of the way difficult to reach places often at all, but that's partly because I have been raising babies and driving a van. Now that I have kids old enough to make camping enjoyable I would like to take them camping a lot, and I would prefer places without a lot of people, and that means not accessible by paved road.
Artemisia Tridentata: My pride was sacrificed a couple of years ago when I bought the van. It's dying, though, so I have to decide whether to invest in a new transmission or replace it with something else. Another van is likely.
Juxtapose: yes, I can get 90% of what I want with a small, relatively efficient used pickup. That I'd enjoy a new crew cab much more might betray a little vanity on my part. Of course we might have four kids soon so we might need a van anyway. Perhaps I should aim for van + compact pickup.
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I replaced the transmission on my first van at the 120,000 mark and drove it to 300,000. My "new" van is almost at the 200,000 point and shifts a little hard from time to time. I would probably put a rebuilt in it if push came to shove.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Artemisia Tridentata: I replaced the transmission on my first van at the 120,000 mark and drove it to 300,000. My "new" van is almost at the 200,000 point and shifts a little hard from time to time. I would probably put a rebuilt in it if push came to shove.
I've been debating whether to fix it now or see how long I can drive it.
It's a 2000 GM with the 4T65E transmission. I have hard shifts most likely due to a bad pressure control solenoid* causing default max pressure, and got an error code indicating a stuck torque converter clutch that might be related to the occasional slip/delay between foot down on gas and any perceptible transmission of power.
The tranny shop wanted $600 just to pull it and fully diagnose it. Instead of paying that I decided then to drive it a while longer. I've probably put on 15k since then without making it much worse. So I ask myself, does this have 500 miles left or 25k+? It's at 151k now.
I know I can order a remanufactured transmission for about $700 without shopping too hard, and assume it can be installed for no more than what I was quoted to drop the existing one, so in a way I want to get everything I can out of this one, and if that completely blows it, then I shouldn't be much worse off than $1300 and can evaluate that against the present value of the van. (Maybe cheaper if I can find someone who charges less to pull a minivan transmission, which I'll probably have to do anyway because Tanner Transmissions and the dealership will probably refuse to allow me to supply my own replacement.)
*It's so frustrating that this $30 part costs hundreds of dollars of labor to replace. And I don't have the facilities for that kind of repair, though I might have the misguided confidence to attempt it myself if I had access to them.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Last year the tranny went in my Blazer and I decided to replace it to the tune of $1400. The vehicle has 220K and because I have been fixing/replacing things as they go bad, it made sense to me to fix it rather than look for another used vehicle with an unknown history.
Posts: 369 | Registered: Apr 2007
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I have a 2WD Nissan pickup that works fine for the occasional hauling and gets about the same mileage as our minivan. But it has very little spunk, especially going up hills, and I can't take it offroad on the infrequent occasions I would want to. Still, it's a good little truck.
However, I mostly need a commuter vehicle, and a full-size mud-eating 4WD truck would not be ideal for that. If not for commuting, I would probably trade up to one.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I drive a 4wd Toyota Tacoma, and I have to warn you that the bed on a small pick up or a full sized crew cab is much smaller than the bed on a full sized normal cab. Still plenty of space for moving a grill around, but not enough to just pick up a couple of sheets of drywall on the way home.
I don't really know that much about wilderness camping, I guess, but I was under the impression that the kind of camping you're talking about is hike-in, not drive-in. I think the only places you see a 4wd vehicle in the middle of a forest with a tent set up next to it are SUV commercials. In state parks, for instance, I'm pretty sure you can't take a vehicle off-road and just go find a place to camp. Enough people have 4wd these days that if you could, the parks would just be a mass of tire tracks and you'd have half a dozen other trucks in eye shot anyway.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I love my friends and I even love my hippie friends and I even love my goddamned ridiculous, meat is murder, save the whales, bush is hitler, up with homeopathy, community-gardening, granola-eating, peace love and narcotics hippie friends but when they say something like how I should get rid of my trucks because they are bad for the environment, I am going to tell them that despite the fact that I love them very very much I am not going to start transporting sheets of drywall on top of my corolla.
posted
The futility of consumerism is less obvious than the futility of heroin addiction...but...still the same paradigm. -- comedian RusselBrand on FreshAir.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Katarain: Somebody's gotta be the person the hippies borrow the truck from.
Exactly. Not that I own or want to own a truck, but I wish I had a friend who did. I really need to move a few more things and I'm not sure how I'm going to do it.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Trucks are awesome when you live in the country and are building your own house. Sometimes in the winter, only our Avalanche can get through. And we do regularly haul building materials. And when friends need dirt or whatever. We also have a Bobcat.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote: I was under the impression that the kind of camping you're talking about is hike-in, not drive-in. I think the only places you see a 4wd vehicle in the middle of a forest with a tent set up next to it are SUV commercials. In state parks, for instance, I'm pretty sure you can't take a vehicle off-road and just go find a place to camp. Enough people have 4wd these days that if you could, the parks would just be a mass of tire tracks and you'd have half a dozen other trucks in eye shot anyway.
I'd think that probably varies by state, but there's a lot of camping available outside of state and national parks anyway. I've been camping several times where a truck (though not necessarily 4wd) was necessary to drive in to the camp area, and our group was the only group there, which helps me believe that crowds are mostly discouraged by having to drive for 90 minutes on bad roads (deep ruts, lots of rocks). I wasn't in charge of those trips so I can't say for sure, but I don't think it was illegal.
But you make a good point: hike-in camping probably serves my desire to escape crowds just as well, though it involves sacrificing a few of the comforts you could bring along with a vehicle.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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In Nevada, you can camp anywhere that is not posted "NO CAMPING". It's not generally considered polite to camp in someone's front yard. But, it is legal. I've camped in lots of off-the-pavement locations.
With my first van, and it's 15 inch wheels, I replaced the oil pan eight times. But my present one has 16 inch wheels and that little bit of clearance makes all the difference in the world. For the last several years, I have been using Grandma's old Taurus. With a little care, and the front wheel drive, I have kept up with my truck burdened scouting friends.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I have a full sized pickup that I bought for $200 in 2001. I put about 300 miles a year on it, and over the years I've put some money into it. When I need a truck, there really is no substitute, but I wouldn't even think of using it for daily travel. The only issue is that I need one more space to park the truck.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Your buying a truck would be a pretty clear violation of Kant's categorical imperative (unless you're a global warming denier).
Posts: 644 | Registered: Sep 2008
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I don't want to look cool, though, but rather I enjoy having excess capacity in my transportational infrastructure. 
