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06-03-2024, 03:43 PM | #23 |
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Never understood Americans' fascination with pickup trucks. Without a tonneau cover, how is a bed even useful for groceries or random items you'd keep in a typical trunk?
In 25 years of driving, not once have I had the need of a pickup truck. Are more people hauling gravel and dirt during their day-to-day than I realize, or is there something else I'm missing? |
06-03-2024, 04:16 PM | #24 | |
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06-03-2024, 04:17 PM | #25 | |
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I do think that for many buyers a pickup truck is a lifestyle statement.
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06-03-2024, 05:11 PM | #26 | |
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They're incredibly useful for large items, dirty stuff, etc. Buy an 85" TV? Stand it up in the bed and strap it down. New appliances or furniture? No problem. King size bed? Easy peasy. Need a scoop of dirt or mulch, or to move a big lawnmower or something? No problem. I used to get mulch by the school and then shovel it out of the bed to spread it, it was a dream compared to the nightmare of hauling tons of bags of mulch and spreading that. Heck of you've got big ass palm fronds or other yard trimmings a truck makes it easy to get rid of. I bet a raised bed planet a couple weeks ago. Hauling theum er for that was a total pain in the ass. It would be a little bit easier with my trailer now, but it was a cakewalk in the truck. Throw it in the bed, strap it down, rock and roll. I think a lot of people don't "do stuff", especially BMW owners. A few of my friends just pay people to do everything around their house, so their only cars are small or midsize sedans, effectively useless vehicles. I struggle with how one can own a house and not have a truck. I've been making it work for ~2 years now and it's been a pain in the ass. My trailer will hopefully make it slightly less of a pain. |
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06-03-2024, 06:11 PM | #27 | ||
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If you live in the city you will probably never need a truck for anything. Even in FL I never really needed a truck until I bough the RV. However out at the NC house where I keep the truck permanently now. I always have a use for it. Mulch is way cheaper when you go buy a bucket load instead of bags from Homedepot. There's no bulk garbage pickup so all that needs to be taken to the dump. I always have projects out here which involve lumber, either fixing stuff on the existing barns, building new stuff etc. Then of course there is towing. Boats, RVS, quads, trailers etc. You could argue maybe you could tow some smaller stuff with certain SUVs, but the truck can tow and do all the other stuff. |
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06-03-2024, 10:42 PM | #28 | |
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People like trucks becatthey do everything. Luxury car stuff, no problem. Haul stuff? Easy. Off-road? Sure. Go fast on road? Absolutely. Family.road trips? Sure. They can be as nice as nay luxury car or as bare bones as a work truck. They do everything. |
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06-03-2024, 11:37 PM | #30 | |
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Naw, here there are extended periods (in the major city) where you need the ground-clearance of something like a truck at the very least...for going to the store. I was recovering from surgery this year when the major screwed up plowing after the first major storm and the city was shut down for more than a week, in terms of being able to get around. I needed some stuff after surgery and it just happened to fall right in this period. Most roads would break your car if you attempted, even with ground-clearance, due to the impacted snow and how cars would just slide. I finally relented and got a truck for this, realizing there are time when I need to be able to get to the store or wherever. True, an outback or similar vehicle would "probably be ok", but I don't want to "probably be ok", I wanted the locking diffs to ensure I was. That and reaching some of the trailheads for skiing in the winter, but that I could probably do it easier with ground clearance and some AWD. The truck has more utility in being able to put stuff in the back with a topper and lock it and have be reasonably secure and out of the elements. I just went to a "car show" this weekend though...well, a car-race I was participating in and there was a car-show as well. We do the race as a charity benefit. The "car show" had lots of "show trucks", from giant monster trucks to lowriders and everything in between. Most of this was just ridiculous crap...crap that either is too purty and shiny that no one would ever take it seriously off road, despite being 8 feet tall, or stuff that had basically lost any real truck capability through mods. I don't really understand that stuff, because the function is lost one way or another.
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Last edited by RM7; 06-03-2024 at 11:43 PM.. |
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06-04-2024, 05:44 AM | #31 | |
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And yes, I put groceries in the bed. My truck bed let's you put a 2x4 cross way about 16" ahead of the tailgate. It's great in the winter when you have cold/frozen food. Tie up the plastic bag handles and sit the bags between the 2x4 and the tailgate. I have a diesel tractor. Not an ideal situation to load a 5-gallon can of diesel fuel in the posh trunk of your 5-Series, or gasoline for that matter. A lot of us country folk take their trash to the county dump (err... "waste transfer facility"). Next week I'm taking a 55-gallon drum of used engine oil to my local auto parts/lawn equipment guy for recycling. He uses it to heat his shop. He gives me a drum to fill up every few years. Once you have had a pickup truck, you’ll never want to not have one. Last edited by Efthreeoh; 06-04-2024 at 06:00 AM.. |
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06-04-2024, 08:50 AM | #33 | |
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90% of this urban use would be better served with a minivan that no one seems to want to be seen dead in. |
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06-04-2024, 08:52 AM | #34 | |
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06-04-2024, 08:53 AM | #35 |
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06-04-2024, 09:03 AM | #36 | |
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This is talking city use... On heavily plowed and salted roads in the winter where a lowered Miata would suffice. |
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06-04-2024, 09:35 AM | #37 | |
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And it's not about moving a TV every 10 years. It's about like every weekend your needing to haul something. Maybe it's a TV, maybe it's mulch or dirt. Maybe it's kayaks, maybe it's lumber, you never really know, but I'll be damned if throwing something in the bed isn't easy. I had my big ass coolers in the truck bed most weekends in NC. I see people.lugging around coolers and folding canopies/chairs and all kinds of stuff. Trucks are just prepared for anything. That's why they're so popular, they're so versatile. And there's virtually no penalty for it, they get pretty good mpg nowadays, the 150s all rode really nice, they drive well, and the only time they kinda suck is small.parking areas and street.parking, but in those cases.you just hang one end.out over the line and recognize that they should have made the spots larger. |
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06-04-2024, 11:32 AM | #38 | ||
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Especially with all the smaller trucks they are making now... shit Hyundai even has like an el camino mini truck/car now. |
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06-04-2024, 12:14 PM | #39 | |
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06-04-2024, 12:47 PM | #40 | |
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06-04-2024, 02:45 PM | #41 | ||
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06-04-2024, 03:02 PM | #42 | |
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06-04-2024, 04:38 PM | #43 | |
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Man that's wild, we never had issues. I was up in Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter and never had issues. That said, to the previous point I had an F150 crew cab short bed, not a 350 long bed, lol. My dad had a ram 2500 mega cab regular bed, it was a bit more of a pain but it also didn't have 360 cameras or anything like that and mega cabs are crazy. Definitely could see issues in downtown west palm, maybe on palm beach island, but not really anywhere else. Everyone there has trucks lol. |
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