this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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I think those short bed trucks are the absolute worst. If you genuinely need a truck, get one with a proper bed so you can use it for it's utilitarian purpose. If you've got a short ass bed, you don't need a truck.
People who buy these things don't really want "a truck"
They want a vehicle which aesthetically resembles a truck, so their super manly male man ego can be satisfied, but which is actually just an SUV with extra steps.
Julie Nolke has some thoughts on this...
Honestly, if these trucks weren't bigger while hauling less than my mom with her old clio and trailer, I might be ok with calling em SUVs. These weird pickups are an insult to all other cars.
Oh no! I drive a Prius! Whatever will I tell my wife and kids?
Short beds and unibody designs are the worst fucking things to happen to trucks
If you need a truck - and as a rural tradesperson, there are plenty of good reasons to need one - get something that'll actually do the job.
Rural tradepeople in Europe rarely have trucks. Vans do the job in the vast majority of cases, a trailer can complement when needed.
Not to mention a van has the benefit of keeping the load dry
Which depending on what you do and where can be very important
They also keep dirt and road dust off your tools and materials. Vans also conceal your cargo better than a bed which can prevent theft. Most vans are more fuel efficient than similar sized trucks. Vans are usually easier to drive and have better visibility. A big enough van can fit a small workshop in the back, that you can stand in and assemble parts.
Vans are the better work/trade vehicles compared to trucks for most applications and that is a hill I will die on.
I use a 4 door short bed truck, and here's why. I need to pick up my kids half the days of the week. I don't have a van anymore because I do demo work and I got tired of riding inside with the dust. I just build a wood rack if i need to haul more. I'd get a 4 door, long bed truck, which would be the best ever except it's just too dang long to park. So when the kids aren't around I fold up the rear seats and the tool boxes go in there. Is what it is. I long for the days when I drove a car with a toolbag in the trunk.
They used to make single cab trucks with a bench seat to fit 3 people total and it still had a full sized bed. If you've only got 2 kids that design would probably have been better for you, but they don't make many of this style anymore.
I've got a work van (one of the smaller Ford Transits), but it's just not capable of towing anything really. Trucks do a lot better on the muddy hillsides I find myself on frequently.
FWIW I'm not arguing against you, I'm just saying in my personal case, I would be able to put a reasonable truck to good use. I don't need a King Ranch or anything stupid like that.
All wheel drive vans with higher towing capacity exist
K
My dad had a micro van in NYC and got along fine
Yea, I want 90s single cab s10 like I had in college. Full bed, no electronic bullshit. normal size tires, didn't have to climb into it. Everything I needed to haul lumber and tools around and nothing I didn't. I could take the entire thing apart and put it back together. If someone would just make a truck like that again I'd be so happy.
I would love an electric version of that. Just an in town daily driver, capable of hauling lumber, projects, etc…
Yea an electric version would be cool.
"Best we can do is this easily hackable plastic junk that resembles a marital aid and hides the door handles when on fire. Oh, and you'll need to buy a lifetime subscription, submit a hair and blood sample, and headshots of your first born... for science."
I'll just keep my old crusty civic thanks.
They don't make hardly any 8' beds on mid sized pickups. Pretty much everything is 5.5' which makes a trailer a requirement.
I always have to laugh when I see a pickup with a trailer. The empty bed is always a nice extra touch. Like imagine paying an absolute shit ton on an expensive ass truck that eats gass like there's no tomorrow, just to end up using a trailer anyways!
Want to see something strange but interesting, check out the Telos Truck. Can fit an 8 foot by 4ft piece of plywood in the back, has 4 doors, and is the length of a mini Cooper lol. The look is strange, but at least it shows companies trying to shake up what people think of as utility
Holy shit, I have a new electric truck to keep an eye out for! That thing is perfect!
Yeah, I wouldn't need more than 250 miles, the upgrade would just add extra weight I don't need. Also 30 minutes charging is fine.
If I drive 100 miles, I am perfectly fine sitting down for an hour and having a meal.
Cool concept, but ugly. They should have just copied the VW design
Yeah it looks better with the back covered, or I think it might look better without the back doors as well. One key difference there though is the microbus is 2 feet longer. I don't need to go 0-60 in 4 seconds, seems a bit much for any vehicle, but that's nice for some people lol
While my truck does have a short bed, it pulls my 24,000lbs/11,000Kg tandem axle tilt bed trailer just fine. Which is more important to me than hauling groceries or people with it.
Plus the 4-wheel drive matters a lot when the roads have 6+ in/15cm of snow and it's only 2 miles/1.7 nautical miles to the nearest paved and perhaps plowed road or when I need to drive down a logging road.
***The metric and navel conversion of measurements was done for those people living in Lubbock Tx.
The one in ten that actually uses a truck for truck stuff and not a mallcruiser.
The nearest mall is a mere 50 miles away and I never go there. And yet I get painted with the same "fuck pickup trucks" brush right along with those that buy them as a mall cruiser.
Quick stats check and less than 30% of truck owners use their truck for truck things, more than 30% don’t at all, and the rest might once in a while. So 60%-ish plus basically use a truck as a daily driver and not for hauling, work, or towing.
You are in the minority.
If I am in that minority, 1/3 is a pretty large minority. That's a pretty wide brush to paint with don't you think?
Not my stats. I didn’t paint anything.
Ok. Explain the Lubbock joke. I grew up in Odessa, but Lubbock had Orlandos with their delicious rum cake and the science museum. That was really the only reason for me to go over there and deal with driving through fucking Andrews County with all the drunks on the road. The only thing I miss from Texas is the food and sky.
Lubbock is considered one of the most conservative cities in Texas. And the unit conversions from US Freedom Units are an indirect poke at their conservative values. I often do the same for smug metric system using liberals-- see the US miles to nautical miles conversion rather than kilometers.
Remember kiddies: All measurement systems are made up scales by some random dude that thought it was a good idea at the time. No one of them is better than another.
If you need a truck get VW Transporter with an aluminium bed that you don't need to worry about the paintwork when loading/unloading
Depends, I can still load my motorcycles or a quad or a snowmobile in a short bed with the tailgate open and I can still tow more than in a unibody SUV.
It all depends on your needs.
Makes sense for filling with people imho